KH3 uses Unreal Engine 4

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Takoyaki

SOLDIER Second Class
May 27, 2014
339
124
31
#3
Coincides with this:
currently, the Luminous development team has been integrated into the FFXV team, and it is progressing as a custom engine optimized for FFXV.
So they kind of have to lol.
 

Squirrel Emperor

Nuts
Moderator
Sep 26, 2013
1,612
626
#4
It also coincides with that rumor about Luminous being dead too.

Both Crystal Tools and Luminous have been a clusterfuck for Square Enix. They have wasted a ton of money and resources. Engine development issues are one reason why Square Enix has been a disaster last generation and why we still continue to wait for Final Fantasy XV, a game that should have been out on the PS3 and old news now.

Unreal Engine 4 is suppose to be easy and faster to work with. It's not a bad move at all.

Square Enix is trying to be efficient again.
 

Tornak

Keyblade Master
May 18, 2014
718
421
31
Madrid, Spain
#6
I'm on board. Give the Unreal Engine 4 the praise it deserves! You guys will be amazed what it's capable of.
I get the optimism and actually appreciate it, but seriously, this is AWFUL news for the most part (it has the good side of it being UE4, which would mean getting things done in time, sure).

But Luminous was supposed to solve last generation's problems: having a competent, versatile and good looking engine with a global use in the company to save money and time problems. Basically, to avoid Crystal Tools shameful clusterfuck. And yet they do it again, since it's being used as a complementary engine: I don't care if it gets used more at the end of XV than Ebony, it was supposed to be a full engine, not something to complement with others. And let's not talk about the amount of resources and time spent. That's where KH engine problems came from, it likely is a screw-up of an engine when on its own, which it's worrying when it was goal.

Now, there is a good part on this, and I agree with you: UE 4 looks nothing like 3, which was bland (except some games, they were mostly ugly), troublesome for some devs (hi, The Last Remnant...) and not very versatile. So this means that I don't think they'll spend, say, much more than 3 years from now to develop it.

I just hope UE4 proves itself good to go when it comes to KH artstyle and gameplay, I don't want it to lose personality or being a bland-looking game compared to previous ones.

If it lends itself to it, I guess that'd mean that future titles will mainly use it. Do you think they'll use it for XVI? I know it's just rumours (and speculation based on logic), but they seem to have been working on XVI for a little now, so who knows. And what about KH III's special shaders? Well, UE4 seems strong in that regard, so...
 
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Tornak

Keyblade Master
May 18, 2014
718
421
31
Madrid, Spain
#7
Look up the game Rime. That would probably ease your worries. Also, I'm being optimistic because I know for a fact the reason why they resorted to using the Unreal Engine 4 instead of the Luminous engine and it's a smart move they did.
Avoid getting mad based on what game engines developers are using. As far as I know, I have never heard of a gamer that judges a game based on the game engine its built upon. Even though this engine change causes to debunk many of the fans' vision of what KHIII will look like but it doesn't matter.
Yeah, I know about Rime and Tequila Works. They actually are based not far from where I live :D That game really shows how versatile UE4 can be.

And no, I'm not even mad about this, and no way I'd be mad about an engine change that's only going to make it easier for the game to come out and be without technical problems (like Crystal Tools in XIV, XII-2 and LR).

It's a smart move, no doubt of that. But it's really worrying and says a lot of how fucking INCOMPETENT and stupid this company can be. The amount of time, effort, money and future prospects poured into that engine is way too big to be worth it if they only use it as a half-assed engine for XV. This is almost the exact same thing that happened last gen and punished us with iterations of a game nobody wanted and with no other mainline in sight since 2006.

Incompetent doesn't even begin to describe this company, seriously. But well, that's a problem of SE's R&D and the company's direction board. The poor devs at Osaka or Nomura aren't guilty at all, and I actually trust them (at least to deliver a nice ending to the main series).
 
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#8
LOL

Well, on one hand, here's another excuse to wave an angry fist at the thought of more systematic incompetence, the wasting of countless hours of effort and manpower, investment sinking into what can only be described as a probable black hole, and the likelihood that they doomed themselves to make a similar mistake AGAIN.

Ninja edit: This doesn't rule out Luminous being used for another game, of course, but when the hands behind the engine have essentially been subsumed into FFXV, one does wonder...

On the other hand, this is good news. Unreal Engine 4 looks great, is flexible as heck, will offer plenty of support from different corners of the industry, and has quite an assortment of upcoming games utilising it, including Tekken 7, Fable Legends, Abzû, Scalebound, Rime, and Crackdown. Kingdom Hearts 3 as a result might actually come out within our lifetime, and afterwards and/or in the meantime, perhaps the company can actually release some games!
 

Squirrel Emperor

Nuts
Moderator
Sep 26, 2013
1,612
626
#9
If it lends itself to it, I guess that'd mean that future titles will mainly use it. Do you think they'll use it for XVI?
I think this is what will happen. All signs point to them killing engine development all together and sticking with UE4 from now on.

Kingdom Hearts 3 as a result might actually come out within our lifetime, and afterwards and/or in the meantime, perhaps the company can actually release some games!
Another reason why it's a good move. The games they make can come out a bit faster now.
 
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somni

PSICOM Soldier
Nov 26, 2013
70
41
#10
Honestly a little disheartening, but not all that surprised.

They keep saying they've had issues with the engine. It's painfully obvious the issue lies in SE and management of staff and projects.

I don't even care all that much, so long as XV gets out the door and into my hands.
 

APZonerunner

Network Boss-man
Administrator
UFFSite Veteran
Site Staff
Jul 25, 2013
1,134
926
35
Solihull, UK
www.rpgsite.net
#11
If this helps to get the game out, it's good... but that said, UE is not an engine designed for RPGs, so it'll be interesting to see how Square makes that work and builds some custom tools to make it work.
 

Yause

Balamb Garden Freshman
Aug 30, 2014
31
13
47
#12
It's a smart move, no doubt of that. But it's really worrying and says a lot of how fucking INCOMPETENT and stupid this company can be. The amount of time, effort, money and future prospects poured into that engine is way too big to be worth it if they only use it as a half-assed engine for XV. This is almost the exact same thing that happened last gen and punished us with iterations of a game nobody wanted and with no other mainline in sight since 2006.

Incompetent doesn't even begin to describe this company, seriously. But well, that's a problem of SE's R&D and the company's direction board. The poor devs at Osaka or Nomura aren't guilty at all, and I actually trust them (at least to deliver a nice ending to the main series).
I'm not sure if much actual work went into Luminous (lots of research on advanced AI and 3D rendering techniques though, if the various LinkedIn profiles are any indication. Luminous may possibly have been intended for the next wave of games after KH3/FFXIV 2.0/FFXV, which makes sense in light of the cutting edge research on real-time visuals), which is why they suspended development early. It would've taken way more time to build the suite they had in mind - which is a pointless exercise when a complete, well supported solution (Unreal Engine 4.0) already exists. This is a different situation from 2006 when Epic Games provided little support to Japanese developers, so getting away from in-house tech is a darned good idea.

As an aside, there was nothing inherently wrong with Crystal Tools. They had reputable staff working on it (one developer has gone on to build similar tools for Silicon Studios and his Square Enix stuff remains in use today. He's consistently in demand, so unless the industry as a whole is clueless, these are probably quite good at what they're designed to accomplish), but the main problem was that they were still thinking in terms of an evolving tool chain (perfect for the PlayStation era, adequate for PlayStation 2, almost hopeless for PlayStation 3. The project lead had been the star programmer on Matsuno's team, and he still thought in terms of what had been a progressive solution for Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story) when production complexity now demanded complete, well-planned architectures.
 
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