Zynga’s NaturalMotion game studio has made an impressive technological leap with its Dawn of Titans game that I saw in a preview. NaturalMotion’s developers went to a lot of trouble creating a battle full of thousands of computer-animated medieval soldiers — only to have them swept aside like so much cannon fodder by a handful of giants known as titans.
Dawn of Titans is an amazing accomplishment because it can stage battle scenes with huge numbers of soldiers on an iPad. The title is the latest to show that mobile devices have become powerful enough to do the job that high-end gaming computers performed just a few years ago. And in doing so, NaturalMotion could very well make high-end, hardcore gameplay accessible to the masses.
For NaturalMotion’s corporate parent, Zynga, the game is a departure from the cute characters and happy cartoon landscapes of games like FarmVille. It reflects the strategy of Don Mattrick, chief executive of Zynga for more than a year now, to broaden beyond the company’s casual roots.
With Dawn of Titans, you reign over a beautiful kingdom with a castle, thousands of trees in a forest, clouds overhead, and waterfalls. The 3D animation is very high quality for a mobile game, and it is one more example of NaturalMotion pushing the edge of what’s possible, said Torsten Reil, chief executive of NaturalMotion, which Zynga bought last year for $527 million.
