The French giant Ubisoft has always positioned itself on innovations and promising sectors of the video game industry. After positioning in favor of NFTs since the end of 2021, Ubisoft is today unveiling a brand new cloud computing technology.
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Ubisoft Scalar, creative support for new types of games
It was during the Games Developer Conference (GDC) that several Ubisoft Stockholm executives presented Ubisoft Scalar and spoke last Thursday. Indeed, Patrick Bach, General Manager of Ubisoft Stockholm, Christian Holmqvist, Technical Director, and Per-Olof Romell, Technical Director and CTO, presented Ubisoft Scalar, Ubisoft’s new cloud computing technology.
According to them, this innovation will give Ubisoft the ability to create new, more successful games, larger and more complex worlds that can be updated in real time while welcoming a colossal number of players. Ultimately, these possibilities would allow developers to create new types of games that are still very rare or not very successful at the moment. Per-Olof Romell notably expressed himself during an FAQ after having presented Scalar on video.
“Ubisoft Scalar is a core technology that enables Ubisoft titles to use the power of the cloud. In fact, it’s also a huge mindset shift. Try to project yourself 10 years into the future and imagine what games should be, could be, and what you might expect from games and the way you make them. »
For Romell, this technology will overcome the limitations and development constraints imposed by hardware platforms.
“This limitation has always been present since we made games. In fact, we have always been very good at hiding these limits and getting around them, it’s kind of our expertise. Now, what Scalar allows us to do is to completely remove these limits rather than push them back. This presents us with a new set of challenges: now that what we know is no longer relevant, we have to rethink and relearn how to make games to create experiences that we really want to offer, which changes everything. »
The technical director and CTO of Ubisoft Stockholm in charge of the Scalar project finally declared that this innovation should in no way be confused with what game streaming services offer and that Scalar is not a new engine either. Game.
“Game streaming is a distribution model, it improves the accessibility of games, but it does not change in substance what the games are and their quality. Now, what matters for Ubisoft Scalar is the quality and the possibilities it opens up for us, game developers and gamers. I don’t think it would make much sense to go back to making game engines the way we think about game engines today. Scalar is an alternative and also an option that existing game engines can use to be cloud-accelerated both in terms of production, but also real-time experiences. »
Advancing video game creation by breaking out of the usual molds
The general manager of Ubisoft Stockholm, Patrick Bach, spoke about the desire to free himself from the usual development constraints by pushing the limits of technology. The former CEO of DICE joined Ubisoft Stockholm when it was founded in 2017 getting “the mandate to sort of break out of the molds that we know about how to make games and also to push the technology further”.
“How do we reimagine what games should be and could be in the future? And then start building towards that to create new experiences, because in general games are usually an iteration of what’s been done before. We want to free ourselves from that and build something big. I think in general what we should expect from this breakthrough in cloud computing is first of all that it will be possible to have more players in one shared world, which I think, will create new social experiences that we have never seen before. We will also be able to create world simulations on a scale and complexity never seen before. And you can add to that one of the pillars of excellence of Ubisoft, the creation of worlds. We can now build even bigger worlds for players. Ubisoft Stockholm is working on IPs developed in tandem with Scalar and the objective is of course to take full advantage of all the possibilities of this new technology, but it is a little too early to talk about it at the moment. “”
Christian Holmqvist, technical director of the Stockholm office and Ubisoft Scalar finally said that this innovation will create a much closer link between players and developers, a link allowing games to evolve more easily and offer the best proposals to players. .
“A very important aspect that Scalar brings is that you have the services that are always available. The game is still running and it is always possible to update elements of this game, so developers can create very rich worlds that can grow, evolve and change as the game progresses. players play it, which will create a much closer connection between players and creators. »
Currently, Ubisoft Scalar cloud computing technology is developed by branches in Stockholm, kyiv, Malmö, Helsinki and Bucharest. The project seems quite innovative and could undoubtedly increase the possibilities of game creators to create worlds never before seen or difficult to imagine today. It only remains to see how this innovative project will materialize on the side of Ubisoft.