When you think of downloading a free game engine, typically it's Epic's Unreal Engine 3, Unity and even Valve's Source SDK once you've purchased a Source-based PC game. But on August 17 during Gamescom, Crytek decided to add its own free version of CryENGINE 3 into the mix, and saw a whopping 100,000 downloads within just five days.
"In line with GDC Europe and Gamescom last week, the independent developer had announced the release of a CryENGINE 3 free of charge for non-commercial use," the company said Monday. "The award winning SDK provides the complete game engine to create AAA quality next generation games for PC, and includes the CryENGINE 3 Sandbox level editor, a production-proven, 3rd generation 'What you see is what you play' (WYSIWYP) - tool designed by and for professional developers."
Naturally this free version is for personal use – it can't be used to develop games to be sold on retail shelves. That said, Crytek also offers a royalty-only license model for developers who are interested in using the SDK for commercialized projects. Crytek only requires 20-percent of the developer revenue stemming from the launch of the game.
The free toolset is available for download at crydev.net right here. As of this writing, the download weighs around 658 MB and reports a current download number of 110,100. As the notes state, it's free to use in educational facilities and for non-commercial use – all else requires a development license. The system requirements for both developer and end-user are as follows:
System Requirements [Developer]
- Supported operating Systems: XP, Vista, Windows 7 (with Windows 7 recommended)
- CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHz, AMD Athlon 64 X2 2 GHz or better
- Memory: 2 GB RAM (4 GB recommended)
- Video Card : nVidia 8800GT 512 MB RAM, ATI 3850HD 512 MB RAM or better
System Requirements [End User]
- * End Users who only use the game launcher without Sandbox have lower system requirements.
- Supported operating Systems: Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista SP1 or SP2, Windows 7
- CPU: 32-bit or 64-bit processor (a multi-core processor is strongly recommended)
- Memory: 1 GB RAM (2 GB recommended)
- Video Card: ShaderModel 3 capable graphics card (for example an Nvidia 6 series card)
