In a recent interview, Japanese game designer Tetsuya Nomura revealed that Kingdom Hearts III is now being developed on Unreal Engine 4.
It was largely assumed that Square Enix was using an in-house game engine, Luminous, for "Kingdom Hearts III" like it is for "Final Fantasy XV" which unveiled a fantastic looking trailer at the Tokyo Game Show this past September. It would seem obvious that the Luminous engine would be choice here, but apparently that is not the case after all.
Talking with Famitsu, Nomura explained, "Development is steadily proceeding as planned. Due to the impact of changing the game engine to Unreal Engine 4, which we did for various reasons, there is some difficulty rendering images. And with the full support of Epic Games, we'll be able to progress smoothly."
The Unreal Engine 4 is developed by Epic Games. Square Enix has used the engine's earlier iteration in the past, such as for "The Last Remnant." Square Enix Europe also uses the Unreal Engine.
The fourth iteration of the Unreal Engine is a truly a fantastic piece of video gaming technology, so whatever Nomura and his team need to get this game out the door and onto store shelves sometime in the not-too-distant future needs to happen.
Check out a video demo of the Unreal tech below:
