Blizzard could be working on a new game engine due to be shared across its many projects, according to a job opening listed on the official website for the Irvine, California office.
Associate Software Engineer, Graphics - Shared Game Engine
Blizzard Entertainment is developing a modern, cross-platform game engine to share across all of Blizzard and power the future of Blizzard games. This new project advances technology both at Blizzard and in the gaming industry. You’ll join a collaborative team of experienced and highly skilled game developers who will work with game teams across the company to deliver a truly epic game engine. Get in early and help shape the future of gaming. Are you in?
We have an amazing opportunity for an Associate Software Engineer to make an impact on the future of graphics at Blizzard, working on our new engine. You’ll join a collaborative team of experienced and highly skilled developers working to deliver a truly epic game engine experience to our game development teams. The ideal candidate has a long-standing passion for playing games, a strong aptitude for critical thinking and analysis, outstanding people skills, and demonstrated graphics programming experience (in the personal, educational or professional arena).
It is interesting news, even more so because the listed requirements include 'interest for modern graphics backends' such as DirectX 12, Vulkan, and Metal. These are all low-level APIs that were made by Microsoft, the Khronos Group and Apple to allow game developers to extract additional performance from the hardware, mainly through reduced overhead.
Blizzard could be therefore working on this new game engine to be used as a technology base for next-generation platforms. It is unclear, though, if this engine is already being used in the upcoming Overwatch 2 (rumored to be out later this year) and Diablo IV. We'll let you know once we learn more about it.
