First he was unceremoniously removed as the director of Final Fantasy Versus XIII XV. Then there was his worrying open letter about “harnessing burning anger into Kingdom Hearts 3″ and now we learn that Kingdom Hearts 3 will ditch Square Enix’s internally developed Luminous Engine for Unreal Engine 4.
What’s going on with Square Enix? Is Luminous Engine that difficult to work with that it was actually more cost effective to go out an license Epic Games’ latest release? Or is this Nomura sticking it to Square Enix and refusing to use their internally developed engine?
The early Agni’s Philosophy tech demo was impressive if not a little far reaching for the current generation of consoles but Final Fantasy XV’s most recent trailer showcased the engine in a very positive light. The gameplay demonstrated could have featured Sora and his Disney friends and I wouldn’t have been none the wiser.
Unless Nomura has another PR meltdown, I’m guessing we’ll never know why they switched engines. And if Final Fantasy XV launches with a impressive visuals featuring both breadth and depth, we’ll be in a better position to infer.
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