PhyreEngine is a license-only free to use game engine from Sony Interactive Entertainment, compatible with PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PlayStation VR, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo Switch,[1] Microsoft Windows (for OpenGL and DirectX 11), Google Android and Apple iOS.[2] PhyreEngine has been adopted by several game studios and has been used in over 200 published titles.[2]
PhyreEngine supports OpenGL and Direct3D,[3] in addition to the low level PS3 LibGCM library.[4] It provides fully functional "game templates" as source code, including support for Havok Complete XS, NVIDIA PhysX and Bullet for physics.
The development of PhyreEngine was started in 2003 to create a graphics engine for PlayStation 3.[5] The first public demonstration occurred in 2006.[5]
PhyreEngine was launched during the 2008 Game Developers Conference.[3] New features (including deferred rendering) were showcased during GDC 2009.[6] Version 2.40, released in March 2009, included a new "foliage rendering" system that provides tools and technology to render ultra-realistic trees and plants to be easily integrated into games.[7]
Version 3.0, released in 2011, has a new and powerful asset pipeline, combining enhanced versions of the already robust exporters, with a powerful processing tool to generate optimized assets for each platform. Also new is the rewritten level editor, which permits a far more data-driven approach to authoring games using PhyreEngine. Version 3.0 added support for the PlayStation Vita.[8]
