Decima

**Decima** is a proprietary game engine developed by Guerrilla Games and owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The engine was first released in November 2013, and saw substantial usage from Guerrilla and related companies since then. Its development also saw collaboration from Kojima Productions. Decima was initially used for games available on the PlayStation 4 and its eventual successor PlayStation 5, but also expanded to personal computers in 2020.

## History

Created by Guerrilla Games, *Decima* was first used for Guerrilla's 2013 title *Killzone Shadow Fall*, which was released for the PlayStation 4. Guerrilla's next game *Horizon Zero Dawn* was announced to use a modified version of the engine in June 2015 following the game's reveal. Supermassive Games' 2015 cinematic adventure title *Until Dawn* and its virtual-reality *Until Dawn: Rush of Blood* were also revealed to be using the game engine, which at the time was unnamed; both titles marked the first time the engine was used by a third-party studio and for virtual reality development respectively.

Guerrilla formally introduced Decima, and that the studio partnered with Kojima Productions to further develop the game engine. Kojima Productions' first title as an independent studio, *Death Stranding*, was also confirmed to run on Decima. In 2020, the engine saw first releases for personal computers, with *Death Stranding* and *Horizon Zero Dawn* receiving Windows versions. A macOS version for *Death Stranding* was announced in 2023, which would mark the engine's debut on the operating system.

Guerrilla's 2022 title and sequel to *Zero Dawn*, *Horizon Forbidden West*, also uses the Decima engine. In an interview with Famitsu from October 2022, Hermen Hulst confirmed that Decima sees usage from studios other than Guerrilla. In December 2022, Kojima Productions' *Death Stranding 2* was confirmed to use Decima.

## Features

By 2016, Decima included several tools and features including artificial intelligence, game physics and logic tools. The engine also includes features for open world creation and design, with then-Guerrilla Games president Hermen Hulst describing Decima as having "the entire world creation suite".

Decima uses a system called Nubis, created to produce real-time volumetric cloudscapes for the atmospheric systems of *Horizon Zero Dawn*. Nubis was created in 2015, by Guerrilla employees Andrew Schneider and Nathan Vos. Nubis was significantly enhanced and expanded upon for the release of the 2023 expansion pack *Burning Shores*; as the PlayStation 5 was able to handle larger datasets, Schneider and Vos used voxel technology to produce denser and more dynamic cloudscapes.

With the release of 2022's *Horizon Forbidden West*, Decima supports the usage of Epic Games' MetaHuman character creation technology. This will be carried over to *Death Stranding 2*.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.gamesradar.com/several-playstation-studios-are-making-games-in-horizon-forbidden-wests-engine/
2. ↑ https://www.ign.com/articles/2016/12/03/death-stranding-will-run-on-the-decima-engine-developed-by-guerrilla-games
3. ↑ https://www.guerrilla-games.com/read/nubis-authoring-real-time-volumetric-cloudscapes-with-the-decima-engine
4. ↑ https://blog.playstation.com/2023/03/29/pushing-the-envelope-achieving-next-level-clouds-in-horizon-forbidden-west-burning-shores/
5. ↑ https://www.3lateral.com/projects/horizon-forbidden-west.html
6. ↑ https://www.3lateral.com/projects/death-stranding-2.html