Black Ops II Developer “Doesn’t Understand” Criticism Of Call of Duty’s Engine

Haven’t we heard the Call of Duty developers defend the game’s engine before? It wasn’t interesting the first time. Or the second. And it’s always the same defense. So why not just not say anything?

Anyway, David Vonderhaar, the design director at Treyarch, has hit back at gamer criticism of Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty engine.

Of course we know that all Call of Duty titles since 2005′s Call of Duty 2 have used this engine, and it gets heavily modified for each new game.

Vonderhaar basically says he doesn’t see why there is a fuss about the engine being outdated.

“Anybody who comes at the engine needs to remember it’s the 60 frames they love in the first place,” he told OXM.

“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 added. “It runs at 60 and it’s gorgeous. What exactly is there to be upset about with the engine?”

If you’re interested in Call of Duty: Black Ops II, it will be out on November 13 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.