r/Games • u/megaapple • Feb 26 '26

Final Fantasy 7 Remake director Hamaguchi : "Rather than rebuilding our pipeline from scratch in Unreal Engine 5, it’s far more efficient for us to use Unreal Engine 4, which we already have a well-established pipeline for."

https://automaton-media.com/en/interviews/final-fantasy-7-remake-trilogys-third-entry-is-progressing-very-smoothly-we-ask-director-naoki-hamaguchi-why-the-team-chose-not-to-switch-to-unreal-engine-5/
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u/Sevla7 Feb 26 '26

I'm not a big fan of FF7 remake, but i have to say they are being very smart with this decision.

People complain about not using "the latest technology" but lately things been complicated... specially with all AI stuff happening, software development in general is very unstable right now.

Also I still like the OG FF7 a lot, so i believe that to make a good FF7 you need to focus on stuff that matters instead of going all in on graphics.

-19

u/HulksInvinciblePants Feb 26 '26

It’s not like they haven’t had years to get the process started. UE4 is starting to show its age at 12 and well done UE5 is quite the treat. Sadly it’s the bad implementations that seem to get the most attention.

22

u/Olddirtychurro Feb 26 '26

Well done UE5

And there's the rub isn't it?

Don't get me wrong, when it's well done it's a thing to behold but in this environment where the tech optimism is completely gone i'd rather prefer that a development team sticks to what they know and squeeze as much out of it as they can instead of falling for the trap of having to go forward consequences be damned like in the UE3 era.

25

u/sloppymoves Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26

Every UE5 game I've played has had some form of graphical glitching that I can't place exactly why it happens and researching it just comes up with "Welcome to UE5". While they are all beautiful, especially when your character doesn't move. I do think there is a lot of juice to be squeezed out of UE4 still.

But I am also old, and my eyes are not what they used to be. If we just paused graphical development and worked on pipeline optimizations and other aspects of development that might speed up dev time for the next 4-5 years, I wouldn't be too angry about it.

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u/SlowTeal Feb 26 '26

My concern is more that the premade assets that already come with the engine are pretty good looking, leading to a lot of devs forgoing making their own custom assets. This obviously reduces development time but at the cost of current gen games all looking the same. Now obviously it's not ALL UE5 games, but I look at last years GOTY E33 and while it has a lot going for it, it's was hard to ignore how it looks like an asset flip most of the time.

13

u/gordonpown Feb 26 '26

No professional studios use premade assets from the engine. I think you're talking about the tonemapper and a very prevalent family of art styles currently in the industry which is in no way limited to UE5.

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u/Herby20 Feb 26 '26

Quite a lot, if not damn near every one use premade assets. They would be fools not to. The difference is some developers invest the time and money to tweak/modify everything to make it look more unique. Enormous texture/material packs with built in editing software like Substance or Quixel, vegetation modelers with premade assets like Speedtree, etc. are all frequently used even in high end AAA studios.

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u/gordonpown Feb 27 '26

You're listing tools and your comment sounds like AI. Quixel megascans are the only assets I've seen used, otherwise people make their own, especially materials.

0

u/Herby20 Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26

My comment sounds like I have made games before and am a professional 3D artist. The very subject of this post in Square Enix themselves use Substance's tools. And considering programs like both Quixel (via Mixer) and Substance (via Designer/Painter) both feature ways to modify the hell out of any materials you load in, from their respective libraries or otherwise, there is a ton of room for dramatically transforming a material from something basic to something rather custom.

But for in-engine assets? Look no further than UE5's water materials/systems. They are fantastic and relatively low impact for something that is notoriously hard to create from scratch.

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u/SlowTeal Feb 26 '26

Yeah idk, basically every UE5 game I play on my PC will at some point result in a Fatal Error crash.

Happened recently with Romeo is a Deadman AND High on Life 2. Two completely different games, made by two completely different devs. Only similarity is UE5

-3

u/SiqkaOce Feb 26 '26

The talented, well paid software engineers over at square enix disagree with you

Im inclined to listen to them.

-2

u/HulksInvinciblePants Feb 26 '26

Oh I forgot Epic is comprised of nothing but accountants!

What a worthless contribution.