Call of Duty: Ghosts Announced as Next-Gen Title with a New Game Engine

[Shawn Zipay]

Activision and Infinity Ward have officially announced the next entry in the Call of Duty series, Call of Duty: Ghosts. The above teaser will have to hold you over until the big reveal on May 21 during Microsoft's big reveal of the next-gen Xbox.

Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that the game will be using a new game engine! I know, contain your shock for a few moments.

"Infinity Ward set the gold standard for first-person action for a generation, and they're going to do it again with Call of Duty: Ghosts," said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing, Inc. "Ghosts delivers an all-new story, all-new characters, an all-new Call of Duty world, all powered by a next generation Call of Duty engine, which is a leap forward for the franchise. Infinity Ward is going all-in to create the next generation of Call of Duty worthy of the world's greatest fans."

"Everyone was expecting us to make Modern Warfare 4, which would have been the safe thing to do. But we're not resting on our laurels," said Mark Rubin, executive producer of developer Infinity Ward. "We saw the console transition as the perfect opportunity to start a new chapter for Call of Duty. So we're building a new sub-brand, a new engine, and a lot of new ideas and experiences for our players. We can't wait to share them with our community."

The Xbox event will be shown live on Xbox Live, Xbox.com, and on Spike TV at 10AM (PDT) on May 21.

[Stev0esque]

I'm skeptical of this "Next generation call of duty engine". For all we know its another version of the current IW engine.

Having said that I think during the AMA some time ago they may have got the message that people don't like being fooled like that, or crappy "But we've worked on this engine for so long, why change?" type answers so in case my above statement is wrong I do wonder what engine they are using? Cryengine, perhaps?

[stilla-killa]

They are going to have to use a next gen engine to keep up.

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They are going to have to use a next gen engine to keep up.

[Anarchy1]

Yeah, this new engine will almost certainly be an updated engine.

I find it extremely hard to believe that IW (that has been left depleted and inexperienced after the MW2 fiasco) was able to, in two years, design a game, learn to develop on next-gen consoles, and design a brand new engine.

That's ridiculous. It took DICE (3x the number of employees, more technically experienced) 3 years to design their first game on the first iteration of Frostbite (BC).

I don't see how IW would have been able to make an engine this quickly.

Also, after BO2 came out, didn't an Activision exec say that they were not interested in making a brand new engine?

This engine will just be an updated version of the current one. In fact, I would wager that, graphically, it will look exactly the same on the 360 and PS3. The only difference will be some increased graphics on next-gen consoles and the PC.

[Shawn Zipay]

The animation/face is from an Nvidia technology called Face Works. The renderer, however, is different/new. That's from GDC 2013. So they at least have a new renderer. As for them making their own animations/models... well, that's up to them.

Compare the Activision one to Nvidia's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...OYU4gpo#t=523s

[CptainCrunch]

Reminds me of LA Noir.