In the era of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, Japanese developers struggled to keep up with their Western counterparts, as stated by the creator of the NieR series. According to Yoko Taro, Japanese developers are not adept at incorporating technology from overseas due to various reasons.
Yoko Taro explained in a detailed interview with IGN that Japanese developers were slow to adopt rendering tools and middleware from the West. This is because they were accustomed to creating their own engines. While some Japanese developers have faced difficulties with their proprietary engines, such as Square Enix with the Luminous Engine, others have excelled. For example, CAPCOM has developed the RE Engine, which powers a variety of games including multiple entries in the Resident Evil series and Dragon’s Dogma 2.
With Unreal Engine 5 now setting a new standard for visual quality, it will be interesting to see if Japanese developers will embrace it for their future games or if they will continue to rely on proprietary engines to maintain high-quality standards. Yoko Taro believes that Japanese developers struggle to adapt technology from overseas while Chinese and South Korean developers are quicker to utilize engines like Unreal for games with Japanese aesthetics.