Square Enix has unveiled a new technology to press and other developers behind closed doors, called Project Flare. Flare could possibly mean huge things for Square’s games, like Final Fantasy XV, and much, much more.
Project Flare basically makes use of a supercomputer, in contrast to several server farms, running servers for single games. This creates possibilities for expansive game worlds impossible on the most powerful consoles today, even the most high-end gaming PCs.
Square Enix already shared a demo showing off the tech’s physics engine last November. For E3, they demonstrated brute force. Square revealed a massive forest, 32 kilometers x 32 kilometers. This game world is bigger than The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim by as much as 17 times, based on estimates.
The demo forest could be explored via bird’s eye view in the sky, or via a creature on the ground. Square further claimed that this forest was rendered in full detail 100 %. This means no parts of the game world where instanced or streamed. It was a simple but impressive demo, made more impressive by the fact that it was made by two programmers and one artist in just six months.
Square Enix revealed that their rationale behind developing Project Flare was to create something new to change the course of game development. Freed from having to use smoke and mirrors to render massive gaming worlds, developers will be able to reorient game design to this new paradigm of an always dynamic, deformable and modifiable world. Note that Flare’s tech works in such a way that patches and updates as we know them (requiring temporarily closing games to install and download them) will no longer be necessary.
So, 1st game that’s a likely candidate to use this tech? Final Fantasy XV, of course. Imagine a Final Fantasy game bigger than Skyrim to a considerable degree. If Lightning Returns had that, it would have far, far less detractors.
Square’s final bombshell is the truly big one, however. They showed this to other developers with the intent to sell it to them. Imagine a new Elder Scrolls (after TESO I guess) 17 times the size of Skyrim. Imagine a Dragon Age that big. An Assassin's Creed. A Legend of Zelda. A Halo. A God Of War. If Square Enix gets Project Flare to meet its promise, video games are going to be awesome all around.
Image is from the Project Flare Demo, which you can download from here.
