Havok
More info
- Creator
- Telekinesys Research (Dublin)
- Released
- Owner
- Microsoft
- Type
- Physics middleware
- License
- Proprietary
- Website
- havok.com
Physics middleware that became the de facto standard for rigid-body dynamics in console games — best remembered for the crates and ragdolls in Half-Life 2.
Built by the Irish company Telekinesys Research (Dublin, founded 1998) and shipped around 2000. It handed game designers a ready-made solution for collisions, rigid bodies and ragdolls without writing their own solver. Intel bought Havok in 2007; Microsoft took over in 2015.
It has run in thousands of titles — the Halo series, Elder Scrolls, Assassin's Creed. Proprietary and expensive to license, which is part of why open alternatives like Bullet and later Jolt emerged.