Japanese Game Developers Struggle to Keep Up with Western Counterparts, Says NieR Creator

Japanese developers have struggled to keep pace with their Western counterparts during the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 era, as stated by the creator of the NieR series. According to Yoko Taro, Japanese developers are not adept at incorporating technology from overseas for various reasons. In a detailed interview with IGN, Yoko Taro discussed game development with Hyung-Tae Kim, the creative director of Stellar Blade.

Japanese developers were slow to adopt rendering tools and middleware from the West, and even today, many educational institutions do not teach these skills to new developers. Yoko Taro believes that Japanese developers struggle to adapt technology from overseas while developers from China and South Korea are quicker to utilize engines like Unreal for games with Japanese aesthetics.

While some Japanese developers have faced difficulties with their proprietary engines, such as Square Enix with the Luminous Engine, which was only used for two games before being abandoned, 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, Monster Hunter Rise, Devil May Cry 5, Street Fighter 6