Capcom has just announced a new in-house development engine, REX. It will replace the RE Engine that was originally introduced in Resident Evil 7 and has powered almost all of the company’s biggest projects.
Capcom is looking to optimize ever-increasing file sizes and provide more gory detail to upcoming projects. RE Engine has proved that Capcom is one of the most versatile triple-A developers, providing an in-house game engine that is able to power the Resident Evil 4 Remake on iPhone and Monster Hunter Rise on the Switch. Capcom is able to achieve these feats without sacrificing any of the high-end graphical capabilities or stability fans have come to expect thanks to the RE Engine.
Capcom has highlighted ports and features that take advantage of upcoming hardware in its announcement. Modern Resident Evil games already look impressively disgusting, but new versions that utilize next-gen graphics are sure to look even scarier. Capcom mentioned the capabilities of Nvidia’s 4090 graphics card and how an engine upgrade will play into new hardware.
But the company’s main focus continues to be on optimization, particularly with large file sizes on upcoming systems. Gamers have been horrified with poor optimizations recently as many triple-A titles are larger than Lady Dimitrescu and contain more bugs than a Baker family dinner. But Capcom games have largely avoided these issues.
The REX Engine is looking to continue a consistently high precedent as new hardware is introduced. It’s unknown what titles this new engine will power as Capcom’s 2024 lineup will continue to use the RE Engine, however, no upcoming Resident Evil titles have been announced yet. Is RE9 going to be the first game to use the REX Engine? Only time will tell.
