Some developers want to create colorful, magical worlds that would never be possible in real life. Games at times mimic reality, but they can also be used as an escape from the ordinary tasks that everyone has to face. However, Kojima productions isn’t looking to stray away from what’s real. The Fox Engine, which will be used for games like Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain and Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes, is aiming to produce photorealism – even if there is a slight dab of creativity in the mix.
Developers from Kojima Productions recently spoke to Famitsu about the exciting new engine that will play a big part of next-generation development. Polygon translated the talk, which covered the ease and adaptability of the technology.
"The control flow and tools we had been using were no longer a match with the times,” said Junji Tago, technical director at KojiPro. "So after Metal Gear Solid 4, we decided to design a tool from scratch that did. With commercial engines, you tend to be bound by the limits of the features already in the engine. We're looking to make something that goes one step beyond normal games, and to make that happen, it's best not to let ourselves be bound by other things as much as possible. That's why, when we thought about it, we decided to make a unique engine designed completely by ourselves."
The team working on actual game development is separate from the group creating the Fox Engine, but they have plenty of interaction in order land on the same page.
"For example, with the graphics, we have requests from [director Hideo] Kojima and the artists about the things we need to make the game's art, and the engine team implements that. If there's an engine feature we need for what we're trying to express, we have them implement it; what matters to the game always comes first,” said CG art director Hideki Sasaki. “Like we said at GDC, the MGS team is basically aiming for photorealism. We're looking for realism that we didn't have before, but that in itself won't be enough to create attractive graphics. We're aiming for photorealism, but we still insert artistry when artistry is called for."
We’ve really only seen the Metal Gear Solid series make sure of the new engine, and it truly looks spectacular. Yet, we can expect to see more titles make use of Fox in the future.
"We're picturing a fairly wide usage," Tago stated. "Talking strictly about the engine itself, it's certainly not beholden to MGS, and it can be used for other projects."
