We look at the engine technology powering World of Tanks and its spin-offs

The top 14 game engines: BigWorld

Company: Wargaming
Platforma: Browser, PC
Used in: World of Tanks, Grandia Online, Heroes: Scions of Phoenix, Moego, Realm of the Titans
www.bigworldtech.com

Solid user client and state-of-the-art backend are what attracted attention to BigWorld Technology, says Wargaming, the fast-moving online games company which purchased the middleware provider last year.

BigWorld is built to support MMOs. Currently, it can be used to create PC and browser games, though interoperability for other platforms is planned.

The BigWorld engine famously powers Wargaming’s runaway hit World of Tanks, and is now being used to build spin-offs, World of Warplanes and World of Warships.

“The engine’s architecture takes a lot of complexity out of building a multiplayer game, which allows games designers to get assets into the game quickly. It’s the reason why BigWorld has been used by small indie teams, all the way up to professional games developers that support millions of players,” says Wargaming’s lead client programmer Martin Slater.

Providing new features while supporting a range of developers can be tough, says Slater. So it is imperative, he says, to prevent cases where solving technical issues damages core gameplay.

“Supporting a diverse set of platforms, minimising development costs and optimising production time are key challenges in engine development today. Each platform requires significant technical changes, not to mention major gameplay adjustments,” Slater explains.

BigWorld is available to licence for commercial projects or indie ones, and support for the ever-growing range of connected devices is also planned.

“The bottom line for customers is an outstanding graphical experience that runs on the hardware they already own. It is very commonplace for games – especially triple-A titles – to require increasingly powerful and expensive hardware,” says Slater.

“We take pride in delivering games that work on a wide range of machines, be it a high-end gaming PC or an average laptop.”

You can view all of the top 14 game engine profiles as they are published here.

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