Game engine developed by Infinity Ward
The IW engine is a game engine created and developed by Infinity Ward for the 🎅 Call of Duty series. The engine was originally based on id Tech 3. Aside from Infinity Ward, the engine is 🎅 also used by other Activision studios working on the series, including primary lead developers Treyarch and Sledgehammer Games, and support 🎅 studios like Beenox, High Moon Studios, and Raven Software.[1][2][3]
History [ edit ]
IW 2.0 to IW 3.0 [ edit ]
The engine 🎅 has been distinct from the id Tech 3 engine on which it is based since Call of Duty 2 in 🎅 2005. The engine's name was not publicized until IGN was told at the E3 2009 by the studio that Call 🎅 of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009) would run on the "IW 4.0 engine".[4] Development of the engine and the Call 🎅 of Duty games has resulted in the inclusion of advanced graphical features while maintaining an average of 60 frames per 🎅 second on the consoles and PC.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was released using version 3.0 of the engine. This 🎅 game included features such as bullet penetration, improved AI, lighting engine upgrades, better explosions, particle system enhancements and many more 🎅 improvements. Treyarch began using an enhanced version of the IW 3.0 engine for Call of Duty: World at War.[5] Improvements 🎅 were made to the physics model and dismemberment was added. Environments also featured more destructibility and could be set alight 🎅 using a flamethrower. The flamethrower featured propagating fire and it was able to burn skin and clothes realistically. Treyarch modified 🎅 the engine for their James Bond title, 007: Quantum of Solace.[6]
IW 4.0 to IW 5.0 [ edit ]
Call of Duty: 🎅 Modern Warfare 2 (2009) was released using the IW 4.0 engine, the only game to do so. The IW 4.0 🎅 engine featured texture streaming technology to create much higher environmental detail without sacrificing performance. Call of Duty: Black Ops was 🎅 not based on IW 4.0; rather, Treyarch further enhanced the version of IW 3.0 they had used in their previous 🎅 game. This version of the engine also featured streaming technology, lighting enhancements, and support for 3D imaging. Call of Duty: 🎅 Modern Warfare 3 (2011) utilizes an improved version of the IW 4.0 engine. Improvements on the engine allowed better streaming 🎅 technology which allowed larger regions for the game while running at a minimum of 60 frames per second. Further improvements 🎅 to the audio and lighting engines were made in this version.
Call of Duty: Black Ops II was developed using a 🎅 further iteration of the IW engine.[7] Texture blending was improved due to a new technology called "reveal mapping" which compared 🎅 tones between two textures and then blends them together. Also, there were upgrades to the lighting engine which included HDR 🎅 lighting, bounce lighting, self-shadowing, intersecting shadows and various other improvements. Call of Duty: Black Ops II took advantage of DirectX 🎅 11 video cards on the Windows version of the game. The "zombie" mode was moved to the multiplayer portion of 🎅 the engine which will allow for much more variety within this part of the game.[8]
IW 6.0 to IW 7.0 [ 🎅 edit ]
Call of Duty: Ghosts features an upgraded version of the IW 5.0 seen in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 🎅 3 (2011). It was unknown whether or not any engine features have been taken from Call of Duty: Black Ops 🎅 II. Since the main developer was Infinity Ward they returned to their original engine naming system and called that iteration 🎅 IW 6.0.[9] IW 6.0 was compatible with systems such as Xbox One and PlayStation 4 so polygon counts, texture detail 🎅 and overall graphical fidelity had increased. IW 6.0 was also compatible with Microsoft Windows, Wii U, PS3 and Xbox 360. 🎅 The IW 6.0 engine featured technology from Pixar, SubD, which increased the level of detail of models as one got 🎅 closer to them.[10] Mark Rubin said about the HDR lighting "We used to paint it in and cover up the 🎅 cracks, but now it's all real-time".[11][12] Ghosts used Iris Adjust tech which allowed the player to experience from a person's 🎅 point of view how their eyes would react to changes in lighting conditions realistically. Other features included new animation systems, 🎅 fluid dynamics, interactive smoke, displacement mapping and dynamic multiplayer maps.[13]
Call of Duty: Black Ops III used a highly upgraded version 🎅 of the engine used in Black Ops II for the PS4/Xbox One/PC/macOS version.[14][15] Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare's IW 7.0 🎅 featured weightlessness system, game physics improvement, improved AI and improved non-player characters behaviors.[16] For Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, 🎅 Treyarch heavily modified the engine used in Black Ops III to support up to 100 players, and introduced a new 🎅 'Super Terrain' system.[17][18]
IW 8.0 to IW 9.0 [ edit ]
With Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2024) and Call of Duty: 🎅 Warzone, Infinity Ward employed their Poland studio to rebuild the engine completely.[19][20] Dubbed IW 8.0, the engine was created within 🎅 five years, and featured substantial upgrades such as spectral rendering, volumetric lighting and support for hardware-accelerated ray tracing on the 🎅 PC version.[21][22][23] Support for Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) was added later in April 2024.[24][25][26] Activision stated that the 🎅 new engine was also shared across the board for all Call of Duty developers to use in future titles.[27] Call 🎅 of Duty: Black Ops Cold War does not use this new engine, but instead uses a highly modified version of 🎅 the Black Ops III engine.[28] Call of Duty: Vanguard was powered by the same engine used in Modern Warfare and 🎅 Warzone with enhancements from developer Sledgehammer Games.[29][30]
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2024) was developed on a highly upgraded version 🎅 of the engine first used in 2024's Modern Warfare.[31][32][33] Dubbed IW 9.0,[34] the engine was co-developed by Infinity Ward, Treyarch, 🎅 and Sledgehammer Games, and was planned to be used in future installments of the series in a unified effort to 🎅 ensure that every studio was working with the same tools,[35][36][37] allowing them to create a single cross-game launcher, known as 🎅 Call of Duty HQ.[38] Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (2024) was also planned to use this engine and be 🎅 integrated into the Call of Duty HQ launcher.[39]
Sledgehammer Games engine [ edit ]
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare featured Sledgehammer Games' 🎅 in-house custom engine with only a few lines of legacy code remaining from the IW engine.[40] Majority of the engine 🎅 in Advanced Warfare had been built from the ground up.[41][42] Sledgehammer Games incorporated brand new animation, physics, rendering, lighting, motion 🎅 capture and facial animation systems.[43][44][45] The developers reworked the audio engine which had also been built from the ground up.[46] 🎅 According to Sledgehammer Games audio director Don Veca, the team was able to incorporate an audio intelligence system to the 🎅 game.[47][48][49]
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered were developed on an advanced 🎅 version of this engine with modifications from Raven Software and Beenox, respectively.[50][51] Raven Software and Beenox introduced enhancements to the 🎅 original games including new models and animations as well as rebuilt textures.[52][53] Call of Duty: WWII uses an improved version 🎅 of Sledgehammer Games' in-house custom engine from Advanced Warfare.[54] Sledgehammer Games eventually replaced this engine with IW 8.0 for their 🎅 next game, Call of Duty: Vanguard, in 2024.[55][56]
Games using IW engine [ edit ]
