BlackSpace took the Develop:Star Award ahead of Decima and id Tech 8

At the Develop:Star Awards 2026, during the Develop conference in the United Kingdom, the BlackSpace Engine won the award for best technical innovation. Decima from Guerrilla, known from Death Stranding, and id Tech 8 from id Software, which runs the latest DOOM games, were in the same category.

The organizers call the engine a milestone for in-house graphics technology: real-time global illumination, physics, dynamic weather, destruction, streaming of the open world, and animation without loading screens between scenes. The award separately notes that Pearl Abyss invested in its own tool rather than Unreal or Unity.

Not everyone in the discussion reads the award as superiority over Decima and id Tech. At Crimson Desert’s launch, console performance was uneven, the image was blurry, and objects popped in too visibly. The prize is for innovation, not for the absence of those complaints.