On Thursday, Epic Games announced that it would make the complete Unreal Engine 4 suite free to use for universities and students on a case-by-case basis. Interested teachers and administrators can now submit their credentials via Epic's official site , and upon acceptance, they will have access to the suite without having to pay the standard $19 per month fee

"There's no separate 'academic' version or anything like that," UE4 General Manager Ray Davis said to Ars in a phone interview. "The cool thing is, as a student, even if you don’t decide to subscribe upon graduation, you'll still retain access to any version of the engine you had at that point. We’re not leaving people hanging at the end of a school year or anything like that."

Though UE4's university-specific offer isn't quite as accessible as Crytek's CryENGINE, which can be downloaded by anybody on a non-commercial basis, Epic's revision does stem from feedback the company received after it announced UE4's pricing structure during this year's Game Developers Conference.

"We had people reach out to us, especially the folks who use UDK [the free version of Unreal Engine 3] for noncommercial use, and they were very eager to get UE4 integrated into coursework," Davis said. "In hindsight, if we weren’t as hectic on the road to GDC, we would’ve thought, 'This was a great idea, let's launch with this.' As soon as we launched at $19 a month, a lot of educators reached out right away, and it quickly became apparent that there was a better opportunity for everyone involved."

Though Davis wouldn't confirm subscription numbers—which also require paying five percent of a published game's revenue after the first $3,000 made every quarter—he took the opportunity to remind potential subscribers that the engine has received significant upgrades in its six months on the market, including a dedicated Paper 2D system for lower-end game creation and the Unreal Motion Graphics UI toolset.

"One of UE4's biggest features is its pace of evolution," Davis said. "When we shipped at GDC, we were transparent that some parts were raw, especially in mobile. The best proof here is, go look at what people are making and shipping."

[Update: We updated the text to clarify that only teachers and administrators can apply for the free educational UE4 licenses at this time.]