News ► Kingdom Hearts III to be developed on Unreal Engine 4!

[Lnds500]

5 sentences. I'm assuming they all run on the same graphic engine, not stating they're exactly the same. And yes, all the assets are reused in KH games. Don't know what you're talking about.

The fact that they look similar doesn't mean they used the same engine to create them - unless you are talking about the HD cinematics or something like that which I guess might be the case.

How much was reused between Kingdom Hearts I and Kingdom Hearts II? As a director, what’s exciting about melding the two game universes?
Nomura: For the first question, although there are many similar elements, we actually recreated the game engine [for Kingdom Hearts II] from scratch, so we didn’t import any data from Kingdom Hearts I. It’s 100% new. Although it’s the same world, it’s completely new.

Kingdom Hearts II Interview (IGN) - Kingdom Hearts Ultimania

Even KH1 + 2 don't use the same engine, BBS uses the engine from Crisis Core etc. Obviously, with that many titles on different systems and different years of release, a variety of engines were used.

I do agree that UE4 look really freaking beautiful.
But correct me if I'm wrong, but would the development time increase even more, since they have to transfer all the work the have done up to this point from their current enige, to UE4?

I mean I'm happy that they made the dicision to switch engins to speed up the development, but wouldn't there only be more time added now they have to tranfer. Only wondering, that's all...

Depends on how much work they have done with Luminous. It will be worth it though if Luminous is a constant fight with the engine, which by the sound of it, it is.

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

Depends on how much work they have done with Luminous. It will be worth it though if Luminous is a constant fight with the engine, which by the sound of it, it is.

From what we know, they never really start working on Luminous at all.

 

[rokudamia2]

I have a feeling after FFXV Luminous is never going to be used again. Isn't that what happened with Crystal Tools?

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

I have a feeling after FFXV Luminous is never going to be used again. Isn't that what happened with Crystal Tools?

Crystal Tools was used on XIII-2 and LRFF.

 

[rokudamia2]

Crystal Tools was used on XIII-2 and LRFF.

Oh I forgot about that.

I wonder when they switched to Unreal engine 4? I imagine it must have been sometime this year.

 

[Lnds500]

From what we know, they never really start working on Luminous at all.

True, since the previews were essentially CGI videos or something similar.

I wonder when they switched to Unreal engine 4? I imagine it must have been sometime this year.

They did say though that the game was being worked on Luminous - last year. So that doesn't leave out much.

 

[Face My Fears]

It was an in-house engine, most likely. The thing is, making games for these past consoles was much different than it is now and with the strive to have more realistic real-world physics along with stunning graphics and high quality assets, you need more advanced engines with the toolsets that can do all of this already. It's meant to lower costs of development (or increase them if you are making a multi-million custom engine along with your multi-million dollar game) as well as ease the workload of developers.

Well I don't know anything about game engines and all of that. However I read that the UE III engine was used in the Batman Arkham games, and those were amazing. So I'm going to assume that UE IV engine will be even better. I was just upset by the fact that they weren't using the in-house engine anymore, it made me think that KH was losing something original to themselves.

I assume that the reason that they had such trouble with their own engine was the fact that they haven't worked on next gen systems. Anyway, whatever gets KH III done well is fine with me.

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

Well I don't know anything about game engines and all of that. However I read that the UE III engine was used in the Batman Arkham games, and those were amazing. So I'm going to assume that UE IV engine will be even better. I was just upset by the fact that they weren't using the in-house engine anymore, it made me think that KH was losing something original to themselves.

I assume that the reason that they had such trouble with their own engine was the fact that they haven't worked on next gen systems. Anyway, whatever gets KH III done well is fine with me.

Of course it wouldn't. If anything, they will probably have an easier time reaching their vision of how the game will look with UE4. It's a very versatile engine. It does not mean the game will suddenly become hyper-realistic and brown/gray and stuff. Games like Rime and Abzu are being made on UE4 and those two games have such a unique charm to them.

Trust me, this is not a bad thing.

That isn't the problem with Luminous. They had an entire R&D comprised of programmers recruited from around the world working on it that had experience working with PCs and consoles. The issue is much more deeper than "they haven't worked on next gen systems before" because if that were true you'd see many other companies struggling like this. There are a lot of problems, but it boils down to ambition vs reality.

 

[kuraudoVII]

I was kind of expecting this ever since they stated that they were having complications with the engine. Still, it's kind of a shame that they had to abandon the in-house engine that they had, but ah well.

 

[Sign]

If Luminous is causing more trouble than it's worth, I'm glad they made the decision to switch gears now while KH3 is still in pre-production.

Should be interesting to see KH3 at its next showing, in any case~

 

[kuraudoVII]

Could Jump Festa be considered too early to show off the new engine?

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

Could Jump Festa be considered too early to show off the new engine?

Something like the D23 Japan Expo video? Maybe. Depends on how long they have been working on the engine.

I'd say we have a higher chance of seeing Sora & Riku's new clothes before we see anything in-engine this year.

 

[rokudamia2]

Yeah if there's anything shown at jump festa or e3 it's going to be i artwork, and or trailers similar to the e3 2014 trailer.

 

[kuraudoVII]

Something like the D23 Japan Expo video? Maybe. Depends on how long they have been working on the engine.

I'd say we have a higher chance of seeing Sora & Riku's new clothes before we see anything in-engine this year.

Yeah if there's anything shown at jump festa or e3 it's going to be i artwork, and or trailers similar to the e3 2014 trailer.

Sounds fair enough. Nomura did state that the E3 2013 trailer was released far too soon, so even without the change in engines, they might not have released too much.

 

[bgizzles45]

Worlds like Port Royal will look far too realistic under the Unreal Engine 4 engine. I wonder if Square will use Maleficent's movie new design for Kingdom Hearts III.

 

[Lnds500]

Worlds like Port Royal will look far too realistic under the Unreal Engine 4 engine. I wonder if Square will use Maleficent's movie new design for Kingdom Hearts III.

No and no.

Unless we are talking about a pretty old engine, an engine doesn't dictate the look of the game. It affects how the game is created, how assets are handled, it affects game performance etc. Gaf has great examples of Unreal games with different looks

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