Did you know that : Apex Legends uses a graphics engine that is more than 15 years old !

I recently switched to the side of the dark force. All the hype around Apex Legends has gotten the better of me and not without being influenced by anyone, I started playing a few games in order to make my own opinion on the subject. Actually, I'm not a specialist in this new type of game that is the Battle Royale. More generally, my tastes in FPS remain confined around great classics, with a nervous and immediate gameplay. For once, I'm spraying Quake and these other tracks from another time, but still as exhilarating to play from time to time. In the end, the experience turned out to be a pleasant surprise despite a mobility a little more rigid than I expected. Probably because of my reflexes as an old player, more used to the fluid and ample movements of the Fast-FPS. But that's not the question, because after the time of discovery, the graphics proposed by this Respawn production reminded me vaguely of something...

The Middleware Economy

A game engine is a complex element for developers and sometimes a decisive component in its success. As time goes by, the hardware evolves and offers constantly increasing performance. As a result, programmers are evolving their tools, with the aim of offering turnkey solutions to studios wishing to offer a new title on the market. These software technologies, very practical within a development chain, acting in all areas of title creation (from simple texture, to lighting, to sound management), are the subject of precious economic resources for a company that thus distributes its expertise, in the form of a user license.

This system can be compared to a software purchase made by an individual who can then use it. The difference is that the creator of the graphics engine in question only provides the database. It is then up to the studio's devs to create their own assets from what is proposed. Some firms have specialized in the creation of these famous solutions, wonderful fertile ground for creativity and software optimization. We can mention ID Software with their different versions of id Tech, Unreal Engine, Unity, Source Engine and many others...

The power of code optimization

The point is that Apex Legends, under the guise of being a rather pleasant title to admire, does, however, reveal details that can be obvious to the most discerning people. During multiple games, I realized that the aspect of the textures as well as the physics but also the structure of some objects and buildings, are of the order of déjà vu. It was only after a little more research, around the realization of this title, that the evidence appeared to me in a very clear way. The little guys at Respawn used 15-year-old technology ! However, this is not what my faithful GTX1080 seemed to indicate to me, as it works at 100% of its capacity to display a framerate close to 100 FPS, in Full HD.

Old doesn't necessarily mean obsolete. Because the Valve graphics rendering engine, which was first used for the needs of Half-Life 2, is constantly being updated and modified to meet current standards. Complete engine that supports graphics, sound, network and physics, Source is itself from GoldSource (Half-Life first of the name) which includes a whole bunch of code lines that were used for the development of Quake and Quake 2.

Or how to make something new, taking a relatively old but robust base. But the Source markdown compared to the competition comes from its ability to evolve incrementally with new components. Thus, over the years, the engine has been enriched with new technologies, without changing the structural base. A stroke of genius on the part of Valve, which offers the tool that is easy to use since it has existed for many years, while enriching it over time. A considerable time and money saving for game studios !

It is incredible to see that game producers are excellent at providing us with rich and modern content with a package that seems outdated at first glance. However, Respawn has calculated its cost well, since not only are they happy to save as much money as possible in research and development with the use of Source, they can boast of offering a modular title that will offer more than correct performance for modest configurations and offer full potential on the latest pieces of hardware. Imagine, you have a little bit of Half-Life 2 in Apex Legends ! Simply amazing !