Battlefield and Call of Duty: A Detailed Analysis of Both Franchises Pt. 2

The IW Engine:

So what about Call of Duty? The first Call of Duty was built on a heavily modified version of Id Tech 3, at the time, simply referred to as the ‘Quake engine’. By the time Call of Duty 2 rolled around, the engine had, for all intents and purposes, become something new entirely, from this point on, referred to as ‘IW 2’ (named after Infinity Ward). Although CoD 2 was available on the Xbox 360, it also had to support PCs, and thus, the engine looked similar in quality to the other engines of the time, including Refractor 2.

By the time IW released Call of Duty 4, they had a little more breathing room. PCs had become more capable, and the Xbox 360 offered more than enough power to create stunning visuals:

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare:

The change from MW1 to MW2 was more subtle, but refined the engine even more, all while keeping the 60 fps that CoD’s fast-paced gameplay depends on.

Modern Warfare (top) vs. Modern Warfare 2 (bottom):

MW2 also brought with it a slightly different aesthetic, moving away from the gritty realism of CoD 4, and bringing a sleeker, crisper, more colorful approach:

Treyarch’s Implementation:

Treyarch’s first numbered Call of Duty game was Call of Duty 3, for which they developed their own proprietary engine, but 2 years later, when it was their turn to develop the next CoD title, they built upon Infinity Ward’s robust CoD 4 engine. Interestingly enough, rather than take advantage of many of MW2’s improvements, Treyarch kept building upon their modified CoD 4 engine when they developed Black Ops. This led many CoD fans to believe that MW2 still looked better than Black Ops. Regardless, it was an incremental improvement over the last Treyarch engine.

World at War (top) vs. Black Ops (bottom):

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