E3 2012: Square Enix’s Luminous Engine Gives Us a Peek at Next-Gen

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Lee Bradley

Square Enix has been flexing its tech muscles at E3 2012 this week, showing off its new Luminous Studio engine. It’s a fearsomely powerful beast.

Chief technology officer Yoshihisa Hashimoto was the fella in charge, stunned onlookers with a demo called Agni’s Philosophy. He even proves that the footage is running in-engine, just in case you can’t believe it.

It’s all hypothetical of course, and the engine’s probably running on a PC the size of a council estate, but if this is what the next generation of console titles will look like then roll on next year! Check out the video below.

Comments
37
  • Wish Final Fantasy would grow up as I do...
  • Great, But, arnt we at the point were we can do anything with full motion videos now? Maybe squarenix should be showing us gameplay , or investing their time in giving the fans what they want. ( I wont say it)
  • @2 Does it have two Fs and a 7 in it?
  • How about you release FF-versus first?! 7 years in the making and yet still nowhere closer, we dont even no if its PS3 exclusive? I wouldnt mind it on 360 (actually i'd prefer it) but the sole reason I bought my PS3 was for FF-Versus, so why dont u guys focus on that first...
  • Wow, that looks amazing :| LOOK AT THAT BEARD AT THE BEGINNING OF THE DEMO!!!
  • @#4: Better yet, when Nomura is done with that game, he can finally get around to making Kingdom Hearts III. That looked impressive. We truly are getting closer and closer to photorealism in games; I'd imagine that looking just like real life isn't too far off. Also, did the high priest in the first third of the video remind anybody else of Gongora from Lost Odyssey?
  • Started out great, but then went to complete average. Doesn't look like much of a step forward tbh.
  • "Real Time Tech Demo", yup. Real time pre-rendered cut scene tech demo. There was a LOT of big whoop in there. Yea, it looked good, but so did the FF movie from 7 years ago. The new Tomb Raider stuff looks just as good, and that's "this gen" game play.
  • What it shows us is sexytime, not next gen. At this point we don't even know what next gen will be capable of. Square Enix have as much as said that they'll worry about what can run it and/or adapt it to consoles when the time comes which I'm pretty sure is the same thing Epic said about Unreal Engine 4
  • @3 starts f ends with 7 . Rhymes spinal incumbancy heven..... A bit.
  • that is one good looking beard. plus,, i wouldnt want square to ever touch FF7 again, games fine as it is piss off
  • #8 Completely right, too often people misconstrue "demo" with "finished product". Let's wait until the actual hardware is out before we judge this.
  • Looks awesome,I am stoked about the Unreal 4 Engine also!!! I remember being a kid and getting fooled by Box Art! I was like "I can't wait till video gaems look like real life!" I always knew video games would end up mirroring life.
  • lets not forget that all these tech videos are for fmvs and the actual games will still look like shit
  • When actually gameplay looks that good then I will care.
  • We all know that Micro$oft dosen't care about games anymore so basiclly the next Xbox will be a Blu Ray/MP3 player and Xbox Live will be full of Apps that only us Americans and British will be able to use but don't care about. The only games M$ wants us playing are the ones where we wave our arms around like a cheerleader and yell nonsense at the Kinect.
  • Square Enix need fixes and better Final Fantasy game for next generation consoles because recents are letdown that is from FF XIII and -2 :) Last great FF series is FF XII so I hope next one will be best and better then ever. :) This new graphics look sweets but I want next FF series gonna be better unlike FF XIII and -2 :):)
  • Lol, noone is falling for SE's BS! I'm pretty sure I've seen FMV as good as this before (except the beard, which was exceptional).
  • @17 That's your opinion, and its WRONG. FFXII is the only FF to date that I got so bored with I couldn't finish (minus FFXI, but that game doesn't "end"). XIII, XIII-2, and hell, even X-2, were better than XII imo. At least I was able to complete them and actually cared about the story -_- Anyways, as always Squeenix put out an impressive tech demo. Let's just hope for once then DO SOMETHING with it. Admittedly, if they actually make a game or something using the characters/ideas from this tech demo, its just going to make the FF7 tech demo that much more painful since it was never fully realized. And yes, I said it. Hinting at it is just as bad, so blame the 8 other people above me :P
  • gotta agree with 20s view on XII - XIII and its entire series the bunch of bad 7 sequels and X2 are all good in comparison to that game and theyre shit, X was the last decent FF game IMO and IX the last great one
  • Honestly, this tech-demo's graphics aren't all that more impressive then Rage's graphics. Don't get me wrong. They are better then Rage's. But they aren't significantly better. At least not as much of a leap for early next generation as I would expect. I guess that just means that we have reached the point where next generation consoles aren't going to be dramatically different.
  • We don't need better graphics we need more power. There is a limit in what you can do that will always be hit until a huge leap in technology comes. Right now it is about harnessing raw power to create whatever. I wish people would wrap their heads around that concept instead of wetting their panties over graphics and tech demos.
  • Beautiful!
  • @4 FF-Versus-XIII has been rebranded as FFXV...there was a video released last week showing off FFXV and its a trailer that was originally intended for Versus
  • How come people saw the Samaritan tech demo and were excited and yet this looks so much better and people are hating? Better graphics and more power equal the same thing. Do you realise how much power is needed to create the effects in this demo. The graphics that are shown will lead to better in game character acting so games like L.A. Noire will work like they are meant to. It allows bigger active cities in games like assassins creed and skyrim. More importantly it allows destruction in games which can really change how they flow (like battlefield) Square Enix won't be able to show gameplay with the new engine until they have an actual game built with it. However since this is a real-time demo and not pre-rendered its almost as good as the real thing. All we need now is it to be running on a debug system.
  • Looks sexy. I very impressed with todays generation of consoles, so I'm pleasantly surprised that the next gen is so close.
  • Not impressed.
  • I can't believe people aren't impressed. Maybe some people don't know what "real time" means? As in, would be gameplay footage? As in, not pre-rendered? Sure it's been confirmed that it's on a high-end PC, but they also said they're 'hoping' that the next-gen consoles are that powerful so they can do stuff like this on them. >Comparing them to any game this gen LO-fucking-L And Versus is taking longer because they're now making it with this engine. So... I think it's worth a LITTLE bit longer if it might look like this video.
  • This Tech Demo Is No More Impressive Looking Than Doom 3 on the Original Xbox, Higher Framerate doesnt really mean Shit to me !!!
  • @ #20 How can an opinion be wrong? That is why it's called an opinion. That is my opinion and I'm not in the bussiness of telling other people their opinions are wrong. You don't have opinions do you, you just have facts.
  • IDK. Doesn't look much better than this gens cutscenes.
  • @23: You hit the nail on the head so sharply that you coulda hammered it into a concrete wall in one go with that blow. He's completely right that we need more processing power and more ram. Both will greatly expand the potential for video games and their consoles, which buckled under the pressure of the likes of Skyrim and highlighted their blatant limitations. I think Nintendo had the right idea with the N64, having a slot to allow for an upgrade for later games (which was necessary to play Majora's Mask) Negt-gen consoles should have similar expansion ports, which will increase it's power and longevity, so we don't have to dread the expensive transition to new consoles, which never seem to be worthy day one purchases. I mean, seriously, £500 for a new console is NEVER value for money when it can take two to four years to build up a decent enough catalogue of games to justify such a purchase, which by then will be a lot cheaper. Microsoft and Sony really need to be a lot smarter with this impending next-gen, especially with all the bullshit that's goin on with such issues as system failures, game shops going out of business, development teams being shut down, and season fucking passes. Hell, if the industry itself has smartened up, it'll take a breather from worrying about getting their new graphics ready for next gen consoles and take the hint from Nintendo with the Wii-U, which basically says that this generation still has plenty of life left in it, and it would be stupid to euthanise it so early for the sake of realistic-looking beards.
  • ...another thing I'd defo like for next gen consoles though are more eco-friendly models. Not coz I'm a hippie, but because when you've got electric bills to pay for, the current gen are so expensive it's like havin a kid to feed. Per console.
  • @34 get a meter reader. They are fuck all. Spot lights, now they are a killer.
  • this article is misleading. this isnt a peek at next gen consoles. please make the title reflect the article, thankyou :)
  • @9 WE don't know the specs for the next gen consoles, that doesn't mean developers don't. many developers have already confirmed that they are working on next gen games. i assure you, those who need to know are aware of the target specs for the new consoles. @25 except for the part where nothing you said is true http://kotaku.com/5914989/square-enix-confirms-fake+seeming-final-fantasy-xv-trailer-is-indeed-fake
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