Capcom Announces Plans to Transform the RE Engine Into an AI-Generation Game Engine — ‘Our Goal Is a Future Where We Create Games Together With AI’
Resident Evil and Street Fighter developer Capcom revealed some big changes coming to its RE Engine, which they plan to incrementally improve and transform into an "AI-generation game engine." On October 2, Capcom held its own tech conference, called ‘Capcom Open Conference RE: 2026.’ One of the most notable takeaways from this event was a presentation given by programmer Satoshi Ishida, titled ‘The Outlook and Future of the REX Project, Further Evolving the RE Engine for the Next Generation.’ The purpose of this presentation was to outline several major changes coming to the RE Engine, which will come in the form of a multi-step improvement project called ‘REX.’
Ishida mentioned three major issues that Capcom is currently experiencing when it comes to game development: First, games are now so massive that simple processes have become extremely time-consuming; increased numbers of staff mean an engine is needed that’s easy for everyone to use; and finally, “successfully integrating AI technology into development workflows has become an essential condition for streamlining future development.”
GameBiz’s report confirmed that REX was created to help solve these problems by improving the efficiency of game development, game performance, tools, quality assurance, etc. Capcom felt that, rather than creating a brand-new engine from scratch, gradually adding these improvements over time is the best way to help evolve the RE Engine to the next generation.
Most interestingly, AI plays into Capcom’s larger, long-term goal of turning the RE Engine into an “AI-generation game engine” using its REX improvements. GameBiz stated that REX unifies the entire RE Engine system under the “world’s most common programming language,” meaning that it’s equal parts easier for humans to use and for AI to understand.
Capcom’s goal is to build a future where it “creates games together with AI”; this means Capcom is utilizing artificial intelligence to speed up and streamline certain processes to make development easier, not necessarily to generate assets or artworks wholesale. While Capcom was previously publically averse to using AI for asset creation, the company confirmed that it will use artificial intelligence as a tool for optimizing how it makes games. "We will not implement assets generated by AI into our games," Capcom stated in March 2026, but added, “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.”