Crystal Dynamics has now talked a little bit on the game engine that is powering the impressive looking Rise of the Tomb Raider video game coming out shortly next month.
Tomb Raider looked impressive back in 2013, however Crystal Dynamics is using a new game engine to power Rise of the Tomb Raider on Xbox One. The studio is calling this new game engine “Horizon”.
Finder.com had a chance to interview Mike Brinker recently who is the senior designer at Crystal Dynamics. Brinker talked in more detail about the specific new game engine.
Brinker said Horizon is a “proprietary engine with an editor“. The studio really wanted to focus on “building levels in an iterative fashion“. They wanted to piece things together quickly with all the references they gathered. The art team usually comes in to build the shell of what a level should look like.
Once they make a shell, Brinker describes it goes through a system called the “kit-bashing technique” This is just a fancy way of saying putting all of the pieces together in a level. He says this engine is great because it allows them to tear down and build up levels over and over again before they find something they really like.
Brinker also mentioned that this Horizon engine is one of the top editors he has used. He also said he is super proud of all of the tools this in-house engine can do.
Brinker said that this engine has been great with the Xbox One console too. Brinker has stated in previous interviews that the Xbox One has allowed them to do many things that weren’t available to them when the 2013 game came out.
