Mark Kern, a former Blizzard developer known for his work on World of Warcraft and co-founding Red 5 Studios, has announced a new game engine called Kun-Zhi, which he claims allows for development speeds up to 93 times faster than using Unreal Engine. This engine is the foundation for Kern's upcoming game, Em-8ER.
Kern described the development process as "vibe" coding, a term he uses with quotation marks to emphasize that it requires significant skill and a deep understanding of game development principles, not just simple prompting. He explained that he spent six months developing the Kun-Zhi Engine with AI, aiming to replace Unreal Engine for Em-8ER. According to Kern, this AI-first approach, rather than integrating AI as an add-on, is the key to the accelerated development cycle.
The Kun-Zhi Engine is built primarily in C with some Elixir, utilizing Vulkan. Kern stated that the engine will eventually be released to the public, starting with backers of Em-8ER. Corporate sponsorships are also available, with current partners including Razer and AMD.
Em-8ER itself features an advanced character animation system, world collision meshes, an AI-assisted Blender exporter, character outfit swapping, physics-driven character effects, and fully networked player capsules and vehicles. Kern noted that the "vibe" coding was achieved using a rotation of AI suites, including Codex, Grok, and Claude, with a recent focus on Astra.
While the demonstration of Em-8ER showcases what appears to be a functional game world with character models and physics, the visual presentation has been described by some observers as looking janky and unpolished compared to titles developed in more conventional engines like Unreal or Unity. The extent to which these features will translate into a seamless gameplay experience remains to be seen, particularly as backers now have the opportunity to test the game themselves.