French video game publisher Ubisoft has unveiled cloud-based technology Ubisoft Scalar as part of a preview of its Game Developers Conference.
Ubisoft said in a panel discussion ahead of GDC 2022 next week that the technology will use the cloud for better game production to expand the types of games that can be created for large experiences or new types of games. It has native
Cross-platform and scalable, enabling them to gather millions of people in a single, shared virtual environment to develop new types of games and social experiences at scale.
Typically, online games limit the number of players in an online multiplayer game to about 100 players in a single shared space. I'm not sure what Ubisoft is saying, but it sounds like how Microsoft is leveraging its Azure cloud to create an extended landscape for its Microsoft Flight Simulator games, where the cloud delivers the landscape to the flying game. Ubisoft says it plans to free gamers from stand-alone computing, and that players' machines will take advantage of the cloud's supercomputing power.
Patrick Bach, managing director of Ubisoft Stockholm, said at a press conference: "We also have the right to break the mold that we know about how to make games and how we push technology to try new things even further. "How do you reimagine what games should be and what they might be in the future, and then start moving in that direction to create new experiences?" Because in general, the game is usually an iteration of what it did before. We want to get out of that bondage and build something big. ”
This has nothing to do with using the cloud to stream games to players. Ubisoft Scalar sued the cloud against game developers, giving them more creative freedom and doing more in their world. It's not a game engine in itself, but rather a cloud production tool that enables game developers to use the game engine as a service.
The company did not describe the technology in detail, but said Ubisoft Scalar unlocks the power and flexibility of cloud computing for Ubisoft's game engine, the software used to create games. It reduces the reliance on the player's hardware,
Opens up new possibilities for game development and player experience.
The result could be a huge gaming world with millions of players at the same time.
The company says the technology is being developed in Ubisoft Stockholm in collaboration with Ubisoft studios in Malmo Massive, Helsinki (Ubisoft Redlynx), Bucharest and Kiev. Ubisoft founded the Stockholm studio in 2017, which includes several veterans of Battlefield from EA DICE Studio.
The idea, Bach says, is to reimagine the games of the future and move in that direction to create new experiences.
He said, "We can now build bigger worlds for players to play with. ”
Bach said Ubisoft Stockholm is using Ubisoft Scalar to develop intellectual property, but it can't say when it will start talking about it.
"We need to rethink and relearn how to make games," said Per-Olof Romell, chief technology officer at Ubisoft Stockholm. "I hope you see a wider range of games."
Romel said the technology is decentralized and can also be used by other Ubisoft studios.
"It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing," Romel said.
Romel mentioned that Ubisoft is looking for talent. Ubisoft was embroiled in the #MeToo scandal in which employees were allegedly sexually harassed and saw a lot of talent leave the company. At the same time, the game industry has experienced a boom in the epidemic, and many companies have difficulty recruiting developers.
Christian Holmqvist, Ubisoft's technical director at Stockholm, said the company is challenging the limitations of the large gaming world. Developers can use a game engine on their local machine and use only the tools they need to develop faster.
"Scalars actually allow us to do it entirely to eliminate these limitations, rather than pushing their boundaries." If we delete them, what do we actually want to create? This prepares us for a new set of challenges. We need to rethink, learn how to make games, create the experience we really want," Holmqvist says.
How does this work
As a result, games using this technology can take advantage of an almost unlimited amount of computing power to push the limits of every aspect and run anything from vast virtual worlds to extremely deep simulations and environments that were previously unattainable.
"The game is always on. And it's always possible to update the various parts of the game," says Holmqvist. "As a result, developers can create very rich worlds that evolve, evolve, and change as players actually play them." right. As a result, it creates a closer connection between the players and the creators of these teams. ”
One of the main differences of Ubisoft Scalar, which makes scalability a core design decision, said, is its on-demand philosophy. The technology dynamically starts and stops services and is optimized based on player and developer activity, using only the computing power needed in real time.
This optimization extends to dense computing tasks for global caching and distribution without the need to recalculate what has already been computed. In addition, the flexibility of cloud computing also enables developers to update and improve a service without affecting other services, and even add new features to games without interrupting game sessions, which means no need to download patches and no player downtime.
Ubisoft Scalar eliminates the historical friction between creativity and technology, allowing creators to focus entirely on game design to deliver a whole new gaming experience for players. With cloud acceleration systems, the persistence of the game world has also reached a new level, and players' actions can have a direct and lasting impact on their environment, opening the door to new forms of emerging gameplay.
Ubisoft Scalar will be progressively available to all Ubisoft studios where future projects require cloud capabilities.