Ritualistic Speed

In a three-dimensional world where reality is second only to action, Ritual Entertainment is hard at work developing the technology to take its future titles to the front of the light-speed pack. Unable to reveal the name of the next title (currently in the works), the boys at the Texas-based office are still pretty excited that they've managed to lure away two key personnel from the 3Dfx team to develop their own hardware-based acceleration technology. Gary McTaggart and Charlie Brown (no kidding!) joined the Ritual team three weeks ago, according to Mark Dochtermann of Ritual.

The new acceleration technology will feature NURBs (Non-linear Rational B-splines) graphics technology for more natural looking and organic surfaces, and will utilize the power of the Intel Pentium 2 processor AGP (Advanced Graphics Port) card for faster rendering of indoor and outdoor environments. Very tight-lipped about the details, Dochtermann would only say that the first title using Ritual's exclusive acceleration engine is scheduled for release in the first half of 1999.

Indicating the new engine would be a departure from what the Quake engine is capable of he said "we're taking a right turn from what Quake does."

Dochtermann is maintaining a low profile as certain trademark issues are still pending, and he indicated to GameSpot News that there could be additions to the new game's development team as well.

With Sin not yet out the door, the Ritual team is already thinking about the days after Sin.

Keep posted as GS follows the evolution of Ritual's new technology.