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Industry breakdown · 2 min · 10/9/2026
Shin Megami Tensei V: Unreal Tools by Role
Atlus's first Unreal project, Shin Megami Tensei V: material instances, Pivot Painter, Sequencer and Blueprints, and why matching tools to roles worked.
What happened
Shin Megami Tensei V was Atlus's first Unreal Engine project. Material instances kept the painterly art style consistent across a large demon roster, Pivot Painter animated props in ways their DCC pipeline could not, Sequencer handled cinematics, and Blueprints replaced legacy scripting.
Why it worked
- Each discipline got a tool built for its job instead of one shared workflow.
- Material instances made the art style a set of parameters, which scales across many characters.
- Moving scripting to Blueprints removed a custom in-house layer the team would have had to maintain.
What we'd take into a client project
- On a first project in a new engine, map each role (art, animation, cinematics, design) to its tool before production starts.
- Build master materials early and give artists instances, so a style change is one edit, not hundreds.
- Retire legacy scripting deliberately; running two systems side by side doubles QA.
Related
Note: Feative Studios was not involved in this project. This breakdown summarises what the developers have shared publicly; the takeaways are our own.