Call of Duty engine is ‘gorgeous’, defends Treyarch

These days, it's cool to hate on Call of Duty. Whether its for the gameplay, the graphics, the game engine, the player base, the popularity, whatever. Those who don't play it, love to hate on it – particularly the game engine which launched all the way back in 2005 with Call of Duty 2. Maybe it's because of its age.

Black Ops 2 developer Treyarch, on the other hand, doesn't understand the hate. In fact, to them, age is a good thing. It allows them to improve on the engine. And let's not forget, for as bland as the Call of Duty graphics may appear, the game does run at an impressive 60 frames per second, the touting point for Activision, Treyarch, and Infinity Ward.

"Anybody who comes at the engine needs to remember it's the 60 frames they love in the first place," Treyarch's David Vondehaar told OXM, defending the Infinity Ward engine. "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," he added. "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?"

To each their own. Personally, I find Call of Duty's graphics bland at this point. Sure, it may look better than it did six years ago, but what about compared to today's graphics? I suppose it's all personal preference. Which leads me to my question: do you like Call of Duty's game engine or is it time for Treyarch and Infinity Ward to move on?