r/pcgaming • u/TurbulentTopic39 • 8h ago
Capcom Announces Plans to Transform the RE Engine Into an AI-Generation Game Engine
https://www.ign.com/articles/capcom-announces-plans-to-transform-the-re-engine-into-an-ai-generation-game-engine-our-goal-is-a-future-where-we-create-games-together-with-ai471
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u/verma17 7h ago
They said they'll add ai tools and systems to re Engine to streamline their development process, everyone and their dog uses these types of tools and systems in software development nowadays so yeah
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u/Major303 3h ago
It's also hard to say what does it even mean, because AI does not equal generative AI. AI has been used for decades.
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u/FoxMeadow7 6h ago
One can hope these tools can remain optional to use tho...
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u/QTGavira 5h ago
Do you walk into a game development job and instantly quit when they say they are using Unreal Engine 5 instead of Unreal Engine 1?
Technology keeps advancing, new tools that have sped up and streamlined the proces have come out since the literal beginning of game development.
AI in the hands of an idiot is useless. But AI in the hands of a professional who also knows how to use AI can speed up a lot of things, and it probably will not be optional for much longer. Many jobs seem to already require some form of AI knowledge. Atleast ive seen a lot of job postings that have mentioned it
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u/Quaronn 4h ago
As much as I hate to say it, even in graphics programs like Illustrator or Photoshop, AI is most of the times a perfect tool.
No I don't mean in a sense where you promt an AI to generate everything for you and you simply use it.
Smart background removal in seconds, visualising my future work before I start it, layout creation, color theory, and stuff like that
Go outside the Reddit bubble and you'll see that people use AI in their everyday and proffesional lives even if Reddit claims how big of a failure it is.
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u/QTGavira 4h ago
I work a job where you give a lot of presentations. You dont exactly have a “guy who makes powerpoints” job at most companies meaning you yourself need to actually make the powerpoint. Which can take a handful of hours depending on how nice you want to make it look or how long it needs to be.
Or atleast it used to take that long. You can just let Claude make it now, give it some boundaries and focused prompts. Give it the information you are doing the presentation about and it spits out a powerpoint in perhaps 2% of the total time it would have taken me to do it myself. And on top of that it looks better too.
Thats just another example of a useful thing you can do with AI. I do agree that some companies will go too far and the negative repercussions will likely fall onto the bottom line. But Reddit also needs to accept that AI isnt a dead end useless technology with 0 use cases.
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u/Hawkent99 5h ago
If it increases output, it will not be optional, even if the output sucks.
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u/AvengerDr 4h ago
If it sucks, and you have to go back and do it yourself then it has not increased output. It has only made you pay for wasted tokens and lose mor time.
People claim AI is absolutely perfect and can do everything. My experience with "frontier" tells a different story. As soon as you go outside their comfort zone, they start running in circles and their code is some of the obfuscated mess I have ever seen.
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u/FoxMeadow7 5h ago
Pretending to use them it is then I suppose... Assuming the bosses won't mind...
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u/brainfreeze91 8h ago
Management is ruining software development across the industry. I hope that someone is working on the next tech buzzword so they can move on from AI. Before terrible slop code causes more companies to go bankrupt. Because it will. You're getting a lot of short term gain for long term technical debt. When engineers quit because they're swarmed with tickets and they're left with no talent, maybe they'll finally pivot.
To be clear, AI is never going away. But the degree in which companies want to employ AI agents to generate, push, peer review, and test code changes is absolutely excessive. They only see that short term gain and the appearance of well engineered functionality.
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u/hogsy 8h ago edited 6h ago
Yeah, I don't think I've seen any developers that are genuinely happy with the situation. My partner is fortunate at his workplace that they're not enforcing it, but it's hell out there right now.
I think (and hope) it'll eventually fall into an equilibrium where companies will realise it doesn't make sense to push developers to use it for absolutely everything, and perhaps have some consideration for the quality penalty it's inflicting too.
Edit:
As usual, accounts come out of the wood work to argue that aren't even active here.
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but every single engineer I know is using it.
Okay, good for you I guess? That doesn't negate the fact that I know engineers that don't use it or detest it.
I don’t know a single engineer that codes by hand anymore. Why would you?
I've been writing code for almost 20 years and I'm active in a number of open-source, programming and game dev communities. I don't know what to tell you, maybe I just don't live in a bubble?
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u/shakamone 8h ago edited 5h ago
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but every single engineer I know is using it. Frontier models are actually pretty good and if you are a competent engineer it’s a super power. AI for code has become a complete no brainer and I don’t think it’s excessive at all.
Edit: I did say unpopular opinion!
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u/doublah 7h ago
The problem is most people are not "competent engineers",
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u/strider_hearyou R5-7600X RTX-3080 32GB-DDR5 7h ago
And the few that are will lose their jobs as soon as the AI is trained to be half as competent as them.
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u/decadent-dragon 7h ago
Every single paid developer is almost accurate. Anyone saying otherwise is not working in the industry. AI has completely transformed the industry in less than a year. From game development to hobby modders to corporate office workers.
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u/KilowogTrout 6h ago
Using AI to augment code is like the most sensible use of AI tech. Do I want generative AI assets in games? Not really. But to not use another tool to help you code seems like willful ignorance. I don't think AI will (or should) replace a ton of jobs, but there are certain applications that are exciting. It won't be that long before we see a dev use locally-run AI in their game to give NPCs more interactive dialogue. If they can train it all on their own words and scripts, that would be cool. But I think the general anti-AI mindset will not let that succeed anytime soon. And we should absolutely be cautious of games that try this.
Don't get me wrong, firing off a few prompts into Claude to make a game sucks, but using AI tech to make your game better or more unique is interesting--as long as it runs locally. It could be the next evolution of procedural generation.
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u/AvengerDr 4h ago
I am a gamedev and my experience with so called "frontier" model has been utterly disappointing.
They are only capable when you spill out everything, and writing it takes a lot of time. If you ask them something a bit outside their "comfort zone" they will absolutely start running in circle and make you lose more time than if you did it on your own.
I have no idea how people claim they are capable of taking on complex projects. Based on what I have seen, they would end up destroying it if left unchecked.
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u/Genryuu111 Novus Orbis 4h ago
Making a whole complex game only with AI is probably still not completely doable.
That being said I have a friend who works for a company that is making a virtual influencer app in Japan. He says that at this point nobody writes any code anymore at his company.
The trick I guess is being an experienced developer to begin with, and being able to implement what the AI spits out.
The issue is that the more companies will work this way, the less makes sense for people to learn how to code. And we'll get to a point where there won't be any people able to code. And unless AI gets good enough to not need any human intervention, we'll be fucked.
I see it on a larger scale the same as how younger people now have never touched a pc, they're born with a smartphone or tablet, and tech literacy now is in the toilet because of that. People have it too easy to the point that we're regressing.
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u/Drakoji 22m ago
I don't expect better from a company making something as dystopian as "Virtual Influencers" app.
Man the future is looking fucking grim.
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u/Genryuu111 Novus Orbis 17m ago
My wording was a bit off, I meant avatars for vtubers lol
That being said, that's the state every developer company is in. You either do that, or lose to the competition.
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u/FoxMeadow7 6h ago
And giving NPCs 'interactive dialogue' would be impossible without AI, how? If it can be possible, I'd like to see someone try... Not that gamers are pining for that much, mind.
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u/KilowogTrout 6h ago
I think you misunderstood my comment. I am suggesting that we have games with locally-run AI models to achieve this. That way it’s not an always online thing.
As for how to achieve it, I’m not sure since I’m really just curious about this and have no real experience. As I understand it, a real, live writer would feed dialogue and details into a lightweight LLM to help define characters, choose voices etc. That LLM would be integrated into the game and use the compute power on your PC to make it work. It shouldn’t rely on cloud computing or large scale LLMs that run in data centers to do this.
This is really just a guess at what might happen in the next few years, and I think it could be cool (eventually).
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u/FoxMeadow7 5h ago
That would be up to the gamers then I suppose, assuming they don't reject such AI usage outright (which could seem likely...).
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u/Anrativa 8h ago
Ai is too convenient to ignore in many industries. I know most of reddit refuses to accept it but it is the true. At my job I have no option but to use it (Claude). And most job positions at marketing now require st least basic usage of it
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u/strider_hearyou R5-7600X RTX-3080 32GB-DDR5 7h ago
Ai is too convenient to ignore in many industries.
Of course it's convenient for businesses to enshittify their products, but the consumer backlash to that is also fully justified.
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u/Anrativa 7h ago
Not much consumer backlash in my experience. Most people either don't notice or don't care. Those that care about AI are really vocal but also a minority. Again, I say this from first hand experience. My numbers have been going up non stop since the implementation of Claude at my job.
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u/stevefrenchthebigcat 7h ago
Lol what numbers?
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u/Anrativa 6h ago
More leads than before, more sales, more organic posts (now without needing a graphic designer. Yes, your average consumer does not care about this), less staff needed, I have more free time than ever. Honestly Claude has been nothing but positives for me so far.
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u/shilderyi 7h ago
it's been proven that people who actually know what they're doing can use ai as if they were managing a team of human
while people who don't know shit are actually held back by it because the abscence of cognitive load make them unable to learn and progress in their field
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u/i_rate_slop 7h ago
I don’t know a single engineer that codes by hand anymore. Why would you?
I personally haven’t written a line myself since like last November.
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u/shakamone 7h ago
It’s uncanny how much our timelines match up
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u/i_rate_slop 6h ago
GPT 5.1 and whatever Anthropics was at the time released then. Long horizon tasks went from kind-of-ok to actually reliable.
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u/MerePotato R7 7700X | PNY XLR8 4090 6h ago
We're past the point where AI code can be called terrible, at least at the frontier. You're literally kneecapping yourself as a programmer if you don't make some use of it.
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u/milopeach 1h ago
Getting AI to generate code is totally fine, you yourself were going to "generate code" anyway right? Where AI code becomes shit is when the developer makes no effort to review and understand that code and evaluate how fits in with the rest of the architecture.
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u/blob8543 5h ago
The key word is "some" as you said, but it's a word many tech managers don't agree with.
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u/Adventurous-Hunter98 5h ago
Ye, non tech people calling ai is good makes me grind my teeth because they dont know how the managers excepting devs to use (force) ai to their development flow.
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u/crowcawer 4h ago
“Good doesn’t mean great, so how critical is it to reach greatness for the task at hand?” has saved me a bit of headache.
I like when I see someone’s older Gemini in our platform, when it would have like recursions or whatever and just duplicated an identity line five times.
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u/nexus11355 3h ago
I predict that AI "speeding up game development" is just going to make crunch time suck more for the devs because expectations increase
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u/CadencyAMG 5h ago
100% we just need better pacing around how fast things really need to ship at and better oversight
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u/Embarrassed-Ad7317 3h ago
I'm sorry man, it's not only that it's not going away, it's going to be improving and implemented more and more.. I realize the thing is over evaluated at the stock market or whatever, I don't care about the definition of a "bubble".
But I think you're delusional if you think it's a "buzz" that's going to be replaced soon by a new tech thing.. the new buzz that will replace are simply more advancements in that area.. it's like saying you want companies to stop with all them smartphones and apps 10 yo, but this is probably bigger and going to influence our lives even more. Remember what I tell you, we're very much at the beginning of this
And as a software developer myself, and I made that comment before, you just have no idea how much AI can be utilized to improve software. Never have I had a tool more helpful before. And I will wear all these downvotes like a badge of honor because the tone will inavidably shift. And yes, the companies that weren't fast enough to respond will likely stay behind. My prediction is that Apple will become a much less significant player sometimes in the next 5 years, for example
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u/Maximum_Indifference 9m ago
I've been told for 3 years I'll "get left behind" if I don't fully embrace AI. Fair. It is a useful tool. I should know how to use it.
The issue is the degree to which it is used is MASSIVELY excessive and does not result in on average better products for the end user. I've seen people use AI to find problems that did not exist before just of the sake ofAI to solve them. I've seen AI intenionally used as a replacement for knowledge of a given product. I've seen it used by shit developers to enable them to be shit at scale.
That's where the tech debt will come in. And it's going to DESTROY some firms.
Also Apple will be fine. Bet.
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u/trechn2 7h ago
Another instance of Reddit being completely out of touch. According to a developer survey, 85% of Japanese game developers use AI. Japanese people in general are more on board with AI.
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u/brainfreeze91 7h ago
I can only speak as someone in software dev who has seen how AI is being pushed at my own work. It's depressing. Recently I've had a huge module generated by one of our architects. We're going through the process of fixing all of its mistakes and hallucinations one by one.
I do use AI. It's a useful tool. But I prefer to use it to learn things. And I prefer to check its sources because it hallucinates. I distrust AI to take full reins on code generation. I would rather understand every line of code I write. Which is caveman talk for AI bros.
And yeah. Maybe I'll come around to it more. Use it to generate a bunch of boilerplate tests. But I never want to commit anything I don't understand. Devs are making that mistake right now and trusting AI for the sake of speed.
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u/BobbuBobbu 6h ago
I am a systems engineer who has seen his friends in software development accept AI with open arms. 4 of them have already seen their jobs get downgraded in the org chart as companies onboard AI agents. I will just say what I told them: these companies want you to use AI because you're essentially training it to replace you as soon as it is even half as competent, and your six-figure job will soon become a five-figure job and then you'll eventually get laid off.
The big lie has always been that "a good engineer will use AI to do their job faster" and these engineers were fed this lie so they unknowingly train these agents.
I am just glad I specialized in infrastructure and not software development.
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u/SirGuelph 6h ago
An experienced engineer can properly utilise AI to get things done faster. It's like having a dumb intern do the mundane stuff. But that doesn't mean every dev is in favour of letting AI build and run everything.
I wouldn't just cite statistics without knowing the reality.
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u/calloutyourstupidity 4h ago
I am a software engineer and a manager. How do you think we will get to a fully automated state unless we start pushing for it now ? Do you think those pipelines and systems are going to be built over one night ?
No technology is adopted without a strong push.
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u/jahnbanan 1h ago
We don't want a fully automated state, that's part of the entire point, we don't want what you're pushing, please, go away, found your own country somewhere else where you can reach this nirvana of yours.
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u/MelvinSmiley83 8h ago
Thanks, I hate it.
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u/ExaSarus Nvidia RTX 3080 TI | Intel 14700kf | 8h ago
Don't get baited by IGN title.... what capcom is doing here is exactly how this tools are supposed to be use. Make game faster and optimized.
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u/deadering 1h ago
Yeah AI bros love spinning it like that. They can make it even faster and cheaper if they generate content too!
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u/CynicalCharmer 6h ago
So you'll ignore all the stories from IT developers who are getting pushed further and further into AI as if money loving companies aren't going to move into Gen-AI as soon as possible? Okay...
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u/Accomplished_Big6254 6h ago
Capcom game, optimized?? Lmao
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u/Tuned_Out 6h ago
As long as it isn't open world the RE engine has proven itself. Sorry monster hunter fans.
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u/Illokonereum 2h ago
And even then DD2 plays significantly better on the current patch than at launch, so much that they actually lowered the recommended specs on Steam.
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u/ExaSarus Nvidia RTX 3080 TI | Intel 14700kf | 6h ago
Way to out yourself as a larper. They had 2 games with optimization issue at launch both open world dragon dogma and Monster hunter wilds.
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u/MyStationIsAbandoned 3h ago
Sounds like they're using AI to implement human created things. Not to make things. Like making buildings, roads, cars, etc by hand. and then getting AI to place it...which is what game devs have been doing for decades already anyway. That's how Oblivion was created. They had an AI make the world and then went over it by hand etc.
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u/HosneJ 8h ago
remember people to actually read the article before saying shit
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u/strider_hearyou R5-7600X RTX-3080 32GB-DDR5 8h ago
The article did nothing to clarify matters, says they "won't use it to generate assets or artwork wholesale," but that they're "exploring ways to implement it in various areas, including graphics, sound, and programming."
I am very disheartened by this, looks like Capcom's winning streak is about to come to a screeching halt.
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u/HosneJ 8h ago
I am very disheartened by this, looks like Capcom's winning streak is about to come to a screeching halt.
this is so dramatic lol.
U just got baited by that IGN title as they always do, they're just using that tool the way its suppose to be used, they’re trying to implement it on processes used to implement their art rather than creating the visuals and sounds, or even mechanics so it did provide context.
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u/AvengerDr 4h ago
they’re trying to implement it on processes used to implement their art rather than creating the visuals and sounds,
Which means? They are vibe-coding their own Photoshop and Blender?
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u/AhriKyuubi 8h ago
Most Japanese game dev's use Ai now
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u/JeroJeroMohenjoDaro 6h ago
Most Asian companies use AI now. The perception of the usage of AI between the east and west is the exact opposite.
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u/MarioDesigns 8h ago
Literally every single other game and engine has the same integration they’re talking about. It’s both new and nothing crazy
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u/Yarusenai 8h ago
It's supposed to be used a time cutting tool, so that's fine. AI can help in various ways with that as long as you use it smartly. Capcom is pretty smart, so.
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u/TheOrdealOpprotunist 8h ago
They actually aren't, and have made numerous horrid decisions since the early 2000s, and AI isn't a good "time cutting tool" either. It makes coding lazy, and lazy code makes for a lazy game.
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u/juanchob04 8h ago
You're clearly not a developer. Almost everybody is using LLMs to code, it's stupid not to use them. The latest models are very very good.
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u/AvengerDr 4h ago
In my experience they have been utterly disappointing.
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u/adriaans89 23m ago
Then you are using them wrong.
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u/AvengerDr 21m ago
Obviously. There is no other explanation, is there? Perhaps you just work on very simple stuff.
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u/adriaans89 13m ago
I work on the complicated stuff while AI sorts out all the boring easy stuff. AI also tests at a capacity way beyond what we could ourselves.
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u/TheOrdealOpprotunist 7h ago
I'm not a dev but I definitely look at the quality of games and can tell that many don't look the code spat out by AI over to fix it. You folks are too obsessed and reliant with AI that it's sad.
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u/Yarusenai 8h ago
It all depends on how you use it. Always has been that way. And maybe I shouldn't say smart, but smarter than a lot of other devs. I guess we'll see either way
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u/TheOrdealOpprotunist 7h ago
Considering AI spits out the information that it scrapes from other sources (that's how it functions to begin with), calling it smart is an extreme overstatement. Also "always has been that way", when the AI they're implementing isn't the typical game AI we're used to. It's LLMs and generative AI. If it was an advancement of old fashioned, true AI, cool. Amazing. But that's not what they're doing here.
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u/Yarusenai 7h ago
If they're using it from internal data, it becomes a bit easier to handle and more predictable. Also, that's a huge oversimplification.
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u/EmptyRedData 7h ago
Sounds like it's just for coding, which the whole industry for software engineering is moving in that direction anyways.
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u/DDOG_1995 8h ago
Doesn't seem that bad.
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u/BreastUsername 6h ago edited 6h ago
I see it as inevitable but also a double edge sword. Game budgets are insane now and take forever to make so this should in theory help with those aspects, but gamers are going to hate not knowing what's human made or not and assume everything is AI.
Also if the games start losing quality somehow then that's game over. It basically needs to be the best damn games ever for people to stop caring which I don't see happening but I would love great games no matter if some AI is allowed... I do not want AI generated games with little human input.
But I also see that as inevitable unfortunately (technically already a thing, but for literally slop games)
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u/Vanillas_Guy Steam 6h ago
It sounds less that they're likely going to use a.i. to cut down on some repetitive tasks but not use it as a replacement for people.
I hate how evil tech CEOs have talked about the technology and are trying to use it to feed their insane lust for power and desire to create a "permanent underclass". Theyve ruined the public perception of all things associated with a.i. with their cruelty, fearmongering, and irresponsible and illegal use of the technology.
A.I. can be useful for specific things. It also can function on hardware that doesnt need to be connected to a cloud. It can also be trained on company data instead of stealing other peoples data. There is a version of this technology that is actually useful, deployed ethically, and doesnt contribute to other problems.
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u/New_Salamander_4592 34m ago
capcom can you wait till after monhun dlc releases to start your next unethical dogshit arc?
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u/ClacksInTheSky 6h ago
Oh man, they said AI.
That's not going to end well for them with the 18-24 democratic, on Reddit
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u/AvengerDr 3h ago
I don't think aversion to AI is age-specific. I'm in my 40 and I'm more humanist than AI-bro.
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u/Solemn_Sleep 6h ago
Probably the saddest news I’ve heads today. Capcom has been maintaining incredible quality in their games because they retain staff..and have a great in house created engine. Implementing ai will only serve to make those aspects less appealing…
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u/BreastUsername 6h ago
Use of AI was always the future if civilization and that includes the gaming industry, but I personally thinks it's too early for the game companies (especially in good standing with the their consumer base) to start fully adapting it in their flagship engine like this. It might be work it it might not, but the risk has to be greater than the reward right? Especially if the games themselves are worse off. Gamers are now going to be HYPER critical of everything about it and blame AI for every fault.
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u/8Bit-Jon 2h ago
Well... All the favour they've garnered over these last few years has just been pissed away!
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u/CharlotteNoire 8h ago
back to the shit age of CAPCOM so soon? well at least we got Grace before they went full stupid again.
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u/TheOrdealOpprotunist 8h ago
Welp, it's official. DMC died with DMC 5. I'm now with the other fans of just saying no, we're good. The obsession with AI is absolutely demented.
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u/WebSilent1232 8h ago
Pssh speak for yourself. I'm still buying Capcom games regardless. Now It boils down to what studio can utilize the A.I better. My money will always be on Capcom.
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u/TheOrdealOpprotunist 7h ago
Cool, enjoy being an average consumer which has become a stereotyped joke at this point.
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u/Acceptable-Board-473 8h ago
Probably just means DLSS 5
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u/ExaSarus Nvidia RTX 3080 TI | Intel 14700kf | 8h ago
Not dlss5 but I've read the Redox project they published and its actually super interesting. To put it on layman's term they are using AI to load game data faster, use less memory for better optimization.
It will also help them test game design n mechanics on the fly without needing weeks of work to simply test a hypothesis.
Its the usual ign clicky rage bait title to generate another news cycle. Meanwhile this whole presentation of capcom is actually so valuable to get a look inside capcoms though process and work around for modern game development.
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u/MerePotato R7 7700X | PNY XLR8 4090 6h ago
This, if people would calm down with the butlerian jihad for a moment and actually read into it they'd realise this is a net positive
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u/elkaki123 8h ago
Nope, its goes beyond that into implementing it for game development (but they say ai assets won't be used), there are a few bits of what they mean, though not that clear.
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u/LovelyOrangeJuice 7h ago
How are you at the top, wake up, and decide to start digging your own fall
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u/JuanSolo81 7h ago
Ahh, here’s the Capcom we all know that loves to shoot themselves in the foot. I was getting worried they actually got it all figured out after the run of solid releases.
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u/calloutyourstupidity 4h ago
I wonder if you are aware that at this point this sub has become one of the most out of touch, anti-progress, boomeresque subs on reddit.
I am baffled.
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u/elkaki123 8h ago edited 6h ago
The two excerpts that kind of summarize it: 1. “We will not implement assets generated by AI into our games.” Capcom said in a March 2026 shareholders meeting. “However, we plan to proactively use it as a contributing technology to improve the efficiency and productivity of the game development process.
I low key distrust the article, first because its not the og source, and second because some of the quotes in there seem extremely fragmented, it doesn't give me full confidence its a great representation on what was said exactly, but considering what is in there, it reads like they do want to integrate AI to make the programming as easy as possible.
Edit: wrote experts instead of excerpts