13-year-old Decima engine allows Death Stranding team to 'accomplish many things that would be difficult to achieve elsewhere'

Death Stranding 2 — (Image credit: Kojima Productions)

When I first sat down to play Horizon Zero Dawn, I was floored by how stunning it looked. Seeing the red grass sway in the breeze and the moonlight reflecting off the backs of deadly machines made me feel like I was truly living in Aloy's world. Death Stranding also instantly wow'd me with its stunning visuals—the bleak and beautiful mountains of the first and the endless desert of the sequel, On the Beach—so it should be no surprise to learn the two games were both made in Guerilla Games' 13-year-old Decima engine.

"It offered many of the capabilities needed to build an open-world game," says Kojima Productions CTO Akio Sakamoto in a recent interview with Automaton. "While some aspects are less immediately approachable than commercial engines, its runtime rendering analysis tools stood out."

Issy van der Velde has been writing about video games professionally for five years, contributing to Rolling Stone, NME, GamesRadar+, IGN, and many more. He's been freelance and held editorial roles across news, guides, and features, and is now the deputy editor of the PC Gaming Show.

A lifelong gamer, Issy won the MCV 30 under 30 award for his work covering queer, Arab, and women's representation in the gaming industry.

His favourite games are narrative, story-driven adventures, arcade racers, roguelites, and soulslikes.

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