Following Square Enix’s acquisition of Eidos, the company began work on a brand new game engine designed to be used for the next generation of gaming. Today, the company finally showed the first footage of the Luminous Studio engine in action with a Final Fantasy-branded tech demo.
Please enter the url to a YouTube video.Titled Agni’s Philosophy: Final Fantasy, the video depicts a woman escaping from a group of armed men following their attack on a church-like establishment. After drinking a potion of sorts, the girl finds herself in a bind when a dog-esque creature attacks her. The girl summons a dragon to save her, and she flies off atop the creature.
Despite the engine largely being developed by Square Enix Japan, the company reached out to overseas companies such as Eidos Montreal, IO Interactive, and Crystal Dynamics to share technology. The engine supports features such as procedural animation, high-quality lighting, and higher details in objects. In addition to consoles, the engine can also be used in applications for smartphones, computers, and on the internet.
The first game confirmed to be utilizing the Luminous Studio engine is Square Enix’s Final Fantasy Versus XIII, though the game will only be using the engine’s lighting capabilities; the rest of the game will run on the Crystal Tools engine seen in Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XIV.
With Microsoft and Sony both expected to announce new consoles next year, the Luminous Studio engine could very well be put to use in new games very soon. Regardless, the future looks bright – and very, very pretty – for Square Enix’s games.