While talk is just talk until they show the system in action on a final game, ahead of the upcoming Game Developers Conference, Ubisoft has shared preliminary top-line information on Ubisoft Scalar, pitched as “a new cloud-native technology for game development”. According to Ubisoft, the technology “unlocks the power and flexibility of cloud computing for Ubisoft’s game engines – the software used for creating games – reducing dependency on players’ hardware and providing new possibilities for game development and player experience”.
Ubisoft Scalar is being led by Ubisoft Stockholm in collaboration with their studios in Malmö (Ubisoft Massive), Helsinki (Ubisoft Redlynx), Bucharest and Kyiv. The hope is for this to lead to the establishment of “a new game development framework focused on crafting the ideal game design and experience, rather than working around traditional production constraints”.
Below is some information that Ubisoft shared about the announcement. Here’s hoping that this technology can lead to improvements in Ubisoft games throughout this generation:
Note: This summary is copied verbatim from the media release, and should be taken as such.
Unprecedented scalability, flexibility and creative freedom for developers
Built on a microservice architecture, Ubisoft Scalar places each component and system of traditional game engines independently in the cloud (AI, audio, physics…), moving from the closed, single-processor systems of today to a distributed model across a potentially unlimited number of machines. Games using this technology can therefore leverage a virtually infinite amount of computing power to push the envelope on all aspects and run anything from vast virtual worlds to extremely deep simulations and environments that were previously unachievable.
With scalability as a core design decision, one of Ubisoft Scalar’s key differentiator lies in its on-demand philosophy. The technology dynamically starts and stops services, optimized based on players and developers’ activities to only use required computing power in real-time. This optimization extends to intensive compute tasks that are cached and distributed globally, removing the need to recompute what has been computed already.
In addition, the flexibility of cloud computing also enables developers to update and improve one service without impacting others, or even add new features to a game without interrupting play sessions, meaning no patch to download and no downtime for players.
Christian Holmqvist, Technical Director at Ubisoft Stockholm says, “This is a major moment in our careers as game developers. We feel that same inspiration and freedom as when we first started using our home computers as teenagers – that feeling that you can do anything by fully tapping into the power of cloud, for the first time in gaming.”
Limitless, dynamic, persistent worlds for players
Removing historical frictions between creativity and technology, Ubisoft Scalar lets creators fully focus on game design to offer radically new gaming experiences to players. Natively cross-platform and scalable, it allows them to gather by the millions in a singular, shared virtual environment for new types of games and massively social experiences. And with cloud-accelerated systems, game worlds also reach a new level of persistency where players actions can have an immediate and lasting impact on their environment, opening the doors to new forms of emergent gameplay.
Ubisoft Scalar will progressively be made available to all Ubisoft studios whose future projects require cloud capabilities. Home to this groundbreaking technology, Ubisoft Stockholm is actively working on a new IP leveraging its full potential to deliver an experience at a scale never seen before. More information about this project will be revealed at a later date.
A foundational technology, Ubisoft Scalar stems from the recently created Production Technology department, a transversal group of more than 500 tech experts with the mission to develop the best tools and technologies that bolster Ubisoft game creators to bring their visions to life.
“Ubisoft builds on 35 years of continued investment in R&D and proprietary technologies, because technological independence is a critical differentiator,” says Guillemette Picard, Ubisoft’s VP of Production Technology. “Ubisoft Scalar is in line with that spirit, enhancing both our creativity and our unique co-development model with new, seamless ways to collaborate at a global scale. It marks a step forward and an exciting milestone for the gaming community”.
