Ubisoft Announces Cloud Computing Technology for Future Games

Ubisoft says it will come up with a new technology to replace game engines, called Scalar. The company wants to perform calculations for animations, sound and physics in the cloud, for example, in order to be able to use more computing power for them.

Ubisoft argues in a trailer that a traditional game engine is complex and an individual part cannot be easily updated without affecting other parts. The company would like to solve this by turning elements such as “animations, sound, rendering, physics, gameplay and more” into “distributed microservices” that can use the computing power in the cloud.

According to Ubisoft, this makes it possible to set up “giant game worlds” that can contain “huge numbers” of assets, simulations, AI and player characters. In fact, later in the video, Ubisoft claims that a game world can hold an “unlimited number of players.” Scalar should even be able to be updated with new features without interrupting gameplay.

Ubisoft does not provide concrete examples of applications for Scalar at this time. Ubisoft Stockholm is working on the technology, which will be incorporated into a new intellectual property that is also being developed by the studio. That can be read on their website.

This is not the first time that some of the computing power required for a game has been discussed in the cloud. SimCity 2013 creator Maxis claimed at the time that an internet connection was required to ‘massive’ simulation of the cities. Later, the game got an update that made it possible to offline without mentioning any therefore increased system requirements or decreased complexity of the simulation. Crackdown 3 would also complex destruction physics get thanks to the cloud, but there was also at release few from about. Around the beginning of the Xbox One’s life, cloud computing was also a big part of the policy.

Cloud computing games are different from cloud gaming. Examples of cloud gaming include: Stadia, Geforce Now, and Xbox Cloud Gaming. The entire game runs in the cloud and a video feed is sent to the player. Ubisoft talks about how the games run with the players, but that certain calculations, such as AI choices, are performed inside the game in the cloud and only the result is played by the player.