Ubisoft has built something that may mean online games never have downtime again. It's creating the game development tool of the future, today. Well not, today. But the Stockholm studio is working on a game using its new Ubisoft Scalar tech that sounds fascinating.
Unveiled at GDC 2022, Ubisoft Scalar is definitely not a game engine. It's a production tool that opens up a world of possibilities for cloud and online gaming. As you can see from the trailer below, it removes the traditional barrier of hardware from the game developer's side of the equation. That means good news for gamers!
Analysis
As described in the presentation, Ubisoft Scalar widens the field of the type of games devs can create. The tool does away with constraints, and has a ton of benefits for both creators and players.
From a gamer's perspective, Ubisoft Scalar means online games will always be running and available. There'll be no bringing them offline for hours to roll out updates. The game can be updated while players are still active within it. As touched on in the trailer, it can help support more players in a huge shared world, and create new kinds of social experiences as a result.
Ubisoft Stockholm Technical Director, Christian Holmqvist, Ubisoft Scalar Product Director, Per-Olof Romell, and Ubisoft Stockholm Managing Director, Patrick Bach, were keen to highlight how the new "central decentralized tech" will revolutionize gaming as we know it.
On the dev side of things, Scalar speeds up the pace at which games can be developed on the fly. Essentially the various aspects are compartmentalized so they can be worked on separately – in contrast to a game engine.
Ubisoft Stockholm is already working on a new game that uses the tech. We don't know what it is, or when it's launching, but it could be something on a scale we haven't seen before going by the GDC presentation.
Described as a "once in a lifetime" project, Ubisoft Scalar has positioned itself as a must-have tool for developing metaverse games. And I don't mean those garbage-looking ones like Decentraland. We could finally start seeing decent, metaverse-ready games that we all actually want to play.
