Fox Engine

The Fox Engine is a cross-platform game engine built from the ground up by Kojima Productions for use in future titles developed by the team. This engine is designed for the next-generation of video games. The engine was revealed in mid 2011 and its development began after the completion of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots with the goal of making the "best engine in the world."

The engine will make it possible for Kojima Productions to develop multiplatform games with a significantly shortened development time and has been described as the first step for the developer to move away from development for a single platform. Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes will be running on this engine.

History
A demo of the engine was shown at the Konami pre-E3 press conference on June 3, 2011. Taking place in a jungle environment, the demo showed off the engine's visual capabilities and featured a young man running around, a horse and a dog. The tech-demo was not a game that will be released but instead a test area for the development of the engine. Kojima Productions will use the engine for all future titles, including a yet to be announced game made by Hideo Kojima.

On August 17, 2011, Kojima released a series of images on Twitter. The images were of facial tests created in the Fox Engine. The tweets stated that the character was a "killed character." It also stated that the character shown was not Colonel Volgin. In addition, during a lecture at the University of Southern California held by Hideo Kojima, a demo was shown to various students in a demonstration of the Fox Engine's capabilities. Later, on December 16th, Kojima released more images over Twitter, including one image showcasing "One of the key features about "Fox Engine", here's the transparent technique. See-thru underwear."

On October 25, 2011, Kojima revealed another image from the Fox Engine, this time demonstrating what Peace Walker and Chrysalis from Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker would look like if they were put into the Fox Engine and remarked that the mecha were bigger than expected.

On February 20, 2012, two pictures, one of a soldier in gear, and one of a woman in a bikini, were uploaded onto Kojima's twitter page relating to the Fox Engine.

On February 21, 2012, Development Without Borders, a site owned by Kojima Productions was uploaded promoting "The "Next" MGS". The only thing known was that it involves Big Boss, and that Kojima Productions was recruiting engineers at the Game Developers Conference pavillion between March 6th and March 9th to "help develop next-gen game engine technology for use with the Fox Engine", "high-end consoles and PC."

On March 2, 2012, the Development Without Borders website uploaded a "classified" CD labelled "Fox Engine Lighting Sample" that contained a question as to which of the two pictures was a simulation of the staff room created by the Fox Engine. Clicking on it will reveal that Side B was the correct answer, and explains how it does it. The second slide also depicts some hoops and levitating balls of varying colors in the "seats" of the table, as well as a horse entering through the room.

As the company explains, the engine doesn't use pre-calculated lightmaps to determine how static objects will reflect the light around them, but instead uses a physics-based lighting process that allows for moving objects that can be "lit so they naturally blend in with the environment."

On June 20, 2012, Kojima revealed that "There will be a MGS5 with the new Fox Engine, but what we showed was not the in-game play, or something like that. It was only a demo that we had developed internally and that we released because the lighting and all interactions with the environment had fooled everyone."

On July 23, 2012, speaking with the PlayStation Blog about 25 years of Metal Gear, Kojima revealed that his studio would be showing off their new Fox Engine on August 30 in Japan. While Kojima didn't say specifically that his team would be revealing or announcing anything new about Metal Gear Solid 5, he did say that his team aimed to test their new engine by building a game which makes them able to refine their tools: "The Fox Engine is nearly finished, but the only way to be sure it works is to create a game at the same time and improve the engine with our tools as we go along. Originally we were going to do this for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, but a lot happened along the way and instead it is being made with the engine they have at Platinum Games. Production studios in Japan are nearly extinct, a fact that we have recognized for nearly 10 years, and although the Fox Engine is not finished we are ready to show what it can do… on August 30th in Japan to be more specific.

Official reveal
On August 30, 2012, a demo of Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes was shown at Metal Gear 25th Anniversary in which the Fox Engine's abilities was demonstrated. Eventually a similar demo of the game was shown at PAX Prime 2012.

Kojima talked about Fox Engine at PAX Prime 2012:

“The thing is, once we get the Fox Engine moving as we do now. You can make an FPS, you can make an Uncharted, etc. But what I wanted to do is make an open-world game, and that’s what I’m doing now.”