Since Square Enix has finally resurfaced in the past week with a bunch of Japanese announcements and interviews for their big upcoming products, I think it's time to have a little status update on the progress of their big technology project.
Luminous Engine was announced back in 2010 as Square Enix's solution to development and technological issues faced by their internal Japanese developers and to pave a way for efficient development into the next-generation (now the current-generation). They hired Yoshihisa Hashimoto to lead the development of the engine and the team building it. He became the CTO of Square Enix in Japan.
Throughout 2011, they were holding talks and interviews talking the engine up and promising a demo showcase when it was ready. In 2012 they finally debuted the Agni Philosophy tech demo, which impressed a lot of people. They continued to aggressively recruit staff for development of the engine.
Then at some point they just stopped talking about it. In 2013 there wasn't any sort of focus on the engine itself. They announced both Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts 3, but didn't have much to show off. Nomura candidly said that XV was not entirely on the Luminous Engine at the time because it wasn't really ready. He said that KH3 would run entirely on it, but that they were having difficulty getting it running in realtime which was why the E3 teaser was pre-rendered.
Towards the end of 2013 there were rumors from someone who supposedly used to work at Square Enix that the Luminous Engine wasn't going well and that it might be getting dumped. Earlier this year, Hashimoto resigned from Square Enix, leaving the CTO position at Square Enix Japan vacant. The radio silence surrounding the state of the engine continued.
Now we're near the end of 2014, and Tabata confirms that XV still isn't running entirely on Luminous Engine. Nomura confirms in an interview this week that KH3 is still facing rendering issues due to the engine, so he's focusing on writing, costume design, and world selections instead. Earlier on, when Tabata said that the Type-0 HD remaster would be taking advantage of the technological know-how they have learned while working on XV, it seemed like there was a possibility it was using Luminous Engine tech, but as it turns out the remaster is running on a custom-rigged Hexadrive engine meant for last-gen, with DX11 technological hooks allowing them to use a more advanced lighting system.
It seems that despite the good intentions of wanting to create an advanced in-house engine which would make development easier, it has had the reverse effect. Development on their two biggest titles now seem to be once again hampered by R&D not being up to speed. Is this going to end up being Crystal Tools all over again?
Luminous Engine was announced back in 2010 as Square Enix's solution to development and technological issues faced by their internal Japanese developers and to pave a way for efficient development into the next-generation (now the current-generation). They hired Yoshihisa Hashimoto to lead the development of the engine and the team building it. He became the CTO of Square Enix in Japan.
Throughout 2011, they were holding talks and interviews talking the engine up and promising a demo showcase when it was ready. In 2012 they finally debuted the Agni Philosophy tech demo, which impressed a lot of people. They continued to aggressively recruit staff for development of the engine.
Then at some point they just stopped talking about it. In 2013 there wasn't any sort of focus on the engine itself. They announced both Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts 3, but didn't have much to show off. Nomura candidly said that XV was not entirely on the Luminous Engine at the time because it wasn't really ready. He said that KH3 would run entirely on it, but that they were having difficulty getting it running in realtime which was why the E3 teaser was pre-rendered.
Towards the end of 2013 there were rumors from someone who supposedly used to work at Square Enix that the Luminous Engine wasn't going well and that it might be getting dumped. Earlier this year, Hashimoto resigned from Square Enix, leaving the CTO position at Square Enix Japan vacant. The radio silence surrounding the state of the engine continued.
Now we're near the end of 2014, and Tabata confirms that XV still isn't running entirely on Luminous Engine. Nomura confirms in an interview this week that KH3 is still facing rendering issues due to the engine, so he's focusing on writing, costume design, and world selections instead. Earlier on, when Tabata said that the Type-0 HD remaster would be taking advantage of the technological know-how they have learned while working on XV, it seemed like there was a possibility it was using Luminous Engine tech, but as it turns out the remaster is running on a custom-rigged Hexadrive engine meant for last-gen, with DX11 technological hooks allowing them to use a more advanced lighting system.
It seems that despite the good intentions of wanting to create an advanced in-house engine which would make development easier, it has had the reverse effect. Development on their two biggest titles now seem to be once again hampered by R&D not being up to speed. Is this going to end up being Crystal Tools all over again?
