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[yatesl]

Somethig I've always wondered about. We've all played games with 'tacked on' sections that vary wildly from what a game is good at, whether it randomly tries to be a racing game for one level, or perhaps a clunky first person section when it's a 3D platformer.

How feasible would it be to combine multiple genres in a single game? Perhaps engines is the wrong word (considering almost every genre featured on Unreal 3 last gen), but a first person as good as Call of Duty, the next level being ripped from Forza, and jumping to Rayman 2D after that.

I guess it's part of the "imagine if one console did everything!" thought we all had as a kid - what if one game nailed each of the genres perfectly in one game.

Would you effectively have to, for lack of a better way of explaining, load a different .exe each time to load up a totally different ruleset?

 

[Wiktor]

God. I can't remember the damn name of the game, but I'm sure I've seen a game announced with two engines in last year.

 

[Chev]

Would you effectively have to, for lack of a better way of explaining, load a different .exe each time to load up a totally different ruleset?

Quite possible, actually games already tend to work like that when there are memory constraints. For example the ages-old FF7, like the FFs before it and probably at least up to 9, was divided into 6 executables, with one (kernel) always loaded and the others (field, menu, world map, battle, and mini game) loaded only as needed.

 

[Dictator93]

MH 2010 did this. Unreal Engine for Single Player, Frostbite 1.5 or whatever for multiplayer.

 

[eot]

EVE-Online uses a separate rendering engine for the Walking in Stations part (as compared to the flying around in space part).

 

[SparkTR]

I think a James Bond game did this. One engine for the shooting sections, another for the driving sections.

 

[Ruff]

Didn't BF3 have a seperate .exe for the driving sections during the story? I feel like that was a completely different engine.

I think it was BF3 at least... it's been a while. I definitely remember playing an FPS with a really out of place driving sequence.


EDIT: I was wrong, it was Medal Of Honor: Warfighter. The driving sections used Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit's engine

 

[Alienous]

MH 2010 did this. Unreal Engine for Single Player, Frostbite 1.5 or whatever for multiplayer.

Yeah, and a massive load screen in-between.

 

[Renekton]

Probably Jurrasic Park for SNES

 

[PsihoPerihelion]

I think a James Bond game did this. One engine for the shooting sections, another for the driving sections.

Everything or Nothing did this. Custom IdTech 3 for shooting, the Need for Speed engine for driving sections.

 

[xenorevlis]

Engine can be an all-encompassing term, but within there can be different physics and mechanics that run off individualized versions of a rendering engine (meaning that all the logic that handles an FPS area would be dropped for vehicular gameplay). The overlying part that might remain the same is the way materials are handled, animations play, etc. for a cohesive look, but things can get really tricky.

In Uncharted 2, for example, the game runs off a custom engine but certain levels load completely different forms of the engine, sometimes swapping a static level for a streaming system like on the train, and then later something similar to handle how you play the Shambalah portions. In many cases like this, swapping out major functionality is essential - sometimes meaning no major physics or removal of terrain deformation, to allow for a large enemy or expansive real-time cutscene.

 

[TheAssist]

You dont need different engines or applications for that. Imagine if you had to swap your disc when getting into a car in GTA or when playing a poker minigame. You can do it all in one game.

But you cant just copy paste stuff from one game to another. Everything needs to be coherent and well thought out. If you want several genres in one game you basically have to create two fully fleshed out games, doesnt matter how short that segment is.
Thats expansive. Too expansive for most devs. Thats why those small sections of different gameplay usually arent quite up there on the same level as the main game. Less money, time and effort went into them.

I'll just leave that recent Extra credits episode here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQhxtfKH1f8

Its about asymmetry in multiplayer games. I think your question is answered at the end of the video (at least for multiplayer games).

 

[Jackano]

You already have to program the things differently for starting anyway. If your code is clean enough, it would be well decoupled and eventually can be seen as two 'engines'.
If you are really ambitious, this will ends up be two specialized engines. But here, things gets costly (almost like making two games), and the tricky part is performance, and how to handle the necessary common parts.

 

[BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO]

Quite possible, actually games already tend to work like that when there are memory constraints. For example the ages-old FF7, like the FFs before it and probably at least up to 9, was divided into 6 executables, with one (kernel) always loaded and the others (field, menu, world map, battle, and mini game) loaded only as needed.

Damn

Everything or Nothing did this. Custom IdTech 3 for shooting, the Need for Speed engine for driving sections.

This is cool too.

 

[icecold1983]

MH 2010 did this. Unreal Engine for Single Player, Frostbite 1.5 or whatever for multiplayer.

i read somewhere that the animus corporation missions in black flag used the dunia engine. i dont remember where or know if its accurate.

i think in an ideal situation each different genre section would be developed by a studio proficient in said genre on an engine well equipped for that genre. when its all done by a single studio it becomes much more difficult for each individual genre to be great.

 

[KupoNut]

In the end it's all just code being compiled and the concept of an engine can become pretty vague.

 

[Mooreberg]

Crash Bandicoot Warped had four game engines. Although I am not sure this fits the provided description, since it is not different graphics engines from different studios cobbled together into a single product.

God. I can't remember the damn name of the game, but I'm sure I've seen a game announced with two engines in last year.

Medal of Honor (2010) used UE3 for campaign and Frostbite for multiplayer. Presumably MOH Warfighter did the same, but I never played it so I cannot say for sure.

 

[Falk]

You might as well consider Mode 7 on SNES as a 'different engine' considering its implementation in most games.

 

[ResidentDante]

Didn't BF3 have a seperate .exe for the driving sections during the story? I feel like that was a completely different engine.

I think it was BF3 at least... it's been a while. I definitely remember playing an FPS with a really out of place driving sequence.


EDIT: I was wrong, it was Medal Of Honor: Warfighter. The driving sections used Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit's engine

I think you are thinking of NFS: The Run, that used the Frostbite 2 engine, which again MOH Warfighter uses.

Medal of Honor (2010) used UE3 for campaign and Frostbite for multiplayer. Presumably MOH Warfighter did the same, but I never played it so I cannot say for sure.

MOH (2010) uses the Unreal 3 engine for singleplayer, and Frostbite 1,5 for multiplayer.
MOH Warfighter is Frostbite 2 all the way.

 

[leeh]

Forza has historically used a separate physics and a rendering engine since 3. Their physics engine runs at 360fps whereas the renderer ran at 60fps.

Also, the H2A anniversary in MCC ran 2 engines simultaneously to allow you to switch back and forth between old and new.

It depends how flexible your engine is. For example, you see UE being used for a mass of different genres. If you develop your game play beyond the rules of the genre, then I suppose it answers your question? I wouldn't say it'd be the engine, but the artistic goal of your game and how flexible your engine is.

Like how Frostbite was used for NFS Rivals, but then its used in Battlefield. If you had enough time, you could cross over between the two. Although, if you had more complicated driving physics which is featured in NFS, you couldn't put that in Battlefield because of the performance overhead it would add since BF will use a more simplistic model.

 

[EVIL]

Its very possible to have multiple genre's in a single game. problem is that you are basically designing and implementing multiple games and package it into one title.

Its a dumb move from a developer standpoint.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

Yakuza games have a in built SEGA arcade on the high street with a decent selection of retro sega-esque mini-games.

 

[laxu]

It's not that one engine can't do all the thing OP mentioned. For example Unity or any of the other big name engines are used for a very wide variety of games nowadays, from 2D platformers to 3D shooters. For example in Unity for a 2D game the underlying engine would still process things as 3D surfaces (so that sprite is essentially just a two polygon square) but just limit the camera movement.

The main reason why those minigames or twist levels are often not as good as the main game is simply that less time was spent/allocated on them.

Turning a 3D shooter into a on-rails shooter is quite common because it's somewhat easy to do. Just halt the movement of the player (or just have him die if he gets off the wagon). perhaps the only problem is the larger than normal level which might require streaming of assets instead of having a full level from the start.

The tricky part is having to redo all the mechanics for the minigame/level or if a completely different art style is needed (for example first person shooter -> 2D pixel platformer). Then you essentially have to code two games even if they use the same engine.

 

[Castef]

God. I can't remember the damn name of the game, but I'm sure I've seen a game announced with two engines in last year.

Star Citizen?

 

[2+2=5]

Engines are usually general purpose, so they can do almost everything, you shouldn't need more engines.
The quality of a certain section(or game) has almost nothing to do with engine, for example you can use Cryengine 3 or UE4 or whatever but it won't transform PS1 level models into uber detailed AAA models, the same applies to physics and all the other aspects of an engine, engines are tools, they can help a lot but the quality of the result depends on the work of developers.

 

[weekev]

I get what you are saying OP and it would be awesome. But to game publishers thats the equivelant of giving away £120 worth of games for £40. The only time Ive seen a publisher do this was the incredible Orange Box.

Edit folks above me are taking OP too literally, hes really talking about putting multiple genres together but doing it well, eg if the driving sections of GTAV felt like Forza.

 

[K.Sabot]

You'd think those games that mix voxels and polygons would use multiple engines at once, but I'm not engine developer.

so fuck if i know

 

[ResidentDante]

Wasn't the snowboard section in Final Fantasy 7 running at 60fps vs. the games normal 30fps (PS! version) and probably in a completely different engine. Though that game may also do it for the battles as well.

 

[vato_loco]

I always wondered about this, and now I have a lot of answers. Gaf is awesome.

 

[CircleOfFire]

It somewhat depends on your definition of engine, like if you only mean Unity/Unreal Engine/Frostbite/etc, then it appears there's a couple of examples that do that. However they're mostly just big lumps of code, much like anything is in a game (or any app). A game with driving and shooting sections might use just the one 3D engine, but will use different parts or event separate components for physics for example because driving physics don't apply to shooting on foot.

 

[DOWN]

Halo Anniversary games run two 'engines' simultaneously for the graphics to switch from new to Classic on the fly.

 

[Steroyd]

I was watching a completionist episode on Uncharted and he touched up on that Naughty Dog had about 3 different engines for the Jak and Daxter games.

 

[injurai]

Star Citizen?

I don't believe so. Where did you ever hear this?

 

[FordGTGuy]

Master Chief Collection

Halo CE(PC), Halo CE Anniversary(Xbox 360), Halo 2(PC), Halo 3(Xbox 360), Halo 4(Xbox 360) and Halo 2 Anniversary(Xbox One).

 

[Bomber Bob]

MH 2010 did this. Unreal Engine for Single Player, Frostbite 1.5 or whatever for multiplayer.

Monster Hunter 2010? The chinese f2p one?

 

[Omni]

Master Chief Collection

Halo CE(Original Xbox), Halo 2(PC), Halo 3(Xbox 360), Halo 4(Xbox 360) and Halo 2 Anniversary(Xbox One).

Does that really count? It's just four different games on one disc. Don't think it's what OP is talking about

 

[Contra11]

This needs to be done in GTA like games .. because most open world games suck at driving ..

 

[Enter the Dragon Punch]

Monster Hunter 2010? The chinese f2p one?

Medal of Honor

 

[FordGTGuy]

Does that really count? It's just four different games on one disc. Don't think it's what OP is talking about

They are running on different engines... unless you think Halo CE and Halo 4 are on the same engine?

He is asking for examples of titles with multiple game engines... MCC definitely has different game engines.

 

[Raist]

Isn't one of the Halo games (not talking about the MCC here) kinda runs 2 engines at the same time or something?

 

[FordGTGuy]

Isn't one of the Halo games (not talking about the MCC here) kinda runs 2 engines at the same time or something?

Halo Anniversary?

Not sure why you would exclude MCC as Halo Anniversary is a part of MCC.

 

[Raist]

Halo Anniversary?

Not sure why you would exclude MCC as Halo Anniversary is a part of MCC.

No, the original version. Was it Halo 2?

And counting the MCC is a bit weird. It's not a "game" per se but a collection of them. It'd be like counting the Ultimate GoW collection.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

This is kind of an odd thread.

Suikoden has 3 different battle systems. How does it matter whether they are 3 different 'engines' or not? It's not like you'll see the difference.

 

[Lichter]

halo 2 anniversary

 

[DOWN]

They are running on different engines... unless you think Halo CE and Halo 4 are on the same engine?

He is asking for examples of titles with multiple game engines... MCC definitely has different game engines.

Op is saying 1 game with multiple engines. The collection is 4 distinct titles on one disc. I don't think it's what OP was asking for or else we could mention that Xbox Live Arcade discs.

The Anniversary titles count I'd say, since they simultaneously use two engines.

 

[lazygecko]

Are multi-engine games a result of one engine just not being deemed good enough for a certain game segment, or rather the result of several aspects of the game being outsourced to different developers?

 

[Platy]

I understood that OP wants one game with diferent GENRES, not exactly engine.

So ... would Wario Ware/Game & Wario works for you or something closer to Spore ?

 

[MaxiLive]

A single engine would be capable of producing all those experiences in one game/exe the amount of work needed to produce high quality experiences for each genre via one engine is rather immense.

As you using multiple engines for different genres it usually isn't cost effect for a dev team due to licensing, lack of man power of working two engines, individual dev skill set and a 100 other different reasons.

Also certain experiences it is cheaper to make their own in house engine if they're going to be producing a trilogy of games and already have a skilled development team capable of producing their own engine/tools.

 

[Omni]

They are running on different engines... unless you think Halo CE and Halo 4 are on the same engine?

He is asking for examples of titles with multiple game engines... MCC definitely has different game engines.

Get off your high horse. MCC is a collection of different titles put together. OP is asking for a single game.

... unless you think Halo CE and Halo 4 are the same game?

 

[bj00rn_]

Good too