There have been a lot of beautiful and ultra-realistic projects made with Epic’s Unreal Engine 4 up until now. Take the amazing Parisian apartment project emphasising the power it has to display architecture in as much detail as possible. Even our last post regarding the engine, detailing how Quixel’s Megascans technology can create a realistic jungle, reveals just bits and pieces of its true power.
Up until now, the engine was available for a monthly subscription fee to developers worldwide. However, it turns out that Epic had made a radical change over the weekend.
Unreal Engine 4 is now available to everyone for free, and all future updates will be free!
Yes, Epic has indeed made Unreal Engine 4 available free to anyone willing to try it out, free of charge. The company states that they will only start taking money, namely 5% royalty fees, from people publishing their work done in the engine after the first $3,000 per product.
You can download the engine and use it for everything from game development, education, architecture, and visualization to VR, film and animation. When you ship a game or application, you pay a 5% royalty on gross revenue after the first $3,000 per product, per quarter. It’s a simple arrangement in which we succeed only when you succeed.
More information about Epic’s big strategy shift can be found over at their website here.
Source: Unreal Engine
