Treyarch Defends Black Ops' Ageing Engine

Treyarch has defended using the seven-year-old IW engine to power Call of Duty: Black Ops II.

In an interview with OXM, game design director David Vondehaar explained that modifications had been made to ensure the game ran robustly, and admitted he was baffled that anyone would criticise the title's technical performance.

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To me, it's like I never really understood. It runs at 60 and it's gorgeous. What exactly is there to be upset about with the engine?

"Anybody who comes at the engine needs to remember it's the 60 frames they love in the first place," he asserted. "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.

"To me, it's like I never really understood," Vondehaar concluded. "It runs at 60 and it's gorgeous. What exactly is there to be upset about with the engine?"

The IW Engine has been used by both Infinity Ward and Treyarch for the companies' work on the Call of Duty games. It was first used for Call of Duty 2 back in 2005, and the exact engine being used for Black Ops II is a modified version of the IW 3.0 engine that was used for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, as well as the original Black Ops. The PC version of the game is also confirmed to take advantage of DirectX 11 video cards.

The first image of the Nuketown 2025 pre-order bonus map for Call of Duty: Black Ops II was unveiled yesterday, and the game itself is due to release on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on November 13, and on the Wii U on its respective launch dates.

Luke Karmali is IGN's UK Editorial Assistant and a meleeing ninja when it comes to COD. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on IGN and on Twitter.

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