How good is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s new engine? Full breakdown

The team at Digital Foundry went into great detail explaining what impact Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s new engine will have on the upcoming game in their analysis.

Something lost in the all the hype of the Modern Warfare announcement is that the game will feature a brand-new engine never seen before in a Call of Duty title.

In a new analysis from Digital Foundry, a group well-known for their in-depth looks into the technicalities of games, we get a look at what this new engine can do.

What can the engine do?

Richard Leadbetter, a member of Digital Foundry, explained how this engine will be able to elevate the series.

“Certainly from a technological standpoint, what we’re looking at here is, in my opinion, a new milestone for the franchise,” he said.

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Modern Warfare sounds like it’ll be the best looking Call of Duty to date, which is to be expected with it also being the newest entry. One thing that especially stands out in the trailer is the lighting.

“Every single light source in the game is volumetric in nature,” he explained. 

God rays, sources of lights that have proven to be very taxing on hardware, appears in Modern Warfare and is baked into the engine, meaning you won’t be able to disable them for better performance like you can on several other games.

“You won’t be able to disable in on PC because doing so could upset gameplay balance.”

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Call of Duty is a game that heavily relies on a smooth framerate, something that will still be possible here. Running at 60 frames-per-second has always been considered a must and Infinity Ward looks to again match that here, even with the upgraded graphics.

How long has the engine been in development?

Eurogamer reports this engine has been in the works for at least five years, meaning a lot of fine-tuning has gone into this.

Even better for CoD fans, Infinity Ward’s new engine will be shared with Sledgehammer Raven Games, two other Call of Duty studios, so this new engine won’t be dormant in between games. 

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In a perfect world, the engine’s features should translate well into next-gen consoles that will be better able to take advantage of the new features. 

The PS4 and Xbox One are definitely showing their age this long into their life, so new hardware would really be able to show off how the new engine works.