RE Engine is an integral part of Capcom’s production pipeline, powering games ranging from Street Fighter 6 to all the latest Resident Evil titles. The company has no plans to abandon the engine, as it has now announced the next-gen version of its proprietary technology.
Capcom looked back at the development of RE Engine and shared details about the new technology codenamed REX on its official R&D channel on YouTube (spotted by Okami Games).
REX stands for RE neXt Engine. It is designed to solve the following issues the company currently has with its proprietary tool:
- Scale and diversification of games have expanded (the number of assets has increased by more than five times since the release of Resident Evil 7);
- Iteration slowed down, so Capcom needs to find a way to handle larger amounts of data;
- RE Engine is now used in projects of various types and genres, meaning the company needs to increase the level of customization of its technology;
- It is also used by more overseas subcontractors, which requires localization and new documentation and samples;
- The engine’s usability needs to be improved, as Capcom hires more mid and junior developers who have experience with other commercial frameworks.
The company wants to create a “new level of engine that goes beyond the boundaries of in-house engines.”
Instead of building an entirely new framework, Capcom will introduce the new REX technology into the existing RE Engine in phases, including the upgraded Runtime, launcher, and asset streaming tools. The publisher will share more details in the future.
Capcom started developing RE Engine in 2014, and 2017’s Resident Evil 7 was the first game using this technology. Since then, it has become the main tool for all of the Japanese publisher’s major titles, including Capcom Arcade Stadium, Devil May Cry 5, Street Fighter 6, and the remakes of Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4.
Upcoming projects like Dragon’s Dogma II and Progmata are also made with RE Engine, but it is unclear whether they will use the upgraded REX version.
Capcom is now one of the few AAA companies that continues to use its proprietary tools instead of switching to third-party solutions like Unreal Engine. RE Engine is known not only for its multi-platform support and good optimization tools, but also for its modular design and backward compatibility, which allows developers to configure the engine for the needs of the specific project.