Capcom has announced a multi-phase project to adapt its proprietary RE Engine into an “AI-generation engine” to streamline development and optimise performance.
Capcom started building its RE engine in 2014 to develop Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, which launched in 2017. It’s estimated that more than 2,000 developers use the engine, according to Eurogamer.
As reported by IGN (via GameBiz), Capcom featured a presentation by programmer Satoshi Ishida at its recent annual tech conference titled ‘The Outlook and Future of the REX Project, Further Evolving the RE Engine for the Next Generation’.
Ishida outlined how the REX project will accelerate development, improve QA efficiency, enhance usability for new and international staff, and integrate AI into the production workflow.
New systems will be integrated, including RE:Dox for standardized data processing, RE:UI to accelerate the development toolkit, and RE:Log, which uses ID-based logging. Additional updates include the visual scripting tool RE:Flows, the reworked runtime core RE:Runtime, and a refined execution framework, RE:C++.
Ishida stated that integrating AI into the RE Engine aims to assist development, generate and interpret code, automate playtesting for debugging, and optimize performance, enabling developers to “create games together with AI.”
Some improvements will be open-sourced to support AI training, with the long-term goal of evolving RE into an “AI-generation game engine.”
Earlier this year, Capcom emphasised it would not “implement any generative AI assets” into its games, and instead use it to “improve efficiency and productivity in game development.”
“That is why we are currently testing out various methods of usage across our departments, including graphics, sound, and programming,” the developer said.
This follows Resident Evil Requiem’s inclusion in a demo of Nvidia’s DLSS 5 technology, which faced criticism for enhancing character models with AI, including protagonist Grace Ashcroft.