Development
Early in development, the game was called WWF '98 and featured a different ring and arena. The development team for War Zone consisted of 20 people, 10 each working on the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation versions. Initial development on the game was begun on the PlayStation as developers waited to receive Nintendo 64 development kits. Space considerations of Nintendo 64 cartridges prevented developers from including the CD-quality audio and full motion video of wrestlers from the PlayStation version. Despite the limited cartridge space, lead programmer Justin Towns (who had previously worked on WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game and WWF In Your House for Acclaim) found the Nintendo 64's z-buffering support and the faster speed in creating cartridges over burning CDs to be advantageous during the development process. The game took roughly a year and a half to develop.
Parts of the War Zone game engine were taken from another Acclaim Sports title, NHL Breakaway. One of the developers who worked on Breakaway, John Lund developed the "soft skin" technology that allowed characters to be rendered using models without seam lines. For the PlayStation version, they used 3D models with more polygons and larger textures. Reduced polygon models and smaller textures were used during four wrestler matches in the PlayStation versions, while the Nintendo 64 used the same models for all matches. Developers found they were able to run the game at up to 640x240 resolution and maintain a constant 30 frames per second. The development team aimed to create a simulation-oriented experience, but with faster gameplay. Motion capture for the game was done by several wrestlers not working for any major professional wrestling promotion, who performed the various moves that were included in the game. Some maneuvers were dropped from the final game due to space and gameplay considerations. WWF announcers Vince McMahon and Jim Ross recorded over an hour's worth of speech for the game's match commentary.
The same engine from War Zone would be reused for three follow-up games, ending with the 2000 release ECW Anarchy Rulz.
Read more about this topic: WWF War Zone
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