Platinum's new in-house engine will "make bigger, more expressive games than ever before"
"We want to give artists and programmers even greater control to try things out with their creations."
Platinum Games is building a new in-house engine.
In an interview shared on the studio's website, members of the company's research and development group talked about the process of developing the software - which is currently codenamed PlatinumEngine - and how "their approach differs from most in-house engine development." The engine has reportedly been in development for the last two years.
"Our Research and Development Group finds the technical solutions we need to create thrilling next-generation action games," the company said (thanks, VGC). "Now, they're hard at work on the PlatinumEngine a new in-house engine to drive all of our creations.
"We've used our own in-house engine, specialized for action game development, since PlatinumGames was founded," said Wataru Ohmori, CTO and R&D lead. "But modern games demand a whole new level of quality, a greater variety and number of objects on-screen, and a richer amount of expressive visual power.
"We came to the frightening realization that if we don't make our work more efficient, we're simply not going to be able to keep making the games that we want to make as technology and expectations grow. Our new engine will help us make bigger, more expressive games than ever before, and with greater ease."
Asked what made the new engine different from others available, Ohmori said: "To give an example, programmers at PlatinumGames have more freedom to directly control game animations than they do at most game studios; that gives them a particularly important role in action game development. Our existing engine already puts assets in the hands of each artist to freely control, so it's easy for programmers to tweak what they need to, too.
"This is one of PlatinumGames' strengths as a developer, and with the new engine, we want to give artists and programmers even greater control to try things out with their creations. The idea is for the new engine to both boost efficiency and make it easier to try new challenges in how our games are presented."
In other Platinum news, the Wonderful 101: Remastered Kickstarter campaign finished up with a grand total of ¥235,320,528 - that's a whopping £1.7 million ($2.2m).
The Wonderful 101: Remastered will be released for Nintendo Switch, PC, and PlayStation 4 on 19th May, 2020, in North America. European fans will have to wait just a little bit longer as it doesn't release here until 22nd May, whilst Japanese players will get in on 11th June. Here's 15 minutes of The Wonderful 101: Remastered in action.
Platinum Games mastermind Hideki Kamiya has also announced his next project, too. The game - currently codenamed Project G.G. - sounds like it's still a long way off, but has been announced now to attract development talent.
