Next-gen engine from Square Enix shows what future games could look like, tech demo video inside

[Julio Franco]

Unreal 4 better watch its back. Square Enix pulled off what may be E3's biggest surprise when they unveiled an incredible real-time demo of their new Luminous Studio engine. Using a Final Fantasy motif as a showcase, Square Enix describes the engine as being for "next generation quality games".

The next generation of consoles may not be at this year's E3, but their graphics certainly are. Everything you see in this video - dubbed Agni's Philosophy - and screens is supposedly running in "real-time". Or, to quote Square, this is a "FINAL FANTASY REALTIME TECH DEMO". Given this is an engine advertisement, don't expect launch games to look just like this, but still. A glimpse at the potential of future consoles is better than no glimpse at anything from the future from this show, right?

Square Enix has been known for eye-popping visuals in their Final Fantasy titles and this new tech makes it seem that like that legacy will keep going strong into future generations.

Republished with permission. Luke Plunkett is a contributing editor at Kotaku.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/48915-next-gen-engine-from-square-enix-shows-what-future-games-could-look-like-tech-demo-video-inside.html

 

[bugejakurt]

Well.. I think there is nothing so special about this tech demo running real-time, except some hair movements and some facial expressions.

 

[Burty117]

If we can expect games to look a little less detailed than this in the near future I don't think we have made much of a jump from last gen stuff to be honest. From the PS2 to the PS3 for example was a huge difference in graphical detail, this doesn't seem to be that much of a jump? Its an improvement for sure but not quite as much as I was hoping for considering the hardware has become 2x-3x more powerful.

 

[Guest]

Ehhh... Looks nice, but so what if it's going to be in yet another linear game, where you go from one cutscene to another. A price for nice engine will be 20 minutes of unskippable commercials and intros. Show me at least one innovation in the gameplay or I go Minecraft

 

[Zecias]

If we can expect games to look a little less detailed than this in the near future I don't think we have made much of a jump from last gen stuff to be honest. From the PS2 to the PS3 for example was a huge difference in graphical detail, this doesn't seem to be that much of a jump? Its an improvement for sure but not quite as much as I was hoping for considering the hardware has become 2x-3x more powerful.

When I compare this with the current console graphics, they look like they are miles apart. To me, it looks better than the PC games of the last generation. Everything looks pretty good expect for the textures. It seems strange to me because textures aren't that demanding on most graphics cards.

 

[SilverCider]

Zecias, textures may not present a difficulty in rendering them but they require massive amounts of memory (be it GPU or System). Doubling up on texture size, in terms of memory, does not necessarily equate to doubling the perceived texture quality.
I think there is a significant leap in the overall graphics here over the current console gen, and even a noticeable leap over the current pc generation.

 

[Julio Franco]

Graphics look pretty impressive considering they are supposed to be rendered in real-time. CGI movies from a few years ago looked like this, so it's definitely a step ahead of current titles.

 

[Guest]

Stop spending so much time on visuals and voice acting and start investing more in gameplay and character/story development.

 

[Guest]

I agree

 

[Guest]

Well.. I think there is nothing so special about this tech demo running real-time, except some hair movements and some facial expressions.

I agree.

 

[Guest]

From the way consoles are going we will see this type of graphics on consoles in the next 500 years possibly more but that's only if game developers want to improve the graphics which is highly unlikely but maybe dice can do this for PCs in 50 years time.

 

[lawfer]

Graphics look pretty impressive considering they are supposed to be rendered in real-time. CGI movies from a few years ago looked like this, so it's definitely a step ahead of current titles.

I agree, but at the same time, it doesn't look as impressive as other engines. Unreal 4 comes to mind, but that's too easy. I saw the E3 demos for Watch Dogs and Start Wars 1313, and quite frankly, they already look like this FF demo.

 

[LNCPapa]

Not sure why you guys weren't impressed - I think it looks better than current PC games. The scale on this tech demo is beyond anything I've seen yet, although the flesh could have looked better when it was gathering on the dragon. Now I just have to figure out how I'm gonna stand up after watching this without my co-workers thinking I was looking at porn.

 

[Benny26]

I tend to agree with people who are saying it doesn't look miles apart from what the current gen has to offer. To be honest, who the hell cares if it's 'real time' or not? I don't. All I want is a good game, not a demonstration in how a game can look.

In my opinion, the PS3 hasn't been fully pushed yet. There's still potential there for me. Kinda like how Final Fantasy XII squeezed what it did from the PS2 just before the PS3 came along. When the PS3's swansong comes along, these "Real-time" graphics/animations are going to look even less of a step up in my opinion.

Vid looked good though, I'll admit.

 

[davislane1]

Looks good, but I've started to care less and less about graphics over the past few years. Gran Turismo 5, Final Fantasy XIII, Rage, and several other titles have boasted nice visuals but never enough to make up for their gameplay shortcomings. A nice paint job only goes so far when there's a rubber band under the hood.

 

[Guest]

über graphics don't make up for bad gameplay, Enix should know this by now...

 

[Zeromus]

So they developed a new engine or is this an evolved Crystal Engine?

I hope they consider PC titles along side next-gen to help leverage that detail. I saw a lot of western names in the credits, so there has to be some open mindedness someone on thier dev team.

 

[fimbles]

Textures, shading, lighting is all very mainstream.

The physics of the hair, fur, sparks ect was impressive though.

 

[Guest]

Wait, this is stupid. It is only a game movie animation. We have this now in most games. I was expecting actual game play to be like this. It is never the case.

 

[Puiu]

Wait, this is stupid. It is only a game movie animation. We have this now in most games. I was expecting actual game play to be like this. It is never the case.

Real-Time means that it wasn't a movie but in-game visuals, albeit scripted.
This looks like a pre-beta version of the engine or something close to beta, but they still have time to improve it a lot, considering that we didn't even know that they were working on a new engine. Unlike Unreal 4 which it is know for being under development for a very long time this is still fresh.

I like how the next gen is looking so far when we so many extraordinary engines being made. Now if only we actually had some next-gen script writers and next-gen gameplay mechanics

 

[Guest]

It has already been said that they won't be using current hardware for the next gen systems, it cost them too much money. So these graphics are unlikely to be seen on next gen consoles, more likely on my my dual GTX 690's in Quad SLI.

 

[9Nails]

I could be mistaken, only catching a glimpse here at work, but it looks like they've put clothing on their models. That's something that I've wanted to see in a game engine for a long time. I'm a little tired of the plastic action figure models with painted on clothing that doesn't bend well and intersects with itself at certain angles. And I would love to see a game engine actually render fabric over a model. It looks more realistic and taps into the physics engines for good use.

Like you all are saying, good graphics doesn't mean good game. But at least the end results are attractive and if the engine is leased and powers a good game, we win.

 

[DanUK]

What the hell is everyone bitching about? For in game graphics this looks incredible.

 

[madboyv1]

Stop spending so much time on visuals and voice acting and start investing more in gameplay and character/story development.

For what it's worth, HORRIBLE voice acting has made me stopped playing a game before, I will agree that overall gameplay and the lack of character/story development (or not even having a story in some cases) has really been keeping me from enjoying a number of games I've played lately.

 

[Night Hacker]

Personally, I would rather see lower tech, larger environments with more to do in them, than running through some halls and valleys with limited options and lots of glitter to oooh and aaaw me.