Unreal Engine 4 Released, Source Code For $19 + Linux Support

The latest announcement out of this week's Game Developer's Conference (GDC) in San Francisco is that Epic Games has made Unreal Engine 4 publicly available! Not only is the engine available today, but licensing starts out much cheaper than with earlier versions of the Unreal Engine... For just $19 USD per month, you can get access to the UE4 engine code-base. UE4 is also Linux compatible.

Epic Games announced that Unreal Engine 4 is available beginning today to game developers. With UE4, Epic Games is trying a new pricing strategy for getting the high quality game engine in the hands of more game developers -- and largely taking aim at indie game developers. For just $19 USD per month, you can use Unreal Engine 4 and have full access to its C++ code-base. The caveat though is besides the small monthly fee, Epic Games is after a 5% cut of gross sales of the UE4-based game.

So while the next-generation Unreal Engine licensing cost starts out low, Epic wants their split of the gross revenue from game sales. (Epic hasn't commented about the possibility of having a freeware game on this $19 per month plan.)

The other big thing to make known with today's Unreal Engine 4 announcement is Linux support. Epic's Tim Sweeney wrote, "This first release of Unreal Engine 4 is just the beginning. In the C++ code, you can see many new initiatives underway, for example to support Oculus VR, Linux, Valve's Steamworks and Steam Box efforts, and deployment of games to web browsers via HTML5. It's all right there, in plain view, on day one of many years of exciting and open development ahead!"

More details on this initial release of Unreal Engine 4 can be found at UnrealEngine.com.