Call of Duty: Ghosts executive producer talks next-gen

You might have heard that Call of Duty: Ghosts is coming out this year. It's going to be on both current and next-gen consoles, which has presented a number of issues to developer Infinity Ward. Executive producer Mark Rubin has spoken about the transition to next-gen and what players can expect from the new engine.

"We want to be as understanding to the fans that they're the ones who have to struggle and go through the [next-gen] transition," said Rubin in an interview with Joystiq. "As developers we have to make that as easy for them as possible."

This will be done largely by allowing Ghosts players to take their profile with them wherever they might choose to play. So if a player starts on an Xbox 360, they can go and use their profile as normal on a friend's Xbox One, and then go home and keep playing. It's designed to be a completely smooth transition.

Rubin also talked about the new engine used in Ghosts. "The new engine is across all platforms," he said. "It isn't just next-gen, it's for current-gen as well."

Several features of the new engine were created for next-gen, before Infinity Ward found a way to make them work with current consoles too. Character customisation was a significant factor in creating the new engine, as previously it just hadn't been possible. This opened up the option to play as a female soldier.

They also built a completely next-gen audio system that completely maps the environment in real time and alters the audio accordingly. Again, they were subsequently able to make this work on current consoles for significantly improved audio.

And lastly, of course, on next-gen the the game will be much prettier. Rubin said that textures and polygon count is "way higher."

After last week's big multiplayer reveal, we're expecting to see more of Call of Duty: Ghosts at this week's Gamescom conference in Cologne.