Microsoft buys Havok from Intel, promises to keep licensing physics tech

Microsoft now owns one of gaming’s most popular middleware tools.

The Xbox company announced this morning that it has acquired Havok, the technology company best known for creating a physics engine of the same name, from Intel. You’ve likely seen the capabilities of the Havok engine before in games like Halo, Dark Souls, and Destiny. Developers enjoy using Havok because it provides a streamlined way to simulate the effects of gravity, friction, and other natural forces in games without having to dedicate a team of programmers and mathematicians to the job. Now, Microsoft owns the rights to that tech. But don’t worry, developers, the company says it will still let you play with its new ball (which perfectly obeys the laws of physics), and Microsoft may even use this acquisition to offer some enticing new tools to partners looking to use the Azure cloud service.