Will Street Fighter 6 Use the RE Engine? What Capcom‘s Impressive Proprietary Game Engine Means for the Future of the Franchise

As a hardcore Street Fighter fan, I was thrilled when Capcom confirmed that Street Fighter 6 will be built using their powerful in-house RE Engine. This signals a major investment in taking the venerable fighting game franchise to the next level both visually and under the hood. In this article, I’ll provide some tech-focused analysis on what the RE Engine brings to the table, why Capcom transitioned away from Unreal, and how the engine could shape SF6 into the best entry in the series yet when it releases in 2024.

The RE Engine – Capcom‘s Custom High-End Game Engine

First, let’s breakdown what exactly the RE Engine is and why Capcom believes it’s the best fit for developing SF6. The RE Engine was originally created by Capcom in 2014 for Resident Evil 7 and has since become their go-to game engine, powering major releases like Resident Evil 2 Remake, Devil May Cry 5, and Resident Evil Village.

Cutting Edge Graphics

Some of the standout capabilities of the RE Engine include:

• Highly detailed character models down to individual pores and strands of hair. Capcom uses photogrammetry to scan real-life objects and people to translate into in-game assets with a high degree of realism.

• Advanced lighting and shadows thanks to physically-based rendering. Materials react realistically to light and environment reflections.

• Impressive physics and visual effects like particles, fluids, and soft body dynamics that interact realistically with characters and environments.

• Support for high resolutions and frame rates – up to 4K and 120fps depending on the game and platform.

• Ray tracing integration for true-to-life shadows, reflections, and ambient occlusion. This was showcased in the Resident Evil Village demo.

By developing their own engine in-house rather than licensing a commercial one like Unreal, Capcom can optimize and customize the technology specifically for their games. For example, they can build specific pipelines tailored to efficiently create high-quality character models and animations needed for fighting games.

Optimized Netcode

In addition to visuals, the RE Engine provides technology to improve online multiplayer performance. This is critical for a competitive fighting game like SF6.

The team has rebuilt their network code solution from the ground up to provide rollback netcode. Rollback helps minimize input delay in online matches by “rolling back” to previous game states when needed to keep the two players properly in sync. SF5 notably lacked rollback, leading to criticism of its online play at launch.

Based on the public tech demos showing nearly imperceptible lag even when playing over WiFi, it’s clear Capcom has invested heavily in optimizing netcode with the RE Engine in mind. Smoother online play is an absolute must for a 2021 fighting game, and the engine choice directly improves the odds of Capcom properly nailing the technical execution.

Next-Gen Ready

While originally designed for the PS4 and Xbox One generation, Capcom has continued evolving the RE Engine to take advantage of new hardware capabilities. The team has touted new features including ray tracing, 3D audio, and even loading drones on next-gen consoles.

This proven ability to tap into new systems like ray tracing on PS5 and Xbox Series X should give confidence that SF6 will shine as a true next-gen fighting game. RE Engine‘s custom optimizations can extract the most out of new hardware to enable gameplay experiences not possible before.

Why Move Away from Unreal Engine?

Capcom utilized Epic‘s Unreal Engine 4 to develop the recent Street Fighter 5, which launched first on PS4 and PC back in 2016. For the time, this was sensible as Unreal provided a robust, generic game engine complete with advanced graphical features ready to deploy out of the box. However, Epic’s engine licensing model likely becomes costly when producing iterative sequels. Capcom also has less control over the technology, being unable to customize the engine codebase to their specific needs.

After investing resources into building the RE Engine starting in 2014, Capcom clearly believes their proprietary engine has reached sufficient maturity and capabilities to handle the development of all their major franchises moving forward. While the initial upfront investment is high, they save on licensing fees long-term and benefit from full control over the technology.

Refining a Purpose-Built Fighting Game Engine

By version two of any engine, most major pain points and bottlenecks are identified. Capcom has had years to build up developer experience and best practices for efficiently creating high-end fighting games specifically using the RE Engine.

Questions that often arise with proprietary game engines are whether the team can keep pace with commercial offerings in terms of features, and handle the optimization burden required across multiple platforms. But Capcom has clearly committed the resources necessary to evolve the RE Engine in the way that best suits their roadmap.

The RE Engine source code has also now benefited from years of optimization both for Capcom‘s developers and target platforms ranging from PCs, consoles, and even mobile. Having full access allows them to fine tune every aspect to maximize fighting game performance.

What Does This Mean for Street Fighter 6?

Powering SF6 on a matured, modern RE Engine tailored for fighting games puts the franchise in perhaps the best technical position it has ever seen. The new graphics, animation, physics, VFX, netcode, and next-gen features enabled by the engine should help propel the gameplay, art direction, and mechanics into new territory for Street Fighter games.

I believe we’ll see this new technical foundation allow the developers to focus their efforts more on creative goals, content, and systems rather than technical limitations. The RE Engine combined with new consoles finally gives the power necessary to reimagine what a AAA fighting game can look and feel like in 2021.

Of course this all remains to be seen once extended gameplay and details are revealed. But as a long-time fan of Capcom fighters, I can’t help but be optimistic about what the future holds with the RE Engine as the new driving force. What do you think? Does the engine choice excite you for Street Fighter 6? Let me know in the comments!