Treyarch’s proprietary IW engine has been used to develop all Call of Duty titles since Call of Duty 2 was released in 2005. Some fans are starting to sound their dissatisfaction with the fact that the company is reusing the same 7 years old engine for the next Call of Duty as well.
But Treyarch game design director David Vonderhaar doesn’t really believe that those complaints are warranted.
"Anybody who comes at the engine needs to remember it's the 60 frames they love in the first place," he said. "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.
Vonderhaar then noted that the IW engine was continuously updated throughout those 7 years. "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," he explained. "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. It runs at 60 and it's gorgeous. What exactly is there to be upset about with the engine?"