Kingdom Hearts III switched to Unreal Engine 4

Kingdom Hearts III is now being built on Unreal Engine 4, director Tetsuya Nomura has revealed.

[Kalebninja]

idk how to feel about this.....

[sinncross]

Probably for the best. Whatever gets this game out in a timely fashion. and something like GGXrd uses UE4 and that looks beautiful in motion.

I want to play KH3, and if UE4 helps that wait be like 2 years instead of 5, I am ok with it.

Real problem is that SE sunk all that money into an engine that is probably not going to be used beyond FF15 (who knows if that even uses it still)

[N4GDgAPc]

Well probably FF16. The tech demo I bet that girl is a character from ff16. Will see though. Maybe it was all just created for that tech demo only. but I got to say when the girl heal's herself she is in a lot of pain in the process. This is how I always thought healing someone would do. Can't think of any game that has done this. Be interesting to implement that in a game.

[vishmarx]

i dunno, while unreal is known for good action games
its just worrying that any project nomura takes up the engines starts having problems with one vital thing or the other

[DevilOgreFish]

Guilty Gear XRD is UE3. Either way unreal engine 4 is a better choice. It's an engine that produces very quick results as seen by all the youtube creators.

[WombBat]

This is not good.

theyre switching over a year in development cycle. gimme a break nomura

[bouzebbal]

Nomura sucks so bad. does this mean an extra 2 year delay? Damn!

[Blaze929]

man, as someone who was 11 when the first game came out - I just want to play this damn thing before I turn 30. This is the last hope I have for Square

[Spotie]

How were you eleven when the game came out if it's not out yet? Are you a time traveler?

[Eamon]

Re-read. He said "first game."

[elsuperamigo]

Marty! Is that you? We need to send you back to the year 1985

[Magicite]

now it wont look cartoonish, but UNREAL? /s
But why would they use other engine when they have got their own?

[iamtehpwn]

If this were Unreal Engine 3, you'd definitely have something to afraid of. However, Unreal Engine 4 is actually an incredible engine. It's really fast (Super excellent performance definitely capable of next gen graphics), has great PS4 performance, doesn't have any of the flaws that UE3 had. I've personally worked with Unreal Engine 3 and 4, I absolutely LOVE working with Unreal Engine 4 myself, it's leagues beyond UE3.

This will definitely speed KH3's development up tremendously.

[sonypsnow]

Make a blog explaining why Unreal Engine 4 is Great for Kingdom Hearts 3. eg: Quick development/less than 2 years, auto-port, auto-optimize, auto-creation, etc.

[iamtehpwn]

@Sonypsnow
I can definitely do this if enough users on here are interested.

[kingdomtriggers]

I'd read a blog on that

[CaspuR]

yea make a blog ill read it ^^

[mechlord]

@iamtehpwn just do it already man :) lotta people will read it, not enough will come here and publicly say it. Besides, i need something else (well written) to read other than #ps4noparity and #driveclub articles

[iamtehpwn]

Alright you guys I will do it within the next 48 hours, Look out for it.

[SugarSoSweet]

In the blog you're going to write can you also include the differences of developing with UNR3 VS UNR4 and some of the flaws UNR3 had that UNR4 doesn't

[DevilOgreFish]

now they can bring this to PC.

[DevilOgreFish]

Lol at the disagrees, afraid to see a 1080p 60fps version possibly in the works.

[elninels]

These disagrees are silly. Who wants to deny people games. And the possibility of mods for kh3 and ffxv? Oh bae

[LightDiego]

And you still don't know why the disagrees? Kingdom Hearts has nothing to do with PC, stop begging, it's ridiculous.

[LightofDarkness]

@LightDiego: YOU have nothing to do with PC, so stop talking about and for it.

[elninels]

I'm excited. The visuals will be high quality, and it should be easy for them to hire people with familiarity with the engine.

I believe @sinncross is talking about the luminous engine. I assume that is what FFXV is on but really who knows.

I'm not sure KH and FFXV were being made on the same engine. Wasn't it stated that the engine the kh3 team was working with was problematic to the point where it was difficult to get images up?

[killacal13]

They gonna look like plastic!!!!

[MrSwankSinatra]

Lame, What was the whole point of Square building their proprietary Luminous Engine for years, if they're not going to use it for the games that people actually want from them.

[FullmetalRoyale]

It certainly does strike me as odd.

[iamtehpwn]

Square Enix always seems to build proprietary engines and then wastes them, like Crystal tools. However, Crystal Tools was honestly a terrible engine and it's easily revealed why in Lightning Returns more so than any other game. Because LR was an open world game and Crystal Tools was not built to be able to handle Open Worlds, the framerate chugged, the textures were a mess, the game was a huge performance downgrade from XIII and XIII-2.

[Patrick_pk44]

Nomura did state that their engine had multiple problems that were messing with the game. This is probably for the best if it will get the same results with a more stabilized engine.

[Stallion]

Who fucking cares what engine it's on. As long as the game's out within a few years and it's good, the paper you write the book on doesn't matter.

[Kumomeme]

maybe the engine still not complete?
or might because before they said the luminous was created for final fantasy,not kingdom hearts?

either way, unreal engine 4 was not a bad choice

[MrSwankSinatra]

Yeah slow loading textures and horrible frame rates which has been a staple of the unreal engines is not a bad choice. Unreal is just a crappy engine and has been for years.

[firelogic]

lol, guess their engine wasn't working out. Is FFXV still using Luminous?

[NxeonPwn]

Yeah it is, As long as the game looks visually good and performs well I'm good with that.

[Doge]

Well that certainly came out of nowhere.

[akaFullMetal]

Maybe luminous isn't great for fast action games?

[MrSwankSinatra]

Kingdom Hearts isn't exactly fast action.

[elninels]

Dude, what?

[FlameHawk]

I'm pretty sure FFXV is "fast action game". It's suppose to be very similar to Kingdom Hearts.
https://www.youtube.com/wat...
That seems very face paced.

[Dudebro90]

That's .... Weird

[WeAreLegion]

As long as Nomura's directing, I'm happy.

[Spikeantestor]

Lots of people have mused over the years about the cause of the decline of Japanese game development. I have always wondered if a failure to embrace middleware to the same extent the west has had anything to do with it.

[BitbyDeath]

Sora is getting pumped full of steroids as we speak.

[TheGamingArt]

This is more than disappointing to hear...

[llxKonanxll]

Who knows!!! it might work out. *fingers crossed*

[TheGamez100]

Hmmmm I liked the look of the engine that was in the e3 2013 trailer, hope it still looks something like that or better.

[Metallox]

Well, to be fair, those very brief gameplays SE showed last year were... a bit underwhelming, mostly because it looked like a PS3 game, but obviously with 1080p resolution and much better effects, but aside from those things, it looked like something very possible on last gen consoles. Or maybe not, but the way th game looked by then didn't convince me.

The change to Unreal Engine 4 is good for me.

[TheOtherVitaOwner]

"As for the actual game itself? Nomura mentioned that development is proceeding as planned." Glad to hear they're still on track for that early 2020 release date.

[Blaze929]

2020, lol i swear bro! Game ain't NEVER gonna come out. Might as well call this Kingdom Hearts: Detox (Dre Edition)

[user5669510]

Lmao yo good one

[Inception]

This...this showed how f*ked up SE developement team. Seriously, in my life as a gamer i never seen video games company wasted their own engines after they build it for years like SE.

[jegheist2014]

thank god all this switching round gets game out quicker it better be good i was highly disappointed u cant switch characters in ff 15.

whilei n battle or over all i hope its just battle when u ifnish u can switch main party leader from menus back on topic nohows.

kh3 and ff 15 r square enixs last shot to wow me if they fail at both there doomed that euology they wrote called lightning and her 7 dope sisters was worst over milked female protagonisti n gaming history i dont eva wanna see her again

[Kumomeme]

well,lot of people dissapoint as many expect they will use the luminous studio engine or their other own engine

however,the unreal engine 4 was not a bad choice too

beside surely lot of reason for this...luminous studio might still not complete as it progress together with ffxv,
or because before square said the luminous studio engine develop specialy for final fantasy title?
the engine develop for multigenre as they stated before,and should be had no problem for any game paced wherever action or what..surely had another technical reason

either way unreal engine was great choice
lot of developers stated that the job was not easy and involve of making lot of importand decision,and until now they had make good decision for the situation

beside,on the bright side,what important is nomura stated the development coming smoothly..thats important for the devs and the fans

[gamejediben]

So after 8 years of building the Crystal Tools engine, their tossing it in the trash with only:

Final Fantasy XIII
Final Fantasy XIII-2
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
Dragon Quest X
and the original version of FFXIV (Not "A Realm Reborn")

to show for it...

Can you imagine the amount of wasted money this means? How is this company NOT bankrupt yet? Clearly, SE should never develop another game engine again if they are just going to fail this badly...

I makes me wonder if SE had just adopted another engine, would KH3 be on store shelves by now? Would FF Versus XIII on PS3? How about Dragon Quest XI? or another Chrono game? No matter how I cut it, we would have had more and better JRPGs this past gen if SE had just done the smart thing and licensed another engine.

[Inception]

Don't forget FF Versus. It also used Crystal Tools until SE decided to scrapped it because they think they got 'better' engine for it. But now that engine, Luminous / Agni philosophy engine, is in the edge of being toss to the garbage bin just like Crystal Tools.

But this show how SE is f*ked up. They so obsessed with beautifull graphics but they don't know how to create and use their in-house engine properly. They just wasted a lot of time and threw tons of money to create a glimpse of beautifull tech demo.

I'm glad though that japanese devs such as capcom, konami, atlus, NIS, etc doesn't followed SE route.

[DEATHxTHExKIDx]

Maybe its a good thing.

[zero_gamer]

As odd as it sounds, the game might be fine. Unreal Engine is a great engine, and if a game like KH works well with it, this is not a problem. No need to panic yet.

[TekKing]

I had a feeling S-E would get around to announcing how they're ruining KH3. They just had to wait a bit to say how they ruined FFXV first.

[talocaca]

I remember when we didn't know/care about this things.

Games were announced and then released a few months later (or showed progress) in most cases.

Also, seeing the Square logo was reassuring.

Now we go for 7 years without even playing FFXV and now this?.

[Paprika]

I'm writing a blog covering kingdom hearts right now, almost ready to post up on N4G. I'll add my views on this news in there too I think.

Quite shocking they're switching, but unreal 4 is a different beast to unreal 3. So its not actually "bad" news, only "strange". The nightmare strikes again, the curse of in-house engines at square :(

[leahcim]

ehhhh bad news??
good news??

It is certainly weird.