Michael McMain loves magic. You might not catch him pulling rabbits out of hats or asking you to ‘pick a card’, but for the last year he’s been deep in the process of conjuring up a new IP that he hopes will rip up the rulebook on how players experience the finer points of sorcery in gaming.

Lichdom, the first game from the Xaviant studio that McMain heads up, is a first-person RPG set in an alternative world. At the heart of that world is a rich lore built squarely around what the game’s architect summarizes as an “epic mage experience”.

The presentation reveals intricate technical and authoring details about AMD's "Project Phoenix" developed in collaboration with Illfonic and Crytek. This project is a showcase of real-time next-generation graphics running on AMD Graphics Core Next architecture.

Related Downloads:
Project Phoenix.pptx - 11.57 MB

Earlier this year, Crytek launched a creative competition for students in association with the British Library and GameCity. The Off the Map challenge invites students from participating universities and colleges to draw inspiration from a selection of British Library maps and then turn that inspiration into interactive environments using our free CryENGINE 3 SDK.

Among the participants is De Montfort University (DMU). Based in Leicester, DMU was recently listed as one of the top 10 most creative universities in the UK, and have three separate teams from their 2^nd year Game Art course taking part in Off the Map.  

Senior Lecturer in 3D Visualization at DMU, Heather Williams, says the competition provides a great chance for students to broaden their horizons. “The Game Art course is very interested in using game technology for more formal visualization projects as well as generating in-game content, and the CryENGINE SDK is a wonderful tool for this because we can communicate the drama and atmosphere as well as the physical space.”

The latest update to Crytek’s free CryENGINE^® 3 SDK lets users explore a winter wonderland and play with a range of fun new frozen assets.

The CryENGINE^® 3.4.4 “Winter Edition” update features a modified version of the forest level that is included with the free SDK, helping users to learn more about adding a touch of sub-zero style to any environment. Major highlights of the update include the refactoring and development of a new entity for simulating weather called the snow entity. Similar to the rain entity this feature applies a frozen material layer to all objects within a set radius, and has been improved since early iterations to enhance performance.

A new blockbuster MMORPG completed using Crytek’s CryENGINE^® 3 technology is scheduled to launch in South Korea this December.

Cabal 2, developed and published by ESTsoft, is a vast free-to-play adventure set in a world of magic, warfare and breathtaking scenery – all of it brought to life by the talented team at ESTsoft and the power of Crytek’s state-of-the-art development tool. 

Initially set to launch in South Korea, the game is primed to build on the success of its predecessor, Cabal, which grew to attract millions of players around the world. Cabal 2 will lead the way as the first CryENGINE^® 3-developed MMORPG to go on general release, although several more are in development across Asia. At the recent G-Star games expo in South Korea, a further four MMORPG’s created using CryENGINE^® 3 were on show; highlighting the engine’s growing appeal to developers working in this competitive genre.

For more information about Cabal 2 follow this

to ESTsoft’s official YouTube channel.