Remember the Havok Physics Engine? In case you forgot, its new trailer kicks things into overdrive

If you were an avid gamer in the early naughts, then you surely remember the legendary Havok Engine, (in)famous for its striking physics in games such as Half-Life 2, Max Payne 2, and the entire firs🐓t-party Bethesda RPG roster. Now, Havok may be clawing its way ba🌟ck into the limelight.

To be perfectly clear, it’s not like Havok’s gone anywhere in the time since: the video games’ focus on physics-driven gameplay and activities has simply shrunken down into irrelevance. Havok is a very particular kind of middleware that’s been designed from the ground up specifically and only to handle video game physics, and this feature has been de-emphasized to the point of mere neatness. Like, sure, it’s cool that clutter flies around when you shoot through shelving in The Division 2, but it doesn’t add much to the experience at all. That may well change sometime in the future because Havok has just released a delightful new showpiece.

Is Havok Engine about to make itself the star of the show once again?

It’s hard not to feel giddy upon seeing Havok in action in the featured video, I’ve got to admit. Caves come crashing down, rocks break apart, and barrels explode to immensely satisfying effect, making it clear that Havok intends to make video game physics as cool as it darn well should be. Curiously, this is the first YouTube showcase video Havok’s uploaded in over a decade. The company’s previous outing was , if I might say so myself.

Now, the important bit to keep in mind is that Havok is only useful when it’s being integrated into an actual video game: that’s the middleware part of the equation. Crucially, at the end of the showcase, Havok features a small Unreal Engine badge in the lower right corner of the screen. This implies (if not outright confirms) that the demo ran on UE, suggesting relatively easy and straightforward Havok implementations for UE projects down the line. Would physics such as these be enough to make me like Unreal 5? Perhaps, yes.

As I previously pointed out, Havok has been remarkably successful all along, though it’s taken a backseat since its introduction to the industry. Whereas once you might’ve gotten all excited just to see the legendary Havok logo during the game’s splash screen videos, now it’s entirely too easy to miss the fact that Havok is there in the first place. Did you know that for physics calculations, for example? How about Doom Eternal, Elden Ring, or Final Fantasy 16? They all leverage this tech to some extent, it’s just that physics is usually just an added bonus rather than a kicker all of its own.

It’s still too early to get hyped up over a mere developer-focused tech demo, but Havok is an institution unto itself, and I cannot wait to see what comes of this exciting new iteration of it. Half-Life 3 confirmed, perhaps? If not, how about an Oblivion remake witཧ🍌h appropriately upgraded physics interactions?