Heavenly Sword Developed With Havok Complete

Havok says that Sony Europe and Ninja Theory used its Havok Complete suite, which combines Havok Physics and Havok Animation, in the development of Heavenly Sword, the recently released martial arts action drama for PlayStation 3. The company recently announced Havok 5, the latest version of its modular toolset, at this year's Austin Game Developers Conference. Shortly thereafter, chip giant Intel announced the purchase of the company to the tune of $110 million, making it a subsidiary. Havok Physics, the company's next generation game physics SDK, along with Havok Animation, its integrated animation system, helped create a "complex physical world" for the game, according to Ninja Theory's co-founder and technology chief Mike Ball. "The characters respond in a convincing way to physical forces they experience, such as getting back up in a realistic manner when they have fallen down or negotiating obstacles they encounter.” Players can sweep debris against opponents, kick over tables to cut off an oncoming surge of enemies and throw opponents into objects within the game such as scenery or other enemies. In total, the player experiences large-scale destruction of enemies and environments through the use of Havok Complete. “Additionally we were extremely happy with the ability of Havok Complete to fully utilize the spectrum of available processing power on the Playstation 3 Cell processor," Ball added. "As developers, it truly enabled us to create the level of destruction you would expect from a next-generation martial arts epic, especially in scenes with high character count.”