Capcom saw tremendous success with the launch of Resident Evil Requiem earlier this year. The survival horror game has already sold more than 8.5 million copies, bringing in revenues topping $500 million and reigniting interest in the 30-year-old franchise.
Resident Evil Requiem, like any AAA game, took a long time to make, with a development cycle spanning six years and including a reboot midway through production. To help keep up that momentum, Capcom has revealed plans to incorporate artificial intelligence into its game development process.
The project is called REX, programmer Satoshi Ishida revealed at a tech conference over the weekend. At its core, six separate programs will help integrate AI and machine learning into the RE Engine, the increasingly long-in-the-tooth proprietary game engine that powers Capcom’s biggest titles.
The goal, Ishida said, is to create a “game engine of the AI generation.”
To be clear, Capcom isn’t planning to have AI develop creative elements for its games, such as game assets. Instead, the project reflects a broader problem facing the industry: Game development cycles are getting longer, and Capcom hopes AI can streamline parts of the process. That includes things like quality assurance testing and other development efficiencies.
Capcom is hardly alone in incorporating AI into its workflow. Several other publishers have done so in recent years. Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson said in April that AI technology has augmented jobs at the company rather than replaced them.
“I saw some data recently, I think, now almost all—like 85%—of our quality assurance [work] is done with some kind of machine learning or AI-driven algorithm,” he said.
And Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two Interactive Software, said his company is exploring what advantages AI can offer.
“Anything that allows us to do a better job—quicker and cheaper—we’re interested,” he told Fast Company at the ESA’s iicon conference earlier this year. “What we are beginning to see is mundane work that can easily be replaced by technology is indeed being replaced [and] people turn their attention to higher value tasks.”
Capcom’s AI tools will do much the same. One system, for instance, could animate groups of objects or characters together rather than having those animations run individually in real time. Another, according to Capcom’s presentation, would convert game-mechanics ideas into a standardized programming language. Since RE Engine is used by developers in several countries, that common language could also help speed up development.
Capcom did not respond to a request for further comment about the REX project, but it addressed its stance on AI during a shareholders meeting in March, making clear that it was interested in the technology but did not plan to use it to replace the human creative force behind its games.
“We will not implement assets generated by AI into our games,” the company said. “However, we plan to proactively use it as a contributing technology to improve the efficiency and productivity of the game development process. To this end, we are currently exploring ways to implement it in various areas, including graphics, sound and programming.”
This isn’t Capcom’s first experiment with AI. In January 2025, it created a prototype “idea generation” system alongside Google that used generative AI to help brainstorm ideas.
“One of the most time-consuming and labor-intensive aspects of game development is brainstorming ideas to create the game’s world,” Capcom technical director Kazuki Abe said at the time. “For example, if there’s a television in the game’s environment, we can’t just use an existing product. We need to come up with the shape, manufacturer’s logo, and other details ourselves.”
The companies said the system lowered the cost of brainstorming, helping improve margins. But as the video game industry continues to undergo a painful contraction, with many studios cutting staff, almost any use of AI is likely to create tension among game makers.
As AI advances and becomes capable of doing more, executives could eventually have to reconsider whether some positions are necessary. Zelnick acknowledges that possibility, though he argues that properly implementing the technology can instead eliminate low-value work.
“I have an obligation to run an efficient enterprise,” Zelnick said. “We have not seen any opportunity to reduce headcount because of AI. What we have seen is an opportunity to stop wasting time on things that don’t create value.”
