Cloud Imperium Games announced today the company is using the Amazon Lumberyard game engine to create its ground-breaking space sim games, Star Citizen and Squadron 42. Both games are currently in development and are backed by a record-breaking $139 million crowd funded effort.
Amazon Lumberyard is a free AAA, cross-platform, 3D game engine that empowers game developers to create the highest-quality experiences, connect their games to the vast compute and storage of the AWS Cloud, and engage fans on Twitch.
Chris Roberts, CIG’s CEO and creative director, said:
“We’ve been working with Amazon for more than a year, as we have been looking for a technology leader to partner with for the long term future of Star Citizen and Squadron 42. Lumberyard provides ground breaking technology features for online games, including deep back-end cloud integration on AWS and its social component with Twitch that enables us to easily and instantly connect to millions of global gamers. Because we share a common technical vision, it has been a very smooth and easy transition to Lumberyard. In fact, we are excited to announce that our just released 2.6 Alpha update for Star Citizen is running on Lumberyard and AWS.”
Dan Winters, head of business development for Amazon Games, added:
“Star Citizen and Squadron 42 are incredibly ambitious projects which are only possible with great engine technology paired with the transformative power of the cloud. We love how CIG’s bold vision has already inspired a massive community, and we’re thrilled to see what they create with Lumberyard, AWS, and the Twitch community. We’re excited that they’ve chosen Lumberyard and AWS to provide the performance and scalability they need to bring their games to a massive audience.”
Roberts concluded:
“We are delighted to be working with a partner with the strength, vision, and resources of Amazon Web Services. We are looking forward to developing our relationship with AWS and the Lumberyard community in the future.”
Star Citizen was previously powered by Crytek’s CRYENGINE. For what is worth, Amazon’s Lumberyard Engine is based on CRYENGINE. According to its official description, Lumberyard is made up of proven technology from CryEngine, AWS, Twitch, and Double Helix.
“Lumberyard is made up of proven technology from CryEngine, AWS, Twitch, and Double Helix. We’ve hired some of the best game technologists in the world, who have already made over 996 additions, fixes, and improvements to Lumberyard. For example, we’ve integrated a brand new networking layer, GridMate, so your engineers can more easily build low-latency multiplayer games with large numbers of players. We’ve introduced Cloud Canvas, which enables your engineers and technical designers with little to no backend experience to build live online game features, such as community news feeds, sharing scores, and server-side combat resolution, in minutes using Lumberyard’s visual scripting system.
We’ve also integrated Lumberyard with Amazon GameLift, so you can deploy, scale, and operate session-based multiplayer games. We’ve built a new component entity system so that you can easily populate and define the behaviors of the game world by creating entities and defining their behavior by adding components using drag-and-drop workflows in the Lumberyard Editor, and added a new code generation system to allow you to annotate your C++ code and generate the code you need. We’ve advanced the engine to include support for mobile devices, including support for Metal.
We’ve created a new launcher and project configurator so your team can get set up without engineering help.
We’ve also created new workflows so your artists can iterate faster and create higher-quality content, including a new particle effects editor, new FBX mesh importer, 2D/UI editor, and cross-platform asset pipeline.”
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email
More proof this game is officially in development hell
.
Check my reply to Agent Smith 😉
no
How is it proof? Lumberyard is based on the architecture of CryEngine
It isn’t like they have moved to a completely different engine. This will not affect development at all.
Every time a game is in development hell you always see it move engines a long time into development, I know Lumberyard is CE based but its still a massive move that requires a lot of additional effort just to do.
It’s not massive at all.
The effort for the move is already done… Was an easy thing for them to implement.
Honestly man i need to know one thing, is squadron gonna come out in 2017 or not?
2029, leaked info, my dad is Nintendo, I promise 😉
lol What?
I don’t like this.Da faq was wrong with Cry Engine?
This article is kind of misleading. Lumberyard is a fork of CryEngine. They can’t just switch engines on the fly (This isn’t like Source to Unreal, more like Frostbite 2 to 3). They switched because they wanted Amazon’s big cloud servers free and plus they don’t have to pay for licensing to Crytek.
If they did managed to switch engines smoothly without telling anyone I’d be surprised.
Anyways their engine is barely CryEngine anymore. CIG has essentially rewritten half of it.
The CryEngine 3 version that RSI licensed didn’t have licensing fees, as far as we know, rather, licensees paid a flat fee up-front & got the whole package, period.
I thought CryEngine 3 had like a flat fee of $1 million, instead of a licensing cost “once you make x profits” like Unreal 3? O.o
Lumberyard IS Cry Engine, distributed and developed by Amazon from the CE source using its cloud data infrastructure for network/multiplayer.
Available for free, it may allow players to potentially contribute to the game world at one point ( at least that is what I get from what is being said ).
Too many things if you ask me.
So is it going to be F2P? Definitely looks like F2P game.
Not going to be F2P and it definitely doesn’t look like one.
wonder what Cancerman (derek smart) is going be tweeting out hahah not even looking but that idiot doesnt get it. be funny to see the end for SC is nigh even though they dont understand. Could be good they might be able to use that scalable server stuff to handle tons of players per instance if amazon have coded a network code to do it
Reading his last few tweets it seems his FUD campaign was blind sided by this announcement, and he’s now in full meltdown, and it’s X-Mas eve. Poor man.
Lumberyard looks great, but they do have two problems;
– Mandatory Amazon Web Services
– it’s a branch of CryEngine 3.8, so it doesn’t have the latest graphical goodies from Crytek.
On the other hand, it also has base code-level improvements over Crytek, so….. yeah. Not to mention actual documentation, real support, etc.
Since CIG wants to use AWS, it isn’t a problem for them if AWS is mandatory.
Yeah, it was more of a general statement, AWS usage is mandatory for all licensees apparently, which is great, but also a little irritating if you want to use your own setup instead.
It’s a branch of CryEngine 3.8 with new netcode, yes, but it also has other differences.
‘Lumberyard’ lmfao who comes up with these names.
Amazon, they don’t seem to feel what those “gem enginz” are about.
The working title was “Fleshy Starfruit” before they changed it. The working title posed too many questions.
Fleshy Starfruit? Isn’t that the one with Jenna Jameson on it?
Amazon seems to have a thing for wood related terms: kindle, lumberyard, fire.
It’s because they’re saps.
I guess you could say they’re like falling timber
Hey, they could have called it LumberFACE. Or CryYard. Or Cryface.
its the same engine son….so no, it woudlnt take 3 years. it would take an update only.
“Amazon Lumberyard is a… cross-platform… game engine”,
Here’s hoping that doesn’t prove to be a sign that Star Citizen will be dumbed down in order to cater for a multi-platform release aka consoles.
Console release is out of the question.
They did this to benefit from Amazon’s network services and code.
CryEngine is also a cross platform game engine and has always been after the first Crysis.
CRYENGINE is as also a cross-platform engine. This doesn’t mean anything.
Fair point. Hopefully no cause for concern then.
if they have so much money, they would be dumb to not port the game to consoles while at it as well
Is this a joke? All of their funding came from PC gamers and Chris Roberts has said several times now that the game is not technically feasible on a console.
I would demand a refund if that would be the case.
Porting it to consoles wouldn’t be an easy thing to do so it couldn’t be done “while at it”.
But it would pay off
There will never be a console port.
Baseless speculation.
Chris Roberts has repeatedly stated that the game will never come to consoles, as a matter of technical limitation and as a matter of principle.
They are not going to use money provided by PC Gamers to make a PC Game to fund console development.
>Put you fanboism aside and think with your brain
Porting it to consoles would require it to be dumbed down and CR has stated several times that we will never alter the game for a lesser platform.
A console port would mean that funding given exclusively by the PC community to make a PC game would have paid for the console version indirectly, even if Sony or MS funded the ports, they are still porting a game that was made possible entirely thanks to the PC community. That’s not happening.
See the problem with this is that you assume consoles are static by the time the game releases there could very well be yet another console generation refresh.
Sony is most likely launching a new console in 2018 in order to compete with the Scorpio, sure, so what?
There’s no reason to assume it won’t just be another mid-end PC rig in there, just like the Pro is. After all, a faster refresh cycle means they can keep being cheap on hardware – for a while, at least.
I should have written “in order to compete with, by outclassing it”, my bad, yeah, the “PS4 Pro +” will most definitely be stronger than the Scorpio by a sizeable margin – we’re definitely not talking PS3 vs. X360 or PS4 vs. Xbox One, here, though I’m not sure if I can see them holding off on it until Holidays 2019.
I mean, sure, right now Sony is holding a solid 2-1 lead over Microsoft, but with the Scorpio being a considerably more powerful system than the Pro, even with its higher price tag & later release date, I can still see it shifting quite a few boxes regardless, which would apply pressure onto Sony to respond sooner, rather than later?
Then again, these f*ckers love to move slow…… Hm.
Ever heard of corporate espionage? Leaks? Spilling secrets over cocktails?
I’d be amazed if Sony & Microsoft didn’t know what the other was planning long before the public did. The Scorpio may in the end, be a response to the Pro, or it could be the other way around; Sony hears Microsoft is trying to rebuild their Xbox brand after the EPIC FAIL that was the Xbox One, so they decide it’s best for them not to fall behind the bandwagon – enter Sony’s own 4K console.
Sure, on the other hand, maybe Microsoft heard about Sony’s “VR console” (PS4 Pro) & decided they could seize the opportunity to introduce their own “souped up” Xbox One console to the market, especially considering how far behind the Xbox One is compared to the PS4, but that would seem the less likely possibility, to me, really. Then of course there’s always the option that Sony was working on VR for the PS4, & they just suddenly realised they needed more hardware power, so they decided to make another one, but again, doubtful.
The way the Xbox One was originally presented & subsequently launched, I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft only made it in response to Sony finally moving on from the PS3, as well. The way I see it, there’s a lot of subtle hints that seem to indicate most of what either company does these days is in response to what the other is doing, rather than anything else, really, in which case Sony may or may not have a contingency plan ready already, in case the Pro doesn’t take off the way it’s intended to.
After all, like you said, these things are planned out years in advance, right? Here’s another example; Nvidia sees AMD has no strong competition for them, delays Volta in favour of rebranding Pascal on a die shrink instead. Intel sees AMD has no proper CPU offerings, decides to go with a rebranded die shrink as well.
A – I believe they’ve said they already have all the funding required to complete the game, even if people stop donating to the development fund today (they said this quite a while back, even), so I think they probably have all they need already.
B – Star Citizen is way too graphically intensive to operate on a Pro & Scorpio, even, even if they dropped the visuals down to 30 FPS, 720p, so it would indeed require “dumbing down” to work on a console, even if it were only a visual downgrade, rather than a systems one. Either way, I think a systems downgrade would also be required due to console’s restrictions.
C – Sony has already waived the approval process on one occasion that I know of (DUST 514), so they’re liable to do it again for something as big as Star Citizen. Microsoft refused to waive the process (which is why DUST 514 ended up a PS3-exclusive in the end), so that’s a little more iffy, but I can definitely see Sony doing it again.
D – As for post-launch; we really don’t know what kind of model &/or system they’re going to be going for/with after this stage is over, but personally I can definitely see them holding on to cosmetic micro-transactions, which would generate for them a constant revenue stream from which to draw upon for continued post-launch support & development.
You know what’s never going to happen? Microsoft &/or Sony paying for a Star Citizen port, unless CIG made it exclusive to their platform, which would come with expectations & requirements from CIG – like refocusing a part of their development team towards the console port, etc. etc. etc. You talk about “keeping the development high quality” but you don’t seem to be thinking about how much an ongoing console port would detract from the PC version – especially in the long-term, with engineering having to make sure that two versions of the game now both function properly, rather than just one.
Not to mention how much of a slippery slope that is; sure, in the short-term, due to the console port being developed separately, there wouldn’t be any gameplay concessions for the conslows, but in the long-term, there’s really no guarantee of that what-so-ever. Just look at CDPR, & what a multi-platform focus did to them.
– They stopped adding features at something around $65 million, last I checked they’d just about doubled that, so I doubt funding is a problem, regardless of how much their dates get pushed back.
– It won’t require 20 titans, agreed, but I doubt it’ll be “mainstream” enough to run on something as weak as the PS4 Pro &/or the Scorpio, either. I’m thinking this is going to be closer to Crysis in terms of minimum system requirements than most AAA’s, which would by default exclude consoles without visual downgrades.
– Not sure where you heard/read that, but actually it’s the opposite; CCP wanted to use DUST 514 as a means to expand their fanbase onto consoles. A stupid management decision resulted in it being a consoles-exclusive, best I can tell, nothing more than that (possibly as a result of them not wanting to focus on two versions at the same time, considering its integration into EVE as well).
Yes, it was originally designed to tie into the EVE Online PC MMO with things like Orbital Bombardments, but those plans were scrapped after the Phase 1 rollout, so the game was never fully implemented, in the end. Later on, coupled with how it never really took off on the PS3 (surprise! >.>), they ended up scrapping the entire project & are now in the midst of reworking it as a PC-exclusive shooter code-named Project Legion, which may-or-may-not be moving to consoles at some point afterwards. Right now, however, development is PC-exclusive, & that’s how they like it.
– F2P games are extremely profitable exactly because of the minority that pays for items, regardless of whether or not the game in question is of a “pay-to-win” nature or not. Take this example; you list on your in-game store 3 cosmetic items costing $1000 each. Even if you only sell 2000-3000 copies of each item in the entire first year, you’ve still made $1 million right there.
Yes, the overwhelming amount of people will never pay for anything in an in-game store, regardless of if the game itself is F2P or not, but the minority that do pay more often than not pay far more than most people think, which results in some extremely profitable games. Optional subscriptions are also a handy way of bringing in a constant revenue stream, even if you only have 30-40,000 people actively subscribed. It’s all these little things that total up to big numbers, you know.
– They may be able to make a straight-up Squadron 42 port to 2018+ consoles (ergo post-PS4 Pro & Scorpio conslows), but even then I’m not sure if they’d actually do it, or not, as expanding platforms in a game such as Star Citizen means they need to then dedicate a portion of their resources to developing on that platform as well from then on, which comes with its own set of issues, regardless of how much money you may &/or may not make off of expanding to that new platform in the first place.
– Ridiculous, don’t buy into that CDPR excuses bullsh*t. That was just their absurd justification for why they “just had” to downgrade the lighting system, even on the PC version – yeah, no. They may have needed to bring in outside investors for Cyberpunk with consoles, but at least then we’d be getting a true PC game, rather than a console-first piece of sh*t like Witcher 2 was.
I’m not too familiar with WIldstar & Firefall, but RIFT was always going to mellow out after a while. RIFT was designed from the start to basically be a WoW Clone, but better, & at the start, it was just that. exactly. Then, as is sadly seemingly inevitable, the developers diverted from the path & started branching out into the casuals, only to end up going down the same path as World of Warcraft, which in turn resulted in people abandoning them. Sad, but avoidable, considering what they had on their hands at the start, there.
Ship production & Star System deployment rates are going to go down regardless in post-launch, that’s always the case with video games, even MMO’s. Sometimes it’s due to layoffs, sure, but not always.
Oh, good, then you know what I mean when I say DUST 514 never got beyond Low-Sec, even though they did intend for it to be integrated into Sov Warfare in the long run. It’s a shame, really, but at least Project Legion looks promising, even after the shift from ground-based warfare towards tighter, ship-based combat. I guess they decided to start simpler, & then work their way out from there.
Yeah, I know, but since they stopped adding stretch goals at $65 million & they’ve more than doubled their funding since then, unless every-single-thing requires double the original amount, they should be more-or-less fine, even if a few things take 300% more funding than expected. 2019? Seriously? I figured mid-2018. After all, let’s not forget, they did have some serious progression issues until Crytek did those en-masse layoffs, which let them pick up a load of engineers, etc.
Well, Squadron 42 is basically a Single-Player game of its own, episodic or not, & considering it’s Sci-Fi, it has the potential to be quite big, regardless of its gameplay model, IMO. After all, the original Mass Effect was basically an Old-School Sci-Fi FPS-RPG, & it launched a massive series because of its gameplay & story, both.
Star Citizen on the other hand, well, it is true that it’s a Space Sim MMO, & based on numbers from games like EVE, etc. it will never hit World of Warcraft’s historic 12 million subscribers, but then again, it’s also not a (mandatory) subscription-based MMO, which gives it a lot more leeway than most others in its position regardless – ex. EVE – after all, yes, you can avoid paying the monthly fee for EVE, but only after you’ve actually cleared the initial hurdles of stockpiling all the necessary ISK you need to actually do so in the first place, which means you do need to invest a considerable sum into it (EVE) until such point in time (still with me?).
Workforce cuts are a fact of life in the video game industry regardless of what, though, which is part of the reason why Expansion Packs first came into existence, as well as DLC’s in turn. They’re something to have your “free hands” working on while the remaining portions of the main game are tidied up & dealt with, before full-scale production begins on whatever project you’re planning on taking on next. Considering CIG’s size & the amount of people working there now, I’m sure they’ve got some sort of post-launch plan worked out, even if it involves shifting people over to work on more Squadron 42 episodes, or even something completely separate. See above in regards to post-launch earnings.
Rumour has it Scorpio is being downgraded, so we’ll have to wait & see how the final version turns out. Either way, considering the Star Citizen release date is 2018+, I highly doubt they’re considering the GTX 1000 series to be “high end” in regards to hardware specifications, which means Scorpio won’t be particularly high-end to their eyes either, regardless of what its final specifications are. Squadron 42 on the other hand, will be compatible with the GTX 1000 series, sure (unless of course they intend for it to be the next Crysis? O.o), which would, theoretically make it compatible with the Pro & the Scorpio (at reduced settings), but regardless, considering how Episode 3 will most likely be out in late 2018 (if not later, even), I find myself having to agree; no matter how SQ42 turns out, a console port will only happen after Star Citizen goes gold, not before.
Unless, of course, they do actually find their funding to be running dry, in which case they might feel the need to temporarily pause Star Citizen long enough to get the bulk portion of a SQ42 console port over & done with, I suppose? Hm.
The Mass Effect sales are debatable, at best. After all, the last game launched to great hype, but crashed epically under massive controversy, & the previous releases are far too old to be particularly relevant. Either way, Mass Effect 3 was well on its way to selling gloriously well until that epic crash & burn, so it could very well have sold millions of copies on PC, in the end.
“Limiting yourself to the PC” is also debatable, really. On a technical front, it’s liberating, rather than limiting, for example. Sure, on a financial standpoint you lose out on a lot of money, but in the end there’s always a difference between need & want. I’d say the indies that actually get offered contracts by Sony & Microsoft want the console money, they don’t need it, for example.
When Microsoft says something, I grab the salt shaker. Without exception. Don’t forget, we’re talking about Microsoft here, after all. They’ll probably keep claiming whatever they want even while people wave leaked box shots at them. In the end, maybe it’ll get downgraded, maybe not. Either way, “Microsoft’s Head of Xbox” saying something hasn’t changed means nothing anymore.
Yeah, sure, except even now most people aren’t even running 1080p monitors, so while 4K will become cheaper in due time, it’ll be a long time before the vast majority of people actually have 4K monitors.
I can also imagine the backslash they’re going to receive the moment they try to announce Squadron 42 for consoles, regardless of what state Star Citizen is in at the time. Not sure about marketing, btw, unless of course CIG make it a platform-exclusive &/or timed-exclusive deal.
Yet another bad title from dsog. Are you going wccftech route with these types of titles?
So basically star citizen is now running on an engine that is basically cry engine only free and cross platform… So basically cry engine with a different name….. sigh
WCCFTech is pure garbage now.
Yep! I got banned for calling a Muslim a mooslum lol!!! Rafia is on the take obviously writing Anti=Trump articles.She banned me within 2 minutes of the post, and then marked all of my prior responses as spam on the entire site within 10 minutes. It was interesting to watch. She attacks white men and claims we are all racist/bigots/misogynists. She needs to to take a look in the mirror. Pakistan(where she and the main writers are mostly from) is a breeding ground for radical Islamic terrorism, yet never a peep about it, just about the USA and Trump.
It’s a libt@rd’s paradise over there now. The last thing I want when perusing a website is some clueless liberal’s politics slammed down my throat.
Mooselimb.
Are you implying that it never was garbage to begin with ? lol
It wasn’t liberal drivel before. At least there was a time they just talked tech. Now some feminazi apparently is using the site to push her anti-Trump nonsense on a daily basis.
Every article I see about this, you have people moaning in the comments about “development hell” and other nonsense. Lumberyard is a fork of CRYENGINE, so they’re technically still using the same engine. This will not affect the games development in any negative way. I think this has to be repeated a thousand times.
But the dummies need something to whine about so they’re hoping Star Citizen fails because their lives suck so they need something to point at that hopefully fails worse than they have.
Change the absurd clickbait title…
They changed some code which allows them to integrate Amazon’s web services and netcode into the already heavily modified CE that they were using, even Roberts said that this did not really cost them anything and was very easy, which means that it’s a mostly superficial update so that they can get updates from Amazon’s branch of CryEngine since it’s more fitting for SC.
Why do we not get this information on this site. Should’ve read the RSI post.
Gaming “””””””””””””””””””””””””journalism”””””””””””””””””””””””
Lel.
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WTFFF LITERALLY SPIT MY COFFEE.
TIL John is a gaming journalist. xP
TIL I learned Gabraham Lincoln was not–in fact–the eleventy-third president and he did not invent electricity because Gabraham Lincoln never existed. He was just the fabrication of a recent fever dream I had.
I think they dont have much faith in Crytek’s future. If something happened to them they could still get tech support from Amazon.
As crytek closes more locations….. “Message!”
Incorrect. They rewrote over 50% of the code and haven’t been able to receive any official Crytek updates due to this, not that they would need them anyway, their custom tech is superior and they have a bunch of the Crytek founders and engineers on their team.
They did this switch in order to be able to use Amazon’s MMO infrastructure that is in their custom CE build, which they call and sell as Lumberyard.
So much for a 2017 release if they’re implementing a new engine.
No rush. Let them take another five years if necessary. What we don’t need is another rushed-to-market game that people then complain was released in an unfinished state. When the game arrives, my nipples will be ready.
Read my post above, also read Robert’s response to the hysteria and bad reporting.
The fact that there are people like you saying this sort of stuff shows how much of a failure the media is doing reporting these news.
It is not a new engine, it’s a custom branch based on CryEngine 3.8 made by Amazon, the StarEngine is also a custom branch based on CE3.8, made by the SC developers.
They only implemented the superior network infrastructure code from Amazon’s build, it’s build specifically for MMOs and it uses Amazon’s next gen server tech that will be able to support more players and data than any other MMO on the market. They also added some minor graphics and cinematography tool from it.
Only the Squadron42 single player campaign is expected to release in 2017, that was never the ETA for the MMO, that’s at least 2 years away (and it’s still on schedule).
no they will of used lumberyard for the networking support amazon will be providing
And as of late crytek closed five more studios worldwide……. Too bad…..