Capcom Addresses AI Concerns Following RE Engine Conference Remarks

In an exclusive interview with IGN, Capcom, the studio behind Resident Evil and Street Fighter, has clarified its position on artificial intelligence and its future plans for the RE Engine.

On October 2, during its annual recruitment conference, programmer Satoshi Ishida discussed the company's strategy to gradually enhance the RE Engine through an initiative called REX (RE Next Engine). Instead of developing a new engine from scratch, Ishida explained that Capcom will take incremental steps to improve the RE Engine, including the incorporation of AI—a detail that raised eyebrows among fans once it circulated online.

We spoke with a Capcom spokesperson, who detailed the challenges developers currently face that prompted the company to rethink its approach to game creation with the RE Engine. They acknowledged that games are becoming increasingly massive endeavors, requiring enormous time and resources to produce. With AI technology advancing rapidly, Capcom recognized an opportunity to address these issues and boost developer efficiency by enhancing their development tools, automating code testing, and analyzing large datasets, among other benefits.

Capcom's vision for REX is to integrate these AI tools and efficiencies into the next version of the RE Engine, enabling faster game development with the most powerful tools available. The spokesperson emphasized that Capcom has no plans to use generative AI—which creates content based on prompts, as opposed to other AI types that analyze patterns, make predictions, or process data—in the creation of its games. Any AI implemented with the RE Engine will be strictly for accelerating processes and helping development teams work more efficiently.

This means AI will not be used to create assets or programs within games. Capcom reaffirmed this stance back in March during a shareholders' meeting, when asked about its intentions for AI in its products.

"We will not implement assets generated by AI into our games," Capcom stated. "However, we plan to proactively use it as a contributing technology to improve the efficiency and productivity of the game development process. To this end, we are currently exploring ways to implement it in various areas, including graphics, sound and programming."

Upcoming Capcom titles include Resident Evil Veronica and Mega Man: Dual Override.