Crysis developer Crytek is reaching out to the academic world in a big way, allowing the programmers and graphic designers of tomorrow to get an early head start on creating games powered by its latest cross-platform middleware — CryENGINE 3. As of today, the development solution is now available free of charge to any qualified educational institution, providing the tools necessary to create scalable experiences across all major platforms, namely PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.

Crytek director of Global Business Development Carl Jones shares his thoughts on the initiative:

Crytek has always been a strong supporter of education – as evidenced by our commitment for many years to share CryENGINE tools with universities. We are continuing that commitment now by releasing the brand new CryENGINE 3 tools to any university in the world, for free! Here at Crytek, we work hard to enable all our licensees to achieve their vision with CryENGINE 3, so we aren’t considering this Educational SDK as a product we “fire and forget” – we will be looking for strong educational partners to work together with Crytek in the future – and we will soon be announcing exciting programmes for students working with CryENGINE 3.

Sounds like a win-win for Crytek. Coupled with the promise of delivering enough grunt for the next-generation, this should greatly aid engine adoption efforts in the long term, making CryENGINE 3 a formidable competitor to similar solutions such as Epic’s widely-used Unreal Engine.

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