All of CRYENGINE, including the full engine source code, is available under our royalty-based model. Please read the End User License Agreement (EULA) for full details. The full C++ source code can be found on GitHub.
There is a 5% royalty fee. Your first $5K of annual revenue per project is royalty-free, so the small fee only kicks in when you are earning.
Royalties are calculated “at source.” That means irrespective of whether you (as self-publishers) or a third party (publisher, platform owner, etc.) receive the Gross Receipts, you always have to pay royalties based on those gross receipts without any deductions. For example: If your publisher receives total gross receipts of USD 100,000.00 for a given year for a given game, and you only get forwarded 70%, you still have to pay USD 4,750.00 as royalty.
In the following cases only, no royalties apply:
First, Register your game. This has to be done at least three months before release. When your game has been approved, you will receive a confirmation email from us. Reply to that email with your royalty statements or contact us via the Contact form.
Detailed royalty statements (including, without limitation: units sold per country, cancellations, refunds, chargebacks, etc.) are due thirty days after the end of every calendar quarter. The first royalty statement is due thirty days after the end of the quarter in which the general release of the game occurs.
Your game needs to be registered with Crytek regardless of whether you want to monetize it or not. Please fill out the Game registration form and provide information about your project, including:
If a licensee plans to exploit a game commercially, the licensee shall give notice to Crytek three months prior to the approximate commercial release date of that game via our Game registration form. You can also use the Game Registration section in your dashboard after logging into cryengine.com with your username and password, then navigating to the top right of your screen and clicking on your user icon. You can also check the status of your game's registration there. The Crytek team will review your game and leave a comment on this dashboard in case we need more information to approve your registration. Otherwise, the status of your registration will simply be changed to ‘accepted’.
Crytek, at its sole discretion, may promote a licensee's game via Crytek's websites and/or social media channels subject to the Licensee's approval of such promotion. You can opt-in to marketing support when you register your game. Only registered games that abide by the license agreement can opt-in for marketing support.
If you need to update the information sent when first registering a game, just reply to your confirmation email or put a comment on your game registration on your dashboard. We will update our database accordingly.
There are several ways in which we can help indie developers and licensees to promote their games. If you want us to help, the best way to apply for a spot is to promote your game in a Showcase gallery thread on the forums and/or on Discord and adhere to the Branding guidelines with all your marketing material.
Contact the Community Team on our channels if you have further questions.
All projects developed with CRYENGINE must include our logo and credit line as per our license agreement. The logo and credit line must also be visible in all major marketing materials, like the website and release trailer.
We provide a branding kit for CRYENGINE developers, which can be downloaded from our Brand assets page. It contains all legitimate variations of the logo for print and web use, the animated bumper, and guidelines on logo usage.
To acquire console packages, you need to be a Sony PlayStation or Microsoft Xbox verified developer. After registering your game, please reply to your confirmation email and send your certificates to receive access. Once approved by us, we will notify you, and your account will be activated to download the consoles packages.
We encourage you to create video content using CRYENGINE, like, for example, development streams, and you can generate revenue through YouTube ads and Twitch donations without paying any royalties to us. For further reference, please refer to the Crytek video policy or contact the Community Team on one of our channels; we are happy to engage with influencers and find mutually beneficial ways to support each other.
If you are a student or a member of an academic institution, you are also entitled to develop games and “serious games” in accordance with the License Terms using CRYENGINE, and to render such games in object code form (including the CRYENGINE Assets and the CRYENGINE Redistributables) pursuant to the CRYENGINE documentation. However, the student(s) or member(s) of an academic institution is in no case entitled to commercially exploit such games without Crytek's explicit prior written approval. If the student(s) or member(s) of an academic institution wants to monetize the game, they must register the game and follow through with the revenue statement process. Monetization will be subject to Crytek's sole discretion. Please read the terms for more details about restrictions on use.
Please get in touch with us to find out more about commercial support options via the form on our Enterprise page.
At Crytek, we believe in building a strong community for our games, franchises, and the engine as well. You can still make mods for Crysis as long as you purchase the original game(s) and use the ModSDK delivered with it. Please make sure you get your copy from a legal source and pay attention to the EULA when planning, making and distributing your mods. The following list holds some basic FAQs to help you with your creations.
A Mod SDK for Crysis Remastered is not currently planned, so no.
Only use the officially distributed ModSDK, also referred to as ‘Cryengine 2’, and make sure to get it from a viable, secure source, for example, with the Crysis games from Steam or GOG. The Mod SDK provides an object code toolset to mod Crysis.
All mods are NOT allowed to be:
For further reference to what is and is not allowed in Crysis modding, please check the EULA, README, and EULA installer of the original Crysis.
You can find it in the original game files, or you can download it right here for reference:
Yes, you can, but please don't forget to add a disclaimer to your representation or page, expressing that you aren't associated with, endorsed by, or benefiting from the original IP holder and/or publishers of any Crysis game. It may read as follows:
“This site/project/content is not endorsed by or affiliated with Crytek or Electronic Arts. Trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Game content copyright Crytek."
No. Any contents created with any CRYENGINE version or product, including the Crysis Mod SDK are not to be monetized without previous written agreement by Crytek. If you are insecure if your project is in any kind of violation of our code of conduct, TOS, EULA, or license agreement, don't hesitate to get in touch.
It is generally a good idea to let us know about your project! We love to endorse and help. You can use the Game Registration Form to register old and new mods alike. We will review your contributions and let you know if you're all in the clear, and love helping you with visibility and feedback for your mods and games.
Keep in mind that these FAQs are here to help, but are no replacement for studying the EULA to its full extend before deciding to plan, make, or distribute your mods.
Developing non-gaming, commercial applications with CRYENGINE needs a written agreement with terms and consent from Crytek. Such cases are not covered under the public product license because they can vary greatly in budget, scope, and industry, so the standard 5% royalty scheme we apply to games for entertainment purposes isn't a mutually fair bargain in most cases.
But Crytek is open to making personalized contract amendments to the license agreement for business cases of interest; so reach out to us via the enterprise contact form at the bottom of this page, and our business development team will get in touch.
CRYENGINE ships with certain third-party software/code which is governed by its own respective license terms.
If such third-party software has separate software license or attribution requirements, the license terms or other attribution requirements can be found in a separate folder of your CRYENGINE installation. Further, information on such third-party software/code can be found in the documentation.
It is your responsibility to check for and comply with the attribution needs and other requirements the license terms of these third-party tools and software might have when using them in your project.
Further, please note that you are not entitled to use any third-party software/code in a way that could make CRYENGINE or your project in whole or in part subject to the license terms of any third-party software/code. E.g. combine software that is distributed under a “copyleft” license with CRYENGINE in a way that would require that any part of Cryengine is licensed under the terms of such “copyleft” license.