Death Stranding had a big weekend at both The Game Awards and PlayStation Experience, but the headline-grabbing trailer wasn’t the only big news. Speaking at a panel from The Game Awards with host Geoff Keighley, director Hideo Kojima announced that he had found a “technical partner” with Sony’s Guerrilla Games.
And what exactly does that mean? Well, the famed creator will use the same stunning graphic engine as the one used in Horizon Zero Dawn.
Guerrilla Games Managing Director Hermen Hulst was on the stage with Kojima as well and explained how the engine would help Kojima bring Death Stranding to life.
Decima is the Horizon Zero Dawn engine and, in essence, it’s the engine that all Guerrilla games so far run on, but it’s evolved. It’s fair to say it’s taken a quantum leap in the last couple of years to get it ready for this project. It’s a lot more than just a rendering engine. It involves AI, physics, logics, it’s got the entire world creation tool screen in it. And I’d argue that the engine probably is a statement of philosophy of game development as well.
PlayStation 4 Chief Architect Mark Cerny also chimed in with a jab at Konami, because that’s just the stylish thing to do these days, I guess.
Unfortunately, Kojima-san had to leave his technology with his former employer.
And the FOX Engine is doomed for Pachinko machines
After years of construction on the FOX Engine at Konami, the technology is now fated to be wasted on pachinko machines. Each painful trailer we see of Metal Gear slot games is a solid reminder of what could have been.
I want to say that that Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was good enough on its own to justify its existence, but sadly, I can’t. It’s a fine game, but all that time and effort sunk into the FOX Engine could have been offset by a license to Crytek or Epic Games if it was only going to be used for one AAA release.
Death Stranding will be released for the PlayStation 4 at a TBA date.
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