Offset Studios Goes Next Generation

There’s only a few months left before Epic Games releases the much anticipated Unreal Tournament 2007 but already, another buzz in the industry has drawn away some of the spotlight. Three people: Sam McGrath, Travis Stringer and Trevor Stringer, formerly part of the seven man team that made up S2 Games (which took home the grand prize at IGF in 2004 with the award winning Savage: The Battle for Newerth), have been developing what could possibly give even CryTek’s new engine a run for its money. Project Offset aims to achieve a new benchmark in next generation technology and merge it with the epic fantasy genre and a first person viewpoint. While the idea itself may come off initially as overambitious given that the venture has been primarily running off donations so far, rest assured gamers; the team has already seen that one coming. By combining high definition rendering, normal mapping support, and the use of various post processing procedures, source models that run beyond a million polygons can be rendered in real time on your computer at only a few thousand. Another great feature of the engine pertains to the multiple spawn capability which, unlike the recent Starship Troopers, will allow a large number of entities to appear simultaneously on-screen without sacrificing any framerate. These innovative yet simple techniques will enable the development team to realistically present us with their planned co-operative Helms Deep style experience in true cinematic form without requiring normal joes like us to draw out a large chunk of our savings account for the newest system.