Ubisoft reveals new cloud computing tech ‘built to power the game worlds of tomorrow’

videogameschronicle.com:

Ubisoft has revealed a cloud computing technology that it claims will enable it to create brand new types of games.

Ubisoft Stockholm’s managing director Patrick Bach, technical director Christian Holmqvist and CTO / technical director Per-Olof Romell discussed the tech, which is called Ubisoft Scaler, during a GDC presentation on Thursday.

They said it will allow Ubisoft to make bigger and more complex game worlds than ever before, that can be updated in real time and be populated by a giant number of players, creating new social experiences.

Following a reveal video, Scaler product director Romell kicked off a Q&A section of the presentation by explaining what the technology is.

“Ubisoft Scaler is a piece of foundational technology that enables Ubisoft titles to utilise the power of the cloud. In essence what it also is, is really a huge shift of mindset. Try to look 10 years into the future and imagine what games should be, could be, and what you could expect out of games and how you make them.”

Bach, who was general manager of Battlefield studio DICE prior to joining Ubisoft, said that when the Stockholm studio was established in 2017 it got “the mandate to kind of break out of the moulds that we know about how to make games and also to push technology further”.

He said: “How do you reimagine what games should be and could be in the future? And then start to build towards that to create new experiences, because in general, games are usually an iteration of what has been done before. We want to break free of that and build something big.”

Romell said Scaler means game creation will no longer be held back by the limitations that hardware platforms place on development.

“That limitation has always been there for as long as