14 DAY TRIAL // Recently announced RPG by Square Enix, The Last Remnant will be using SpeedTree, as Interactive Data Visualization has confirmed today. The famous developer responsible the all time winning series such as Final Fantasy, has developed a similar game, featuring only single player mode, but said to be using Unreal Engine 3. What are they using really, and for what?
Here's one of the few brief descriptions of the game, via Siliconera: "This latest RPG of Square-Enix will be a single player RPG that is directed by Hiroshi Takai who's better known for his role as game planner in The Bouncer and will feature two characters who will appeal to each of the game's audience; Rush (traditional Square-Enix hero) will appeal to the Japanese gaming audience, and The Conqueror (dark/anti-hero) will appeal to the Western gaming audience. The best part of this new IP? It'll make use of the Unreal Engine 3 which Square-Enix licensed a while back."
In the last part, Epic's UE 3 is mentioned, but today's press release says otherwise. SpeedTree to be more exact. Now here's what Square Enix Chief Artist Kimihiko Miyamae said: "Since it's able to render not only a large number, but a large variety of trees quickly, SpeedTree has really been an important tool for us in developing THE LAST REMNANT."
Miyamae clearly mentions "SpeedTree." I guess the game's Chief Artist is the last person who'd make such an error, so this means either Siliconera got their facts wrong, or that SquareEnix is using two powerful graphic resources. One for trees alone and one for making things behave in a realistic manner. The latter sounds more plausible, but we'll have to wait for some more information on the game to be certain.
The Last Remnant is being designed to take full advantage of the high-spec capabilities of next-gen hardware emphasizing a real-time fantasy world, on the PS3 and Xbox 360. The game will be launching on both consoles at the same time in North America, but a specific date hasn't been announced so far.