Unreal Engine deal in Capcomâ??s western push

In a move that highlights ongoing development culture changes in Japan, Capcom is building the upcoming action game Asura’s Wrath using Unreal Engine 3.

The significance here isn’t simply that Capcom is licensing an American-made development engine (because Epic has in fact been on a eastern charm offensive for over a year) but that its Japanese development studios are now willing to adopt the tech.

Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada recently spoke of the mood at Japanese studios by claiming that most were deeply reluctant to use third party engines.

Meanwhile Capcom’s development boss Keiji Inafune has recently shown, with a degree of vehemence, that his company needs to better apply itself to the western market. He says that Japan has generally been making comparably weak product for years now, and is trailing behind US standards.

Asura’s Wrath, in development at Japanese studio CyberConnect2, is a high-profile project that hopes to buck these trends.

“Unreal Engine 3 was a huge factor in making Asura’s Wrath a visually stunning and exciting game,” said Capcom producer Kazuhiro Tsuchiya.

“The engine’s integrated development environment helped us ramp up production speed and create a clear vision for the game at the initial development stage.”

And Seiji Shimoda, project director at CyberConnect2, enumerated reasons why Unreal Engine 3 helped improve the development process.

"At CyberConnect2, we have our own development process and know-how gained from years of development. But this time we decided to reconsider our process to achieve higher quality and efficiency. We tried a lot of different options and determined that Unreal Engine 3 was a perfect solution.

“Our developers were able to review the game in real time, and they continue to be productive throughout the process. I know we will deliver something amazing to the gaming world, and along the way, we will provide a showcase that will help show Japanese developers how to master the powerful functionality built into Unreal.”