Epic Games has announced today that its powerful Unreal Engine 4 is now available to everyone for free, including future updates.
They've informed us to say that anyone can download the engine to use it for everything from game development, education, architecture, and visualization to VR, film, and animation. The only caveat is that if you use Unreal Engine 4, when shipping a game or app, you'll ahve to pay a 5% royalty on gross revenue after the first $3,000 per product, per quarter.
"Epic succeeds only when creators succeed," Epic said in a statement.
Epic tells us that the technology they've provided with Unreal Engine 4 is the exact same technology the company uses to build its own games, and scales from indie projects to high-end AAA titles. It supports all major platforms and includes 100% of the C++ source code.
"Epic’s goal is to give developers everything, so they can do anything and be in control of their own schedule and their own destiny. Whatever is required to build and ship a game can be found in UE4, sourced in the Marketplace, or built and shared it with others."
Epic's founder and CEO Tim Sweeney had this to share on his blog:
“In early 2014, we took the step of making Unreal Engine 4 available to everyone by subscription for $19 per month. We put all of our source code online, available to all who signed up. We flipped the switch and crossed our fingers.
The past year has been a whirlwind for everyone at Epic Games. Our community has grown massively. The quality and variety of creative work being done has been breathtaking. When we asked people to submit their projects to be shown this year at GDC, we had the challenge of picking just eight from over 100 finalists that were all good enough to show.
The state of Unreal is strong, and we’ve realized that as we take away barriers, more people are able to fulfill their creative visions and shape the future of the medium we love. That’s why we’re taking away the last barrier to entry, and going free.
In Epic’s 25 years as an independent company, we have seen no time of greater opportunity for developers than today. Whatever your development aspirations, Epic stands with you, both as a technology provider, and as a fellow game developer counting on UE4 to power our own games.”
They've shared with us a sizzle reel showcasing the power of the engine. Check it out below.
