Culture

From Final Fantasy to Star Wars, E3 Brings Next-Gen Game Graphics

LOS ANGELES -- Sony and Microsoft may not have announced superpowered new gaming hardware at E3, but several game publishers seemed eager to get the next generation rolling.
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  • Agni's Philosophy Final Fantasy Tech Demo
  • Unreal Engine 4
  • Star Wars 1313
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LOS ANGELES -- Sony and Microsoft may not have announced superpowered new gaming hardware at E3, but several game publishers seemed eager to get the next generation rolling. Xbox 360 was released in 2005, just four years after the release of the Xbox. It's now 2012 and Microsoft has not uttered a peep about updating its 7-year-old hardware. Neither has Sony said a word about PlayStation 4. Yes, Nintendo showed its Wii U console, to be released this year, at Electronic Entertainment Expo last week. But based on the look of the games on the show floor, Wii U is roughly on par with Sony's and Microsoft's current consoles, not a big leap over them. But the E3 Expo was full of tech demos that promised a glimpse at what the next generation of games might look like when graphics artists need no longer target their technology at a box built in 2005. Epic showed the Unreal Engine 4 following an exclusive Wired report, but the Gears of War maker was hardly alone: Square Enix showed a concept of a next-gen Final Fantasy, Lucas had a slick-looking Star Wars game and Ubisoft promised a "glimpse into the future" with a video of a 2013 game called Watch Dogs. Some publishers were more cagey than others about what platforms their new games were targeting. But the message of E3 2012 was clear: If Sony and Microsoft aren't going to announce new machines, game publishers will do it for them. Here are the futuristic games and demos that had E3 attendees abuzz. Above:

Agni's Philosophy

Billed as a "Final Fantasy real-time tech demo," this short film from Square Enix looks like a pre-rendered cut scene from one of its graphically splendorous role-playing games, but is in fact being rendered by a game engine called Luminous Studio. Square Enix said it represents its ambitions for the next generation of Final Fantasy games. "Agni" is the name of the magic-using main character shown in the video. "Luminous Studio is without a doubt an engine envisioned to create role-playing games like the Final Fantasy titles seen up until now," said Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada to the Japanese magazine Famitsu. "But not just that, it's also for high-action games which are unlike those RPGs." He said, however, that Square Enix is not currently creating a game using the new engine, saying that the game design teams will likely begin using it late this year or early next.