Treyarch defends Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 engine

Treyarch has defended its use of the seven-year-old engine being used to power CoD: Black Ops 2, saying "It runs at 60 and it's gorgeous. What exactly is there to be upset about with the engine?"

Speaking to OXM, Treyarch game design director David Vondehaar said he's happy both with the modifications made to Infinity Ward's original IW engine and the performance that the team has eked from it for Call of Duty Black Ops 2:

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

"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," he went on. "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."

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

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 runs on the IW 3 engine and launches on PS3, 360 and PC on November 13. It launches on Wii U at the console's launch.