Ubisoft Scalar, developed by Ubisoft Stockholm, is “a new foundational technology” that uses cloud computing to give developers the ability to create games without being as constrained by time or hardware. Ubisoft Scalar Product Director Per-Olof Rommell, along with Patrick Bach (Ubisoft Stockholm Managing Director) and Christian Holmqvist (Ubisoft Scalar Technical Director), provide more insight on how this software could be used to make big game worlds even bigger than before.
How Ubisoft Scalar uses cloud computing to break through hardware limitations
In a Q&A press release, Ubisoft shares the purpose and original intent for Ubisoft Scalar. The promise is ostensibly to make it easier for game engines to perform complex tasks behind the scenes and allow game worlds to be populated by more players while being updated in real time.
Per-Olof Romell explains that the technology tool would alleviate some of the limiting factors posted by hardware:
That limitation has always been there for as long as we’ve made games. Over time game developers have become really good at hiding and bypassing these limitations so the player doesn’t see them; that’s our expertise. What Ubisoft Scalar allows us to do is to simply get rid of those constraints.
To be clear, Ubisoft Scalar isn’t cloud streaming like Amazon’s Luna and GeForce Now, but a form of cloud computing where much of the processing power is aided by the cloud so that your local hardware doesn’t become as much of a limiter. This will make it easier for more players to be in a single shared world and “introduce new social experiences that we haven’t seen before.”
To showcase the technology, Ubisoft Stockholm is working on a new IP — perhaps the action title that we reported on earlier this week — that it hopes will demonstrate the new possibilities that cloud computing will bring to gaming. Given that Ubisoft has a penchant for large open worlds in nearly all of their AAA franchises, it should certainly aid in their development.
In other news, Ubisoft has dropped the Tom Clancy name from XDefiant, and For Honor is finally getting cross-play after five years since launch.
