CryEngine 3 Free SDK ( Sandbox 3 ) Available for Download

Great news come from Crytek, best known for their Crysis series first person shooter games — as it was promised before, following the release of free toolset for Crysis 2 modding ( Crysis 2 ModSDK ), long-awaited CryEngine 3 SDK become available for download. CryEngine 3 SDK is a free for non-commercial usage edition of one of the most powerful current-generation game engine that was used for Crysis 2 development.

CryEngine 3 is a modern cross-platform game engine, created specially for supporting different platforms, like PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, as well as next generation consoles. In addition CryEngine 3 was developed with an eye to massively multiplayer online games ( MMOG ), considering requirements and needs of modern game developers.

CryEngine 3 supports the majority of newest technologies in game development industry, like Deferred lighting, Real time dynamic global illumination, Screen Space Ambient Occlusion, Tesselation and Displacement Mapping, stereoscopic 3D, etc. Also it's possible to note the use of proprietary technologies, such as powerful WYSIWYP editor Sandbox 3, engine's ability to create interactive destructible environment, Uber Shader tech and several other ones.

CryEngine 3 SDK distributed freely and can be used free-of-charge for non-commercial purposes. In case of commercial usage developers need to obtain license for distribution of product, created by CryEngine 3 SDK, from Crytek. Downloadable SDK can be used game development only for PC platform, while porting to different platforms still possible and can be done through contact with Crytek. Small indie developers also can use flexible license scheme with paying off to Crytek 20% of royalties from their revenue.

CryEngine 3 SDK already can be downloaded from Сrydev.net website, which also contains Forums, Wiki and SDK documentation. Unlike the Crysis 2 ModSDK, which was shipped with only 64bit Sandbox 3 editor executable ( what caused many complaints from modding community ), CryEngine 3 SDK has 32bit and 64bit versions of Sandbox 3. Unfortunately, for with SDK internet connection is required — you must log in to your account to be able to launch Sandbox 3 editor. Thus you will need an account on Crydev.net website.

In addition to this great news I can recommend you a good book about this engine — CryEngine 3 Cookbook. This is a recipe style book, written by engine developers and Crytek employees, that contains over a hundred of ready-to-use solutions to be used inside of CryEngine 3 SDK. Book will be perfect as an addition to online documentation and starter's guide to SDK.

Below I've placed some video about CryEngine 3 features and capabilities, so you can evaluate what's can be done with this engine.