Capcom details plans to evolve RE Engine into an ‘AI-generation game engine’
Programmer says Capcom’s goal is a future ‘where we create games together with AI’
Capcom wants to evolve its RE Engine into an “AI-generation game engine” with a roster of technology improvements, according to one of its programmers.
On Friday, the Resident Evil publisher held its own technology conference, Capcom Open Conference RE: 2026, detailing some of the future improvements coming to its in-house game engine.
RE Engine debuted with Resident Evil 7 in 2017 and Capcom has utilized it ever since, releasing nearly 30 titles using the engine. The in-house technology and the improvements it’s able to share across games is widely credited as a reason for the company’s recent run of hits.
Speaking at Friday’s conference (reported by GameBiz), programmer Satoshi Ishida detailed some of the improvements coming to RE Engine as part of Capcom’s ‘REX’ initiative.
Ishida explained that ‘REX’ was launched to overcome modern challenges that make triple-A games take so long to develop, including improving performance, tools, development efficiency, QA, and other aspects.
Among the various advancements detailed in the presentation was a commitment to evolve RE Engine into what Ishida called an “AI-generation game engine.”
Because the REX project will use a more common programming language, it will make development easier for AI to understand, Ishida said, allowing it to automatically create programs and run test plays to check for bugs in the future.
Furthermore, Capcom will make some of its technologies publicly available on the internet with the aim to allow people to use them to help with AI training, the programmer said.
Capcom wants to ‘create games together with AI’
According to GameBiz, Ishida said that Capcom’s goal is a future where we “create games together with AI.”
However, Capcom’s VP of game development platform and AI solutions, Shinichi Inoue, previously stressed that the company viewed AI “not for creating art, but for unleashing the potential of creators”, stating that Capcom was not using AI tools to generate art.
“The idea is simple. We want to return to the state of the past, when people discussed interesting ideas, reached a consensus, and then brought them to life,” Inoue said. “Back then, everyone involved in development fully understood the context and intentions, which allowed for maximum performance.
“That’s why we want to provide a contextual model for person-to-person communication and clarify intentions. Our ultimate goal is to provide a medium that facilitates collaboration.”
The comments followed on from Google Cloud’s Jack Buser saying, “I think what players don’t realize is that their favorite games right now were already built with AI,” suggesting that Capcom was one example of a developer utilizing AI.
