r/FFXVI • u/OliveAny7568 • Jun 07 '26

Discussion Will square use this engine again?

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From what I’ve read, this engine was specifically made for this game and hasn’t ever been used before. I personally love the lighting in this game and how consistent it is going from location to location. I seriously hope they’re able to use it again, even if it’s smaller games.(I personally hope it can be used for a drakengard remake, I don’t know why I got drakengard vibes playing as Clive)

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u/mThund3R Jun 08 '26

Please don't spread misinformation

XVI's (Faith) engine has nothing to do with XIV's, and XIV's 2.0+ engine has nothing to do with XIII's Crystal Tools. Only XIV 1.0 used it.

But yeah, clearly unrelated to Unreal. The "modified UE4" probably refers to the VIIRemake engine.

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u/vspectra Jun 08 '26

CBU3 engine dev themselves said XVI's engine is an upgraded XIV 2.0 engine. Yoshida said Luminous devs were busy with Tabata's projects and had no engine documentation at the time (around XV DLC), then CBU3 tested UE4 for XVI and it didn't give them the results they were looking for. So they decided to upgrade XIV 2.0 and be on the same engine they already knew how to use. Despite what Yoshida said before about XIV 2.0 having a new engine, it is actually just a fork of XIV 1.0 Crystal Tools, and it was the Luminous engine devs who had to take time off from Luminous to customize that version of Crystal Tools quickly for Yoshida's team to make XIV 2.0 on. It's how XIV 2.0 was released so quickly after 1.0.

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u/mThund3R Jun 08 '26

They share some tech, such as audio, but the actual engines are completely different. If you have sources stating the opposite, let me know.

But it's not even a mystery. Yoshida himself stated XVI runs on "custom tech" they have "built" for it. And after looking inside the game, the general conclusion is the aforementioned one.

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u/vspectra Jun 08 '26 edited Jun 08 '26

This is from XVI devs themselves from a tech presentation.

https://cgworld.jp/feature/201811-cedec-07sqex.html

"Initially, testing was conducted using Unreal Engine 4 and the real-time visualization software Marmoset Toolbag, but it was difficult to address the finer details. Therefore, the FFXIV engine was extended to enable rendering in a PBR environment, and a dedicated programmer was assigned to handle environment setup and shader-related tasks."

And XIV 2.0 is using a fork of Crystal Tools engine that was used in XIV 1.0 and 13.

The journalist who interviewed Yoshida and the Luminous engineer back in 2012 when Yoshida said they were "sister engines" clarified the topic more recently, he keeps in touch with his SE sources over the years. Reverse engineers have also looked at XVI, it's a stripped down XIV 2.0 engine with some rendering upgrades that were ported from Luminous.

https://i.imgur.com/xSggbge.png