CryEngine 3 has existed "at the quality of Unreal Engine 4" for three years, says Crytek

Crytek's Cevat Yerli has said CryEngine 3 "already exists" at the quality of Unreal Engine 4, and while there are "tangible differences," between the two engines, it's not something people will notice when looking at still images of in-game screenshots.

Speaking in an interview with VentureBeat, Yerli said the tech existent in CE3 has been around "for three years now."

"You can go back three years ago to the GDC videos," he said. "What we put out there is pretty much what Unreal Engine 4 put out now. And what many others are doing now too. We haven’t really put out our latest stuff yet.

"Pretty soon you’re going to see the next iteration of CryEngine, and I’m not putting a number behind it, just the next iteration of CryEngine. Very soon. But we already said, CryEngine 3 is next-gen ready since three years ago. We stand by that. If I look at what people call next-gen technology now, it’s what we were seeing three years ago. We already had massive particle systems, we already had GPU rendering, all these things. Deferred shading. We had tessellation already since we shipped Crysis 2. We already had DX11.

"We didn’t just talk it up as tech demos, we have games that are shipped and are doing it."

Yerli said the differences between his firm's engine and those of his competitors, is the "fluidity of the overall experience," and used the differences between and Android and iPhone as an example.

"It’s like you watch an Android phone and an iPhone. The iPhone, despite the fact that most Android phones can do the same things, just feels different," he explained. "It feels more fluid, more organic on an iPhone. And similarly, with an Android, there are different limitations on an Android. One feels choppy, another feels better. Really, it’s not just about ticking off boxes next to features.

"It’s a holistic experience that has to be fluid and flawless and real. Not show. It must be real. That’s us and what CryEngine always stands for. It was always a very substantial, robust, polished experience that gamers will see. And I also think that we are dedicated to online games. When you look at our number of licensees in that space, we have more licensees than any other engine in the online space. In the console space it’s a different story. In the console space we’re definitely not leading. But I think the next time around, it’s going to be a very different picture."