Platinum reveals new engine designed to deliver ‘bigger, more expressive games’

PlatinumGames is creating a new in-house engine which it says will enable it to develop “bigger, more expressive games than ever before”.

In an interview posted on the studio’s website, R&D group lead and chief technology officer Wataru Ohmori said the PlatinumEngine (working title) has been in development for approximately two years.

“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,” he said.

“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.”

Platinum has used its own in-house engine since it was founded, and while Ohmori said the studio considered using an external one like Unity or Unreal Engine for newer titles, it decided these wouldn’t provide it with the level of control it needs to continue developing highly original titles.

Improving efficiency through ease of use was another top priority when it came to choosing an engine, 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.”

PlatinumGames will open a new Tokyo office in April, which will lead the company’s expansion into the games as a service market.

The recent announcement of the Tokyo studio was the third in a series of four planned reveals, following the The Wonderful 101 Remastered and Project G.G..

Platinum said in January it had received investment from Tencent which would see the Japanese studio remain independent while allowing it to explore self-publishing.