Kojima: Fox Engine Gunning For Total Photo-Realism
See Full ImageEveryone is eagerly anticipating the first public demo of Hideo Kojima's Fox Engine at the Game Developer's Conference next week.
In the meantime, the Metal Gear guru spoke about his goals for the new engine, and the kind of future that we can expect from new tech. In a series of Tweets translated by Kotaku, Kojima said the Fox Engine is going to be awfully special:
"The concept of the Fox Engine is photorealism. The age of fixating on pictures and sound in games is over. Now the questions are: How free is it? Does it connect to the internet and is the gameplay smooth? Even so, a certain level of realistic atmosphere is required. At Kojima Productions, we're aiming for a line where even simple CG models look photo-realistic when you zoom out of the game screen."
Kojima also spoke about the release of 1998's groundbreaking Metal Gear Solid, and reminded us that at the time, it was believed that the use of pre-rendered movies would disappear:
"We looked to the future and chose to have video sequences in the game that used polygon models instead of pre-rendered graphics. Now they make VFX movies with game engines. With Peace Walker, we tried a handheld system with the age of cloud technology. People laughed at us then, too."
Finally, Kojima ended by saying that developers must continue to look forward to the future and not get bogged down by what all the corporations and "businessmen" want. That's a refreshing thing to hear amid giant publishers demanding yearly installments in rapidly stagnating franchises. One could never say that about Metal Gear, or anything that Kojima does, in truth. Guys like that would never let such a thing happen...would they?
Tags: hideo kojima, fox engine, kojima engine, gaming industry
3/21/2013 11:29:43 AM Ben Dutka
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Comments (9 posts)
Lord carlos
Thursday, March 21, 2013 @ 12:12:10 PM
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Pandacastro
Thursday, March 21, 2013 @ 1:32:59 PM
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Akuma07
Thursday, March 21, 2013 @ 8:55:27 PM
And would fit completely with this article, if it was CGI, then it was near photo-realism, which is what Kojima is talking about.
It would be a great showing off of the FOX Engine.
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WorldEndsWithMe
Thursday, March 21, 2013 @ 1:36:43 PM
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Crabba
Thursday, March 21, 2013 @ 5:15:17 PM
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Twistedfloyd
Thursday, March 21, 2013 @ 4:49:50 PM
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But he needs to be careful in terms of what he's saying about not worrying about what businessmen want and things of that nature.
Metal Gear, while it is my favorite franchise, is on a precipice right now of becoming too whored out. Every release in the main series has had a distinct purpose and there's always been a reason to make it from a story stand point. After Peace Walker which to me finished Big Boss' transition into becoming Big Boss quite well, I don't know what else there is to say about him with Ground Zeroes. Kojima hasn't failed us in that respect, but I am hoping he's not trying to scrape the bottom of the barrel from a story standpoint.
He also needs to be careful with spinoffs. Rising is a success, but was it necessary? Not at all. And if a game isn't necessary to the MG cannon, it doesn't need to exist to me. I get that Rising is a fun game in its own right, but it just seems gratuitous and has that sort of sold out whored out feeling to me. It's something that just didn't need to happen.
I hope the series doesn't continue down that path as it regressed the character of Raiden away from his transition from 2 to 4 and pretty much make's Raiden's ending in 4 moot. Which to me isn't right because that was a fitting end to his arc.
Just hope BB doesn't get whored out and that we get Liquid, Ocelot and EVA spinoffs. The only one that would make sense would be The Boss. That'd be a spinoff that would be worth exploring, and a game I know Hideo wants to make. It would really give us some more great insight into that wonderful character.
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Akuma07
Thursday, March 21, 2013 @ 9:00:45 PM
I don't doubt him at all, he has always pulled through. Name one Kojima production that wasn't amazing?
He should have earned the trust and respect of fans by now.
We got the Raiden spin-off because Raiden was a main playable character in the series, there has only been 3... Big Boss, Snake, and Raiden.
Big Boss and Snake got plenty of action, but Raiden sort of just become a secondary character, and for the record, MGR has recieved very high critical acclaim, and is one of my personal favourite action games ever created.
Last edited by Akuma07 on 3/21/2013 9:02:40 PM
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Temjin001
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Thursday, March 21, 2013 @ 11:44:52 AM