Home Gaming The next-gen engine behind The Division looks gorgeous

The next-gen engine behind The Division looks gorgeous

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No matter the age, there has always been an engine powering some of the greatest games of history. Quake III’s id Tech 3 gave us a Jedi Outcast and the best James Bond game ever Everything or Nothing. The Unreal Engine 3 has given the last generation perhaps too many steroids. And moving forward, the Snowdrop engine that is being used for The Division is setting a new benchmark.

Ubisoft first gave gamers a taste last year of the Snowdrop Engine when they sprung the surprise reveal of The Division at the the end of their E3 conference. A year later, and they’re offering another look at the engine which has been designed to be better, not just bigger.

It’s an all in one engine really, that forgoes the need to license other software like various other big budget games have had to do in the past. And it looks sumptuous. Snowdrop is also designed to be a more efficient piece of software that trims the fat of editing and creation, giving artists more time to really add extra flare to their creations.

If this is the engine that will power the majority of Ubisoft games for the near future, then I think we have a scalable winner on our hands here, that won’t look long in the tooth by the time sequel four or five rolls along.

And hell, maybe even a monkey like me can learn to use it, judging by the manner in which it has been designed.

Last Updated: June 4, 2014

36 Comments

  1. oooh when is next gen?! ps5 ? Xbox two? hehehehe

    Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      June 4, 2014 at 10:58

      Consoles are dying haven’t you heard?

      Reply

  2. Martin du preez (D4RKL1NGza)

    June 4, 2014 at 10:50

    I’ll wait for the official downgrade before I decide if it looks good or not.

    Reply

  3. Umar's Crown

    June 4, 2014 at 10:51

    Do people honestly believe this game is gonna look as good as it did when they revealed it?……Then when it get’s downgraded gamers will just be like meh, gameplay is the most important thing….SIgh…..Seriously backwards industry. If this was the Prostitution industry and you’re promised sweet love making but on the day you only get a measly hand tickle, your pimp’s hand would’ve long time smacked you over the head…Gator’s bitches better be using jimmies!

    Reply

    • Matewis Jubilai

      June 4, 2014 at 10:56

    • Hammersteyn

      June 4, 2014 at 10:58

      GATOR!

      Reply

  4. Admiral Chief Kilo

    June 4, 2014 at 10:52

    I just hope it WORKS on PC, as it is being developed ON PC!

    Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      June 4, 2014 at 10:57

      As opposed to being developed on console?

      Reply

      • Matewis Jubilai

        June 4, 2014 at 11:00

        Coding must be a bitch on a controller

        Reply

        • Mossel

          June 4, 2014 at 12:05

          LOL! Up, up, left, down, up, down, x. There, now you have a for loop.

          Reply

          • Matewis Jubilai

            June 4, 2014 at 12:08

            Hahaha! “Dammit! pause… menu>>commands… uhm ok forward,forward,back,up, X,O,O for a WHILE loop”

  5. Matewis Jubilai

    June 4, 2014 at 11:02

    Remember those old benchmarks for your pc? It used to look so good. I remember one with a buggy driving around and shooting at things, and one with a dragon flying around frying a village. Wonder what score I would get these days

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief Kilo

      June 4, 2014 at 11:03

      ONE MILLION

      Reply

    • Rags

      June 4, 2014 at 11:17

      3D Mark 2001 😉

      Reply

      • Matewis Jubilai

        June 4, 2014 at 11:19

        Oh yes! in the days of my 32mb riva tnt 🙂

        Reply

        • InsanityFlea

          June 4, 2014 at 11:30

          haha, go check those demos now and see how bad they look :p

          Reply

          • Matewis Jubilai

            June 4, 2014 at 11:37

            Heh yeah I suppose, but it will be incredibly smooth. I still remember the exact spot, where the buggy takes a turn on/off the road, where the framerate used to drop to 15ish

          • InsanityFlea

            June 4, 2014 at 11:38

          • Matewis Jubilai

            June 4, 2014 at 11:40

            Wow thanks for the link! and all of them in one place 😀

  6. Tarisma

    June 4, 2014 at 11:08

    Pretty much all games look amazing these days, what counts is gameplay….

    Reply

    • Praise Lord GabeN

      June 4, 2014 at 12:03

      Shitty graphics and framerate drops ruins immersion. Which ruins gameplay.

      Reply

      • Tarisma

        June 4, 2014 at 12:31

        Worse than terrible controls, features, design choices, nonsensical story lines and broken game play?

        Reply

        • Praise Lord GabeN

          June 4, 2014 at 13:27

          You have to take the whole package into consideration.

          Reply

  7. oVgeeeeee Comet Drop

    June 4, 2014 at 11:16

    I wonder if the poor performance and lies for Watchdogs will affect PC sales?

    Reply

  8. geelslang

    June 4, 2014 at 11:28

    All this video demonstrate is what we are missing out on because the new consoles are weak stuff.

    Reply

    • Tauriq Moosa

      June 4, 2014 at 13:44

      Isn’t this on the new consoles? Sorry: I’m confused.

      Also I’m confused by “weak stuff”. Just because Mount Everest is the tallest mountain doesn’t make Table Mountain small. It’s “smaller” but not small. So, when you say the world’s most powerful PC’s are stronger than next-gen, no one disagrees. But that in no way makes them “weak” (bizarre since the amount it handles from the likes of Ryse, Killzone, Infamous, etc.).

      Reply

      • geelslang

        June 4, 2014 at 14:16

        Im confused that you are confused. 🙂

        I think its generally accepted that the new consoles delivers less power than everyone hoped for. Look at the whole watch_dogs e3 2012 trailer fiasco, this proves that developers expected more power for the new consoles.

        The primary target for game development will be consoles, so the grapichs target is automatically set relatively low, with the pc version suffering as result. I get the feeling developers had grand plans for the new generation, but now have to taper down their expectations and potential because the new consoles just cant handle the load.

        I mean seriously, the new consoles can barely run games at 1080p. Weak stuff.

        Reply

        • Tauriq Moosa

          June 4, 2014 at 14:21

          Hmm. I can’t believe how Infamous and Ground Zeroes runs. If that’s weak for you, I’m terrified of what you consider strong. Also, that assumption also depends on idea that every PC is an insanely good one (look at how many people responded to Watch Dogs PC requirements with disappointment they couldn’t run it, for example.

          And also, let’s not forget, WD appeared on last gen, too. What we’d need to test is scalability of games only appearing on next-gen [Arkham Knight, for example], not games appearing on all gens.)

          Reply

          • geelslang

            June 4, 2014 at 15:27

            Ag, ok, lets just agree that you think the new consoles are powerfull enough and I feel they are a tad underpowered(or in my own words ‘weak stuff’).

            I get the feeling there are many people that are dissapointed with the new consoles.

      • Praise Lord GabeN

        June 4, 2014 at 16:28

        The peasants will argue since they don’t know any better. May GabeN have mercy on their souls.

        Reply

  9. HisDivineOrder

    June 4, 2014 at 13:32

    Wow, I can’t wait to see how THIS engine compares to the Disrupt engine from Watch Dogs. I bet it’s going to DESTROY it…

    …at performance tanking. So since Watch Dogs requires 4 GB of video RAM just to run ultra textures and high looks like a game from 5-10 years ago, I expect The Division to require 6 GB of video RAM, 4 GB of system RAM, Geforce Titan Black Quad-SLI, Devil’s Canyon quad-core overclocked to 5GHZ as a bare minimum, SSD to reduce pop-in, and framerates between 20-22 on average with lots of stutter and pop-in. This is for Ultra.

    (Supposedly) Next gen consoles will get it at 600p on Xbox One and 720p on PS4. It will be the equivalent of low to medium settings on PC. It will stutter with framerates of 23-27.

    ITS GONNA BE GREAT!

    Reply

  10. matt

    June 4, 2014 at 20:42

    You guys realize they are playing it on an Xbox one in the video right? Around 1.50 in…..

    Reply

  11. matt

    June 4, 2014 at 20:42

    Edit that 1:40 in.

    Reply

  12. Ernst Stavro Blofeld

    June 5, 2014 at 00:52

    Everyone knows the best James Bond game is GoldenEye…. FACT

    Reply

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