Capcom plans to turn its RE Engine into an “AI-generation game engine”

Capcom used its own technology event, Capcom Open Conference RE: 2026, held on October 2, to explain where its in-house RE Engine is headed. The most closely followed talk came from programmer Satoshi Ishida, titled “The Outlook and Future of the REX Project, Further Evolving the RE Engine for the Next Generation.”

The problem Capcom wants AI to solve

Ishida described the challenges facing a studio that produces games at the scale of Resident Evil: the projects have become so massive that even simple tasks are extremely time-consuming, and growing numbers of staff mean an engine is needed that is easy for everyone to use. His proposed answer is “successfully integrating AI technology into development workflows,” which he called an essential condition for streamlining future development.

The road to an “AI-generation game engine”

Those changes are grouped under REX, a multi-step improvement project that covers the efficiency of game development as well as engine performance, tools and quality assurance. Rather than building a brand-new engine from scratch, Capcom argues that gradually adding improvements over time is the best way to evolve the RE Engine for the next generation. At least some of the REX work is being open-sourced for the purpose of training AI, and the project unifies the engine under what GameBiz calls “the world’s most common programming language,” making it easier for both humans and AI to understand.

According to IGN’s translation of the presentation, Capcom wants to turn the RE Engine slowly and incrementally into an “AI-generation game engine,” building toward “a future where we create games together with AI.”

Where Capcom draws the line

Capcom has drawn a distinction between using AI to make games and putting AI into the games themselves. At a March 2026 shareholders meeting, the company said: “We will not implement assets generated by AI into our games. 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.”

Ishida’s presentation lines up with that position, though, as The Verge notes, it leaves the door open to more extensive use. IGN reads the plan the same way: the goal appears to be speeding up and streamlining certain processes rather than generating assets or artwork wholesale. There is an ironic backdrop, too: Capcom’s upcoming game Pragmata is built around the horrors of AI, even as the studio moves to put the technology deeper into how its games are made.