Blizzard is making a shared game engine for their next generation of games

Nirolak · Nov 3, 2018

I went to Blizzard's job page to see which job postings fell out of the Unannounced Project section due to unveiling Diablo Immortal when I noticed this.

Blizzard said:
How would it feel to work to help to produce the key component in the development of every Blizzard game? Are you a skilled producer with experience shipping games and technology? Join our Horde! You will join a new team, responsible for making shared technology that's leveraged across our organization. We'll partner with the various game teams to create a game engine designed to power the next generation of Blizzard games across a variety of platforms. The Senior Producer on this team will be a key player in this effort.

We are looking for a versatile Senior Producer to join the development of Blizzard's shared game engine.

I'm pretty certain that this is based upon the Overwatch engine given they hired a gazillion engine programmers for that team out of the blue, while simultaneously hiring a zillion for a new, unannounced competitive FPS that features drivable vehicles and organic quadrupeds (StarCraft maybe?).

I'm not 100% certain Diablo 4 would also use this given how long it's been in development, but it's plausible this is part of why it's taking a while, given they seemed to reboot the game in Summer 2016, and may have now moved it to their unified engine.

All their mobile games are on Unity, but the other project on this engine would presumably be the action-adventure console/PC game that seems to feature large explorable environments that they just started.

A lot of developers/publishers have been going in this direction lately, so this probably isn't too surprising.

Maple · Nov 3, 2018

So this engine is presumably a Source -- > Source 2 type upgrade? Building on the existing Overwatch engine? Hopefully Diablo 4 uses the same engine powering Overwatch. It's so slick.

And I've always wondered when Blizzard is going to make the big move with World of Warcraft. As in, either making World of Warcraft 2 on a brand new engine, or porting existing WoW into a brand new engine. I have to think that one of these will eventually happen.

Rondras · Nov 3, 2018

Maple said:
So this engine is presumably a Source -- > Source 2 type upgrade? Building on the existing Overwatch engine? Hopefully Diablo 4 uses the same engine powering Overwatch. It's so slick.

And I've always wondered when Blizzard is going to make the big move with World of Warcraft. As in, either making World of Warcraft 2 on a brand new engine, or porting existing WoW into a brand new engine. I have to think that one of these will eventually happen.

They won't do anything with WoW.

Nirolak · Nov 3, 2018

Maple said:
So this engine is presumably a Source -- > Source 2 type upgrade? Building on the existing Overwatch engine? Hopefully Diablo 4 uses the same engine powering Overwatch. It's so slick.

And I've always wondered when Blizzard is going to make the big move with World of Warcraft. As in, either making World of Warcraft 2 on a brand new engine, or porting existing WoW into a brand new engine. I have to think that one of these will eventually happen.

They're unlikely to do anything with WoW outside of upgrading the renderer from time to time.

It's really hard to switch an engine for an existing game to something that's not an upgraded version of what's already there, and even can be quite difficult.

I suspect we will just someday get a third person Warcraft game that's not connected to WoW at all if they feel that audience has slipped beyond repair.

MissCauthon · Nov 3, 2018

I'm tired of all their games looking cartoony. I want something like Diablo 2 but with better graphics. Hopefully this new engine can help them do that.

Eolz · Nov 3, 2018

Everything going mobile.

Hyun Sai · Nov 3, 2018

MissCauthon said:
I'm tired of all their games looking cartoony. I want something like Diablo 2 but with better graphics. Hopefully this new engine can help them do that.

Well, it saves money to go cartoon, so don't get your hopes high.

Nirolak · Nov 3, 2018

Eolz said:
Everything going mobile.

They do have at least 2-3 mobile games in development, but those all seem to be Unity based.

AuthenticM · Nov 3, 2018

Nirolak said:
while simultaneously hiring a zillion for a new, unannounced competitive FPS that features drivable vehicles and organic quadrupeds (StarCraft maybe?).

what?

SuikerBrood · Nov 3, 2018

MissCauthon said:
I'm tired of all their games looking cartoony. I want something like Diablo 2 but with better graphics. Hopefully this new engine can help them do that.

You must be happy with the direction they've taken with Warcraft III: Reforged then.

Nirolak · Nov 3, 2018

Hyun Sai said:
Well, it saves money to go cartoon, so don't get your hopes high.

With the advent of photogrammetry, it's arguably harder to have to go hand paint all your textures. It generally ages better though when your games are expected to last 10+ years in the market.

AuthenticM said:
what?

They've been hiring for it for a long time. It seems to be what Dustin Browder went to direct.

I'm suspicious it's like StarCraft Battlefield or Battlefront given the various job postings for it, but I can't say the people insisting it's more like StarCraft Battle Royale or whatever would necessarily be wrong (not that those couldn't be modes in the same product).

Blizzard was clear that they still don't like to be first to a gameplay idea just a few days ago, so it's presumably based upon some sort of existing idea a la Team Fortress 2 -> Overwatch.

Remember · Nov 3, 2018

A part of me wants to believe that this will speed up production time, but I need to see it to believe it because Blizzard normally works on their own time, like Valve.

MissCauthon said:
I'm tired of all their games looking cartoony. I want something like Diablo 2 but with better graphics. Hopefully this new engine can help them do that.

These games need to look good on low end machines so I don't see this happening. The best they can do is to attempt to make the higher end assets look as close to Pixar level as possible.

DryCreek · Nov 3, 2018

Nirolak · Nov 3, 2018

Remember said:
A part of me wants to believe that this will speed up production time, but I need to see it to believe it because Blizzard normally works on their own time, like Valve.

I'd be pretty surprised if development sped up.

I think they just want it to be easier to support similar functionalities between games, because currently they have to constantly recreate tech to do the same things. Not having to build the underlying technology for Replays five times for example helps get the feature out the door much quicker (or at all).

This also helps people move teams and projects a lot more easily, or help out when needed, without having a huge ramp up time.

Blizzard is making a shared game engine for their next generation of games

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