Far Cry SDK

[SlickWili]

Ubisoft has released the CryENGINE MOD SDK for general consumption:

 

Ubisoft and Crytek Studios, the publisher and developer of Far Cry, the critically acclaimed first-person shooter, announced today that they had released the CryENGINE MOD SDK. The CryENGINE SDK includes a full suite of development tools including exporters, plug-ins and source code that should allow mod makers to begin working on both new Far Cry scenarios as well as "Total Conversion" based on the Far Cry engine. The 27MB download comes complete with full-documented instructions as well as community support from Ubisoft in the form of a mod channel on the official Far Cry Web site and a dedicated modding portal for any and all projects running on the Crytek engine.

 

The release of the SDK is a critical step for the life of the Far Cry franchise, which, like many first-person shooters, relies on the mod community to continue to generate hype and interest in the game long after the traditional sales cycle has ended. Unfortunately, the long wait for both the patch and the SDK may have pulled the shine off of Far Cry's engine, releasing as it does on the same day as DOOM 3 - expected to be an extremely popular modding engine. In fact, several mod teams announced back in January when the 1.2 patch was pulled that they might be taking their project to other engine. Questions have also arisen about whether use of the SDK was wise considering that the 1.2 patch is still under development. A Ubisoft spokesperson, however, assured us that there should be no compatibility issues with mods developed using the SDK and the forthcoming 1.2 patch.