Gen AI Roundup: Capcom's REX, Bungie Co-Founder, Jagex Row

Generative AI just won't leave the games industry alone.

Look at this week's batch of business news from the MMO world and its neighbours. Two of the three biggest stories involve gen AI in some form. The third, fittingly enough, is a comic book about humanity fighting off a robot uprising. Whether you find that ironic or just exhausting probably depends on how many AI-related headlines you've already scrolled past this year.

Here's what happened.

Capcom Wants an "AI-Generation Game Engine"

Capcom recently held a tech conference, and the headline announcement was a big one. The publisher plans to turn its in-house RE Engine into what it describes as an "AI-generation game engine." The project carries the codename REX, and Capcom laid out a multi-step plan for getting there.

The goal, as Capcom frames it, is to use generative AI to make development smoother, to speed up quality assurance, and to improve performance. Those are the kinds of jobs studios usually describe as unglamorous back-end work, and they're the areas companies tend to point to when they want AI adoption to sound harmless.

There is a small mercy here. From what Capcom presented, REX doesn't appear to be aimed at generating art assets. But that comes with a caveat. Capcom has already shown it's comfortable with Nvidia applying gen AI to the look of one of its recent Resident Evil games, a move that earned a fair amount of mockery from players. So until REX is actually in use and people can see what comes out of it, a promise about where the AI stops is only worth so much.

A Bungie Co-Founder Starts Over, With a Comic

Jason Jones is a name that carries real weight in shooter history. He co-founded Bungie and helped create both Halo and Destiny. His next move, though, isn't a game. At least not yet.

Jones has opened a new studio called Stone Kite, which plans to work on projects across several entertainment mediums. Its first release is a comic book titled One Zero One, a four-issue limited series that Jones wrote himself. The story follows humans facing an uprising of AI robots. Given the rest of this week's news, the timing is hard to ignore.

Stone Kite's CEO is Margaret Stohl, another Bungie veteran whose writing credits include books, games, and Marvel Comics. She describes the studio's approach as an effort to "bring the best global creators from different disciplines into the room from day one to shape the world together."

That's a very different pitch from the typical new studio announcement, which usually leads with a genre, an engine, and a vague release window. Stone Kite is leading with a world and a story, and leaving the medium open.

Jagex Pulls a RuneScape Trailer Over Gen AI

The messiest story of the week comes from Jagex. A RuneScape trailer shown during RuneFest 2026 didn't last long before players started picking it apart. Fans of the MMORPG spotted what they saw as obvious signs of generative AI, including a hand with six fingers and a knight who seemed to be wearing a pair of Air Jordans.

The reaction from the community was loud, and Jagex responded with a statement. According to the studio, the trailer was "produced by a trusted external partner who had explicitly confirmed that gen AI would not be used." The video has since been taken down while Jagex looks into what happened.

That explanation shifts the blame to an outside vendor, but it doesn't fully settle things. Jagex's investigation is still ongoing, and players will want to know what it finds.

The Bigger Picture

Put these three stories side by side and you get a fairly clear snapshot of where the industry stands on generative AI right now. Capcom is embracing it openly and building it into the foundation of its tools. Jagex apparently didn't want it at all, and still ended up with it in a public-facing trailer. And one of the most respected creators in multiplayer gaming is launching his new venture with a story about AI turning on humanity.

For MMO players, the Jagex situation is the one that hits closest to home. RuneScape fans clearly noticed, and they reacted fast. That suggests communities around long-running online games are watching closely for this kind of thing, and they're willing to call it out in public. It also shows that a studio's own policy only goes so far if outside partners don't follow it.

Capcom's REX deserves attention too. If AI built into engines for QA and optimisation becomes standard practice, the line between "tools" and "content" could get harder for players to see. It is worth watching whether Capcom keeps REX away from art, as its presentation implies, and what Jagex's investigation turns up. As for Stone Kite, a comic is a modest first step. Whether it leads to a game later is an open question.