Infinity Ward are trying a lot of new stuff with the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, with its more grounded and gritty campaign and the host of new modes they’ll be offering on the multiplayer side of things. But it’s not just with the gameplay that they’re doing new things- it’s also with the development, owing to the fact that the game runs on a new engine for the series.
But the current console generation is almost over, and in all likelihood, the next Call of Duty game is going to launch on the PS5 and the Xbox Scarlett. Owing to that, would it not have been more prudent for the developers to hold off on a new engine and save it for next-gen Call of Duty titles? Well, not according to Michal Drobot, principal rendering engineer at Infinity Ward Poland’s tech team.
Speaking with Game Informer, Drobot said that Modern Warfare’s new engine is future-proof, and will be capable of leveraging better, more powerful next gen hardware.
“Our technology horizon is quite far ahead and ever adjusting to whatever comes next,” he said. “The whole point was to rely on highly scalable technology, where algorithms, hardware insight and quality engineering comes first, as opposed to being overly reliant on specific platform features. Obviously during the optimization phase for any shipping title, we do highly focused optimizations to make sure we are taking the best approach for specific hardware, but that is the final polish pass, not the foundation. With this approach, we are very confident in our engine’s ability to adapt to any future hardware.”
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is out on October 25th for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC. A beta will be going live in September. Infinity Ward plans on releasing campaign footage soon. If you’re more concerned with multiplayer gameplay, check out nearly 25 minutes of it through here.
