Medal of Honor armed with FIFA animation tech

Electronic Arts’ world-class animation tech – made famous in numerous EA Sports titles – is being employed in both the Medal of Honor reboot project and Crysis 2.

And Peter Moore, the veteran industry exec heading up EA Sports, told Develop that the technology crossover marks a new approach in the company’s development philosophy.

“We do tremendous cross studio sharing,” he said. “You can take Fight Night and apply a lot of that tech to our MMA game. Feature sharing, great thought sharing with the two teams going back and forth between Vancouver and Orlando [EA Tiburon].“

He added: “Interestingly we are utilising our [ANT] engine in some of our FPS games. As soldiers run from position to position – and even the bigger games have this – there is kind of a stiffness of the soldier running that would not fly in a sports game.

“The use of our ANT engine in our FPS games is something you are going to hear more about. Things like Medal of Honor and Crysis 2.”

EA Sports’ ANT Engine was first made public back in 2007 and is used in key titles such as FIFA 10. Its application in Medal of Honor and Crysis, however, is the beginning of a new trend.

“The utilisation of technology developed within Sports that uses motion, which can be moved across to our EA Games label, is something I am excited to see,” Moore added.

The move is a further demonstration of the versatility of the Medal of Honor project.

The game is being co-developed between EA LA and Swedish outfit EA DICE – the latter handling multiplayer responsibilities.

Last month DICE offered Develop a glimpse into Electronic Arts’ scale of ambition on the Medal of Honor reboot project – with the developer claiming to have attempted ‘the biggest gun recording ever’ for the game.

EA DICE audio director Stefan Strandberg said his own studio and EALA spent two days with movie recordists and nearly one hundred microphones to record the game’s gun sounds in the most meticulous fashion.

“I think it’s the biggest gun recording ever attempted – a joint venture with the Medal of Honor team,” he said.