Naughty Dog has confirmed that they will keep the existing in-house engine used in PlayStation 3 titles, Uncharted 3 and The Last of Us, as they transition over to PlayStation 4.
Speaking with Digital Spy, Game director Bruce Straley explained why they are sticking with PS3 engine instead of starting over with a new engine, “We learned a big lesson coming from PS2 to PS3. There was a lot of hype over what next-gen was going to be.
It was all going to be like movies, like a pre-rendered cutscene-style fidelity. That turned out not to be true. Granted, what we’re able to do now is pretty damn close, but it took Naughty Dog four games to get there – one of the top developers in the industry with some on the most amazing scientists working in our programming department.”
He went on, “We scrapped everything at the beginning of Uncharted 1, and we had a perfectly good engine with the Jak & Daxter franchise.
We could have started with something there and then built off of it and only changed the pieces and parts as we needed, when we needed. And that really caused a lot of turmoil.”
Straley added that console transition from PS2 to PS3 wasn’t the smoothest.
“We were creating a new IP, with a new engine, with a lot of weird expectations. Nobody had a dev kit soon enough, and as we all know, trying to figure out how to programme for a whole new piece of hardware was really difficult.
We learned our lesson in saying, as we move into development into next-gen, we want to take our current engine, port it immediately over as is and say, ‘Okay, we have a great AI system, we have a good rendering system’.
We have all these things that already work. Only when we hit a wall will we say, ‘When do we need to change something? When do we need to scale it?
When does the gameplay, when does the story, when does the world that we need to create – when does this engine hit the wall? Right, now we need to change this part of the engine.’
Hindsight’s 20-20, and it sounds obvious to say it, but it’s one of those things that you learn in development. We’ve gained something from this experience, and now we want to apply it moving into next gen,” Straley concluded.
What do you think? Sound off in the comments below.
The Last of Us will hit stores worldwide on June 14, 2013, exclusive for PlayStation 3.
You can like our page on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or add us to your circle on Google+ to keep yourself updated on all the latest news around the web.
Just one thing to say, make Uncharted 4 ;)
I’m sure with the same engine they will be able to make better graphics still.
I keep coming to this stupid website due to the last of us fb fanpage. Im going to have to unlike if it carrys on posting dumb shit. This is OLD news. Before TLOU… The engine is next gen ready anyway. DOES IT EVEN MATTER?
hahahahahaha that was fun….. and true
Naughty Dogs proved what they’re capable of since the release of uncharted 2 and it was just a start :p
Rankings Of All Top Developers
No.1 Naughty dog
(Uncharted 2: Among Thieves 9.5/10)
(Uncharted 3: drake’s deception 10/10)
(the last of us 10/10)
No.2 Rockstar Games
(GTA San Andreas 9.5/10)
(GTA III Vice City 9.7/10)
(GTA IV 10/10)
No.3 Sony Santa Monica
(God Of War I 9.8/10)
(God Of War II 9.7/10)
(God Of War III 9.3/10)
No.4 Ubisoft
Splinter Cell Conviction 9.3/10
Assassin’s Creed II 9.2/10
Far Cry III 9/10
Naughty Dog is Awesome! LoL Shut up and keep taking all my money :D
Great AI system? Ah, no. They have a decent AI system.
Better to use the same and known engine rather than wasting time by hoping a new engine could be better. (even if someday you’re gonna have to use a new one…)