Square Enix to use Unreal Engine 3

[Renmiri]

I admit it, it freaked me out a bit. SE has had some weird decisions. X-2, the FFX after a planetload of Viagara got dumped on the ocean. Mickey and Auron join forces...

OTOH they made some good stuff. Advent Children was good and FFXII was decent enough.

I'll guess we will just have to wait and see.

[Jowy]

Keep in mind, Dawn of Mana runs off the Havok engine and apparently it works rather well for them.

They'll find a way to execute it well, otherwise they wouldn't waste their time trying to do anything with it.

[Nominus Experse]

You will all like it anyways

[Necronopticous]

The new Unreal engine is amazing.

This is bad quality, but a good example of the kind of beautiful shading and lighting effects it is capable of:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKDXrAE7Ecg

For those of you unclear, the graphics engine does not have anything to do with the type of games that are made on said engine.

In short, this is great news.

[ReloadPsi]

I think FPS Fantasy could take the series in a new, better direction.

You're crazy after what happened with the TPS Dirge of Cerberus!

Sorry, did you want a THPS Dirge of Cerberus? That would be nasty.

[Yew-Yevon]

The offset engine would be way better.
http://www.projectoffset.com/game.html

[Mirage]

How do you know?

[Yew-Yevon]

Check the link and find out.

[Croyles]

I know it has nothing to do with the gameplay, but does this mean that FF's future graphics will resemble Half-life more than say FFX or FFXII?

[Mirage]

No. Even though it is a graphics engine used in FPS games, it does not mean they will be using the same textures 3D models, or viewpoints. The only way they'll "resemble" HL2 is that it is likely to have the same level of realism over it, when it comes to realistic shadows, reflections, and other effects.

And I did download a few videos off that site. I didn't find it dramatically better than HL2 or Unreal engine 3. Sure, it had a fantasy setting, but that can be done with UE3 too.

[Odaisé Gaelach]

The offset engine would be way better.
http://www.projectoffset.com/game.html

Ehhh... We'll have to see when Project Offset is released. The Unreal Engine 3 has already proven itself to be worthy in Gears of War. There's a lot of difference in seeing a bunch of screenshots or a video, and actually using the engine in a game.

[Renmiri]

We called it "Slideware" or "Powerpointware" in my time. Stuff that only exists in vendor demos

[RiseToFall]

I know this is a little off topic. But I'm more excited to see what developers can do with Cryteks CryENGINE2. So far, their own game Crysis, looks amazing.

[Odaisé Gaelach]

I know this is a little off topic. But I'm more excited to see what developers can do with Cryteks CryENGINE2. So far, their own game Crysis, looks amazing.

But until we actually see the game in action itself, we won't know what the engine's really capable of.

[Slothy]

I expected stuff like this with the current gen to be honest. Back when people were first started going on about development costs sky rocketing on the 360 and PS3 I knew more companies would start licensing technology, including big names. It only makes sense to use proven, versatile game engines to help companies create. A licensing fee is a lot cheaper than developing an engine from scratch these days, and if it leads to lower costs for developers, as well as faster development time, that's something we can all be happy about.

On a side note, I think quite a few companies are using the Unreal Engine 3 now. I saw a list of them somewhere, but I can't recall where at the moment. I believe there were some rather impressive names on it though.