Call of Duty has been going on for so long, and for all that time, it has been using the exact same engine, only with little tweaks to keep it relevant every year. And yet, each year, there are those who doubtless hope that the series will upgrade its underlying tech- and what better time to do it than with the very first installment of the series that is being made exclusively for next generation machines?
And yet, Infinity Ward have confirmed that Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare will not in fact have a new engine. It will be using the same engine as each year, but there will be improvements as always.
“In the last three years, we have made continual improvements to our tech,” explained Jacob Minkoff, the design director for the game, to AusGamers. “We have overhauled our animation engine, physics, AI system, NPC behaviors and more. We are doing a lot that has never been done in the series before, like seamless, streaming level transition, for instance, that allow us to go from ground combat to space and then inside our hub as a continual experience, so we needed to re-engineer our systems to deliver on that vision.
“We’re also using physically-based rendering, which means more detailed lighting and improved shading across the board. Surfaces in our game, from the hallway of a warship to the wrinkles on a character’s forehead will be seen more realistically and naturally than ever before. We’ve built a new performance capture stage too. Our tech really lets us bring the actors’ performances to life in a really cool way. We can’t wait for fans to play the game for themselves.”
So- I’m not entirely convinced that this substitutes having an entirely new engine. Then again, it doesn’t sound like this setup is lacking in any way, and this is definitely an engine that has worked just fine for the series, and one that the developers are probably comfortable with- so I guess there are reasons for Infinity Ward to stick with it.
