Crytek wants to release a standalone, free platform, that will be ‘up to speed’ with CE3
Frankfurt-headquartered Crytek may be about to compete with both Unity and Epic Games on the emerging battleground of free-to-use engines.
The global indie outfit told Develop that it wants to release a standalone free engine “that will be up to speed” with the CryEngine 3 platform.
Unreal vendor Epic Games and Unity have both seen their user-bases mushroom overnight since launching versions of their own engines that, while tied to different royalty rates, are completely free to download and operate.
Now the CryEngine 3 group has revealed it wants to tap into this thriving market.
The firm’s CEO Cevat Yerli told Develop that Crytek already gives away a CryEngine 2 editor to the mod community, but explained that Crytek’s expansion strategy stretches beyond.
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“We have a very vivid community of users and modders and content creators, and usually that’s a great way of unlocking the engine,” he said.
“That being said, it’s not the same as what Epic or Unity are currently doing, but we are now pushing harder on this area. We did it before already, but we haven’t pushed it that far yet.”
When asked if Crytek’s new platform – the CryEngine 3 – was central to this future strategy, Yerli responded:
“Yes, but – to be frank – not as a mod. So far that’s what we’ve been offering for free, and it’s easy entry into the production environment. [But] we do want to make a standalone free platform that people can run independent of CryEngine that will also be up to speed with the latest engine.”
It remains unclear what kind of tech and licence deal will emerge from this strategy.
Unreal – a close competitor to Crytek – recently stated that the free Unreal Development Kit (UDK) is ‘not watered down in any way’ when compared to the full-priced UE3.
During the UDK’s first week of availability, over 50,000 users installed the platform.
Unity, meanwhile, has thrived from its freemium engine strategy. In October last year the firm made its $200 Unity Indie platform free to use, while also offering a $1500 version of 'Unity Pro'.
In under four months the Californian engine group surpassed 100,000 registered users.
This is very exciting news indeed. I'm currently working with the UDK but it does not lend itself to large open worlds like the cryengine does so i'm looking forward to trying out some of my ideas. I'm sure it won't be for a while though.
Unless this one actually supports Linux, I'll pass. ShiVa is still the number one engine as far as cross-platform compatibility goes.
that's very good, i cant wait to use it, by the way im still a beginner,
Need more information about that, and for a crysis2 modding like the first one.
@MRE neither engines are designed for large open environments, at least not for the indie user. They stand to lose hoards of dirty money otherwise.
I personally hate Cry Engine, seen the games they are nothing special. The technology feels rushed and over hyped and its not because I'm a UDK fan in that regard I think both engines make poor use of technology. UDK simply does things better in that, the feel and quality you are immersed with is actually solid. Whereas everything in the Cry Engine feels like blend between of immersed environments with the all the backdrops and eye candy that looks like something 1996 title using dated graphics.
