Cloud gaming is still a rather fringe technology, with many game developers, publishers and console manufacturers exploring the potential of the cloud for video games. Gaming and tech giant Tencent has announced the START ENGINE – a brand new video game engine developed specifically for Cloud gaming.

Making the announcement during the SPARK 2022 conference (and as reported by SparrowsNews), Tencent revealed their brand new ‘Start Engine’ alongside a demo titled ‘Evolution’. In this choppy but impressive real-time demo of the native cloud game technology, Tencent showed off the strengths of this engine, giving a first look at near film-quality graphics.

Describing their hopes for this new engine, a Tencent Games representative said “The START ENGINE team is focused on the development of native cloud game technology and offering a brand-new game experience to the end-users. START ENGINE is looking forward to working with global game studios, indie developers, and film industry creators to explore more possibilities and embark on a journey to a full-real world together.”

The Start Engine is said to come with its own set of new and unique features crafted to help make development easier for studios while also making the game look as good as possible, including “The ability to directly import film-quality fine assets and render ultra-high-precision details; real-time surface subdivision of low-precision models without any pre-processing” and last but not least, “adaptive mesh LOD, supporting resolutions up to 1000x higher than the original model.”

What has been shown off so far is impressive, but we will have to reserve judgement until an actual game is developed using these tools. Regardless, the announcement of a new game engine is great for the industry, offering more tools to more developers.

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KitGuru says: What do you think of the demo? Were you impressed? Do you think Cloud gaming is the future? Let us know down below.

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