On Wednesday, Crytek introduced an "Engine-as-a-Service" program that grants anyone access to the same CRYENGINE toolset that was used to create the Xbox One exclusive game, Ryse: Son of Rome. The program starts in May, and will cost developers $9.90 per month without a royalty fee.
According to the company, subscribers will have access to CRYENGINE features introduced during GDC 2014 including Physically Based Shading, Geometry Cache and Image Based Lighting. Unfortunately, that's all the details we get for now; the company plans to talk more about this new service at a later date.
"When we announced the new CRYENGINE this was our first step towards creating an engine as a service," said Crytek's Director of Business Development, Carl Jones. "We are happy to announce now that the latest update of CRYENGINE will soon be available to all developers on a subscription basis."
The news follows Epic Games who revealed a subscription plan for Unreal Engine 4 just days ago. For $19 per month, the development community will have access to all the tools, features and complete C++ source code. In addition to the monthly fee, developers will also be required to pay 5 percent of gross revenue resulting from a commercial product built using this engine.
Read more: Unreal Engine 4 Subscription Model for Budding Developers
That said, not only is Crytek's subscription cheaper, but it doesn't require the royalty fee. Not sure if the subscription is right for you? Crytek still provides CRYENGINE for free for those who are developing software for non-commercial use.
"We are really excited to make CRYENGINE available to hundreds of thousands of developers working with Crytek to make awesome games," Jones adds.
To acquire Crytek's CRYENGINE game engine, head here.
