Game Informer Fox Engine interview: TPP will bring new technologies not present in GZ
As part of their Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes coverage, Game Informer interviewed Konami’s worldwide technology director Julien Merceron. Before joining Konami, Merceron worked at Ubisoft, Eidos and Square Enix, and is now involved in the development of the FOX Engine.
While there are a lot of differences when it comes to development progress between Japan and the west, Merceron immediately felt he could fit into the system and bring some positive changes. He explained Kojima was mainly interested in the tools and workflow. “Kojima-san has traveled a lot, and he has seen a lot of technologies around the world.”
Hideo Kojima and Julien Merceron at Kojima Productions LA
“The key thing for me also is to make sure that the FOX Engine is very much in line to what he [Kojima] wants to do.” Merceron said. “Metal Gear is moving in a direction where the team is trying to do something different. […] I can see things that we’re trying to do in Metal Gear Solid that I haven’t found in a lot of the other Japanese games.”
According to Merceron, there are four key pillars for the FOX Engine: the lighting, the multiplayer, the open world, and the real time editing.
Of course the team had to get used to the engine first, but now that they have created a prologue for the game, they have a lot more experience. “I’m sure that we’re going to push things a lot further.” Merceron said. “There are actually technologies that haven’t been brought onto Ground Zeroes because the learning curve would be too high. So we’ve kept some of the new for TPP in order to make the first step less problematic. Some of these aspects are related to AI and things like that.”
“It’s quite an achievement to have made it possible on current gen.” Merceron said with a smile, adding that in the future, he wants the FOX Engine to support high end PCs and smart devices as well.
Merceron said that since it’s impossible to know how thing develop in the future, it’s important to have a lot of flexibility. “We’re establishing a long term vision.”
He concluded by saying he hopes they will be able to meet expectation with Metal Gear Solid V.
To watch the interview interview, head on over to Game Informer’s website.
Source: Game Informer
