Sounds Like PlayStation Has Grand Plans for Guerrilla's 'Ambitious' Decima Engine | Push Square

pushsquare.com:

One of the main reasons Horizon Zero Dawn took so long to make is because Guerrilla Games created a brand new engine with which to build it. Known as the Decima Engine, it's only been put to use on a few games so far (that we know of), but the results speak for themselves. In addition to Aloy's debut and the sequel, Horizon Forbidden West, Kojima Productions famously used Decima to develop Death Stranding and, presumably, Death Stranding 2.

It sounds like that's far from the end for this engine. As part of a management shake-up at Guerrilla Games, technical director Michiel van der Leeuw has announced he will be working on Decima full-time. In a LinkedIn post, van der Leeuw says he'll be focusing on «our ambitious future plans for our own Decima engine». He says the team has «crafted a studio roadmap and future direction for our Decima engine so ambitious» that it now requires his full attention.

Of course, we don't know what that future direction looks like, but we can hazard a guess that more PS Studios may move onto Decima going forward. It could also elude to developing tools that allow the engine to be used for online service games, which is obviously a strategy that's in the pipeline at PlayStation.

Beyond that, imagining how the engine could improve is pretty tough; the results are already incredibly strong, having produced some of the most technically impressive open world games to date. Assuming Guerrilla and PS Studios will be moving to PS5-only development in future, it seems likely that Decima could be at the heart of some of the console's best-looking titles within a few years.

Are you excited for the future of Decima? Tell us in the comments section below.

Having grown up alongside PlayStation, Stephen has