cryengine-3 posts

Over two years ago, developer Crytek announced plans to allow universities to get a free license to use its CryEngine 3 graphics engine for educational use. This week Crytek announced that over 250 universities from all over the world have been granted such a license.

The engine is being used by schools for game development courses but it's also being applied to teach students about "hysics, computer science, architecture, film-making, art and design use" and more. As we recently reported, Crytek plans to offer up a free version of CryEngine 3 for anyone to use to make free stand alone games sometime later this summer.

As hinted at a few months ago Crytek plans to not only add a free editor for its recent first person shooter Crysis 2 but will also release a free stand alone version of its CryEngine 3 game development tools.

In a message on the (currently being revamped) CryMod.com web site, Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli states that early this summer the editor for Crysis 2 will be released for people who want to make new levels and content for the game. However in August will come the CryEngine SDK. Yerli says, "This will be a complete version of our engine, including C++ code access, our content exporters (including our LiveCreate real-time pipeline), shader code, game sample code from Crysis 2, script samples, new improved Flowgraph and a whole host of great asset examples, which will allow teams to build complete games from scratch for PC." Crytek plans to release regular updates to the tools and will also provide documentation to use the tools.

While developers can create free stand alone games with the CryEngine SDK, they can also choose to sell those games commercially. Yerli states, "If you want to take your product down a traditional commercial route, we will offer an innovative low cost licensing model if you want to release your game digitally." No details on that model have been announced yet.

Folks who have bought and installed Crysis 2 on their PC gaming rigs today have a couple of unexpected twists. The first is a day 1 patch for Crytek's first person shooter that automatically downloads when you first start the game. The MyCrysis.com community message boards has a patch list of what's fixed or changed including re-enabling the console and putting in cheat detection.

The other unexpected news is that at the moment Crysis 2 does not yet support DirectX 11 graphics. While the game still looks good even in its current DirectX 9 version, PC gamers who have high end hardware will likely be disappointed that all the promised bells and whistles are not in place. We have emailed the game's publisher Electronic Arts to find out when Crysis 2 will be updated with the promised DirectX 11 support.

With Crysis 2's release planned for next week, developer Crytek will also show off the first game that will use its CryEngine 3 game development tools. Now Develop has posted word that small indie game developers will soon be able to gain access to a version of CryEngine 3 on the cheap and perhaps for nothing at all.

According to Crytek co-founder Anvi Yerli, "The barriers for entry will be very low, and perhaps [it will be distributed] for free." Details and a release date for this CryEngine 3 Lite SDK have yet to be announced. It seems resonable to speculate that such a release could be similar to what Epic Games did when it released its UDK tools in 2009. The UDK tools, offered for free, allow game developers to make stand alone titles using most of the features of Epic's Unreal Engine 3 with the exception of direct access to the engine's source code.

Crysis 2's release is close at hand and this week a new trailer was released that showed off even more in-game footage from developer Crytek's upcoming sci-fi shooter sequel. This particular trailer, while also showing off shooting a bunch of aliens, also puts the spotlight on the player's NanoSuit and its enhanced speed features.

There's also a rocking soundtrack and a mysterious narrator. We have no idea what role he will have in the final game but he's particularly apocayptic in his tone. We will all find out his role when Crysis 2 is released on March 22.

Download the Crysis 2 multiplayer demo at Big Download

Epic Games wasn't the only game engine maker with a cool tech demo at GDC 2011 last week. Developer Crytek also showed off some new features it's putting into its CryEngine 3 game development tools at the show. A video showing off some of those features has found its way to YouTube.

The video, which you can check out after the break, shows off some new tools that can be used to create impressive cinema-like cut scenes. The foliage that is shown in the demo is certainly the most realistic we have seen in a real time game engine. Of course the first CryEngine 3 based game, the first person shooter Crysis 2, is due for release on March 22.

We admittedly have been giving Electronic Arts the business recently for their seemingly lack of support for the PC platform when it came to demos and downloadable content for its most recent multi-platform games. Thankfully it looks like there will be an exception to this pattern. PC owners will in fact be able to play a pre-release multiplayer demo for developer Crytek's upcoming shooter Crysis 2.

While a multiplayer demo for the game was released for the Xbox 360 earlier this week neither EA nor Crytek at the time announced plans to release a PC demo. Late on Thursday, however, the official Crysis Twitter page stated the good news: "At this time, Crytek & EA are glad to confirm that we'll be releasing a pre-launch Crysis 2 multiplayer demo on PC! Stay tuned for details." Meanwhile the full game is still due to be released on March 22.

The CEO of Crytek has made some sly digs against the competitors of its CryEngine 3 game development tools in a new article at Computer and Video Games. While Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli, who is developing the sci-fi shooter Crysis 2 with CryEngine 3, did say up front that it's up to the people who use game engines to judge "whether our engine is better or not", he added, " .. I can say that Crysis 2 wouldn't have been possible with any other engine, but pretty much any other game that has been shipped with out competitors' engines could have been done with the Crytek engine."

CryEngine 3 is the latest version of Crytek's game engine and development tools and its various incarnations have been licensed to be used by a number of other third-party developers. Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 continues to be the leader in being used by a large number of third party professional developers. However Yerli states, "I think we've never cared about what competitors do." He added, "We're trying to build an engine that's the most productive from a flow perspective, one that allows designers, directors, artists, programmers and everyone else in the whole development chain to be as efficient as possible."

Yet another multiplatform game from publisher Electronic Arts is bypassing its PC demo audience. Today EA revealed that the upcoming sci-fi shooter sequel Crysis 2 would release a multiplayer demo on January 25 but it's exclusively for the Xbox 360 console. The demo will contain one map and two multiplayer gameplay modes.

The game's developer Crytek has mostly been a PC exclusive development studio with the original Far Cry, the original Crysis and Crysis Warhead all made just for the PC. Crysis 2 is the first game from the developer that was made specifically as a multiplatform game release. It's CEO Cevat Yerli has been vocal about his issues with releasing PC games due to piracy. Meanwhile Crysis 2 is currently due to ship out on March 22.

2010's first person shooter Sniper Ghost Warrior is getting a sequel. Eurogamer is reported that developer/publisher City Interactive has confirmed via a upcoming interview the title will be getting a second installment. The sequel will also be one of the two upcoming City Interactive games that will be based on CryEngine 3, the same engine that's being used for Crysis 2.

While it didn't get the best reviews, the original Sniper Ghost Warrior was a sales success for the publisher. It's got a number of first person shooter games in the works, including a WWII-themed game that will also use CryEngine 3. It's also got a Unreal Engine 3-based shooter in development for release sometime in 2011.