RE Engine was created in 2014, during the beginning of the development of Resident Evil 7. The engine was originally designed with the game's linear nature in mind and was created to make game development more efficient.[7] The reason the team did not choose a third-party engine was that "a highly generic engine developed by another company would not be appropriate" for a game like Resident Evil 7.[8] MT Framework was not used for the project due to its slower development tools. Jun Takeuchi, the head of Capcom's Division 1 stated "we had to rethink the way we make games. In order to carry out asset-based (graphic and 3D model elements) development, which is globally the mainstream, we began developing our new RE Engine".[9]
When discussing Monster Hunter Rise, Yasunori Ichinose, the game's director, discussed porting RE Engine to the
Nintendo Switch, and said "a lot of background technical engineering work need[ed] to be done just to achieve targeting a new hardware platform", and mentioned the challenge of creating the large maps the team wanted while trying to maintain the game's graphical quality.[10]
In October 2023, Capcom unveiled "Codename REX" (RE neXt ENGINE), their next-generation game engine, during a 22-minute developer-focused presentation. Acknowledging limitations in the current RE Engine, the new engine upgrade will involve incrementally integrating RE+X technology into the existing RE Engine, elevating it to next-generation capabilities.[11][12][13] RE engine games will require GPUs with mesh shaders support for best performance, non mesh shader legacy GPUs will struggle.[14][15][16]
Features
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adding to it. (March 2021)
RE Engine features various improvements over
MT Framework, including new anti-aliasing and
volumetric lighting features.[17] The engine also allows developers to use
photogrammetry to create higher quality assets. It also includes improved VR support over its predecessor, allowing it to hit high framerates necessary to avoid
motion sickness.[9] It also includes tools to make animation faster, such as modular rigging, motion matching, procedural animation and motion retargeting.[18][19][20] RE Engine also has various new physics simulation options which allow for more realistic debris.[21]
^Capcom Research and Development [@CAPCOM_RandD] (November 7, 2019).
"『RE ENGINE』の読み方は知っていても、意味は知らないという方も多いのではないでしょうか?" [Even if you know how to read "RE ENGINE", isn't there a lot of people who don't know what it means? It has several meanings, but "reach for the moon" is the representative origin. It contains the idea of a game engine that makes the impossible possible, like reaching for the moon, but if you look closely, you can see the logo...] (
Tweet). Retrieved July 14, 2022 – via
Twitter.