While the upcoming Black Ops 2 is built on an engine that is several years old, Treyarch’s design director David Vonderhaar will defend it until he’s blue in the face.
In an interview with OXM, Vonderhaar emphasized the fact that while the core of the engine is old, it has evolved considerably over the years. Plus, the super-smooth frame-rate is what is most important, right?
Anybody who comes at the engine needs to remember it’s the 60 frames they love in the first place. And we can make it beautiful – that’s through years and years of working with the engine, improving upon it and improving the pipeline and improving our approach, our lighting rendering.
People like to talk about the engine, but the truth of the matter is that this isn’t like something that was invented six years ago. At this point that engine doesn’t resemble anything like any engine – we’ve ripped out the UI system, the rendering and the lighting are all new, the core gameplay systems are all new.
From what you’ve seen of the game thus far, do you think the complaints leveled against the engine are justified? According to Vonderhaar, “it runs at 60 and it’s gorgeous. What exactly is there to be upset about with the engine?” Feel free to respond to that query in the comments below.
