Kingdom Hearts III converts to Unreal Engine 4

Square Enix’s upcoming Kingdom Hearts III is no longer using an in-house engine, instead opting for Unreal Engine 4.

The switch was revealed in a Famitsu interview with the game’s creator Tetsuya Nomura, who confirmed his team is now using Epic Games’ popular technology, according to Kotaku.

"Development is steadily proceeding as planned," he told Famitsu. "Due to the impact of changing the game engine to Unreal Engine 4 – which we did for various reasons – there is some difficulty rendering images. And with the full support of Epic Games, we’ll be able to progress smoothly."

Previous Kingdom Hearts have been developed with in-house engines, and Square Enix is still using its own tech for Final Fantasy XV.

Epic Games launched Unreal Engine 4 earlier this year, with the interesting new business model of making everything available – including the source code – for a low monthly fee.