Black Ops 2 dev defends Call of Duty engine

Treyarch game design director David Vonderhaar has hit back at those criticising the Infinity Ward engine used for Black Ops 2.

Black Ops 2 will be the latest in a long line of Call of Duty titles to use the engine, dating back to 2005's Call of Duty 2.

Vonderhaar said the studio has refined the engine over the years and games running on it can still look beautiful.

"Anybody who comes at the engine needs to remember it's the 60 frames they love in the first place," Vonderhaar told OXM.

"And we can make it beautiful - that's through years and years of working with the engine, improving upon it and improving the pipeline and improving our approach, our lighting rendering.

"People like to talk about the engine, but the truth of the matter is that this isn't like something that was invented six years ago. At this point that engine doesn't resemble anything like any engine - we've ripped out the UI system, the rendering and the lighting are all new, the core gameplay systems are all new."

Vonderhaar concluded that he doesn't see what players have to complain about.

"To me, it's like I never really understood. It runs at 60 and it's gorgeous. What exactly is there to be upset about with the engine?"