Ubisoft/Fox: Massive (The Division) is making an Avatar game (Snowdrop, PC/consoles)

Considering this is how a forest looked in Snowdrop circa 2013 --- I cannot wait to see what one looks like now in their awesome engine.
snowdrop-engine-04_713ea93.jpg

Incoming Downgrade!
 
Lol what the Snowdrop engine was used for the new South Park game?

Yeah, weird. And according to the press release, Snowdrop is a cornerstone engine for Ubi on other stuff.

Snowdrop is a tailor-made, custom game engine that enables the creation of ultra-realistic game universes, enhanced by dynamic global illumination, stunning real-time destruction and an incredible amount of detail and visual effects. Along with being the engine behind the development of The Division, the Snowdrop engine is also the lead engine on a number of other unannounced Ubisoft projects.

Wonder if they're positioning Snowdrop to be Ubisoft's Frostbite? (I'm sure I'm jumping to conclusions, they've of course got Anvil Next and Dunia 2 and everything else they play with, but maybe Snowdrop is meant to be shared across offices? They've advertised "Snowdrop" by name whereas its other engines they tend to neglect to talk about outside developer conferences.)


Considering this is how a forest looked in Snowdrop circa 2013 --- I cannot wait to see what one looks like now in their awesome engine.
snowdrop-engine-04_713ea93.jpg

This 2014 clip has some of that forest in play.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrAD-2oAul8

Of course, no note of machine performance, and this was long before the backlash (fair or otherwise, just noting that "downgrade" rabble circulated) against The Division. Would be very interested to see a 2017 engine demo of Snowdrop, but the only thing Massive is showcasing at GDC is AI pathing and it'd probably be unlikely to release an engine demo that's not related to a game outside of events like that.
 
It's definitely an online focused game:

LIVE PRODUCER [AVATAR PROJECT - LIVE OPERATIONS]

JOB DESCRIPTION
As a Live Producer at Massive you are the spider in the web for the live game, managing the live operations team and acting as main point of contact and coordinator for all teams involved with the live game. Your responsibilities cover a wide array of different areas, including live development, player retention and acquisition, customer support, analytics, online infrastructure, digital sales and live P&L. You will work closely with producers and directors on the development team to prioritize and plan post launch development, bringing extensive knowledge of game data, operational solutions, community sentiment, ongoing issues and digital business to the table.

This is a permanent position based in Malmö, Sweden, and requires working onsite.

You as a person
You are calm, highly stress tolerant with the ability to keep multiple threads of information and communication in mind at the same time. You have excellent communication skills, that you utilize to get a clear message through when coordinating and informing the various teams you are working with, as well as when presenting your results and strategies to top management.

You have extensive experience in live game operations, preferably having been part of the launch of an online AAA product with high post launch ambitions. You understand the importance of game data and have the ability to combine your deep knowledge of games with actual game data to make player centric decisions.

You are creative, dedicated and have a strong passion for games. You are up to date on the latest end greatest live games in the industry, keeping a close eye on what the competition is doing in order to evolve and improve yourself and the game.

As a person you are service minded, thorough, team-spirited, result oriented and have the ability to get things done by collaborating with other people and working out solutions to complex operational problems.

Responsibilities:

Live Team - Manage and grow a healthy live operation team of operational managers and live developers. Guide and mentor your team, providing them with clear planning, processes and goals, as well as seeing to their wellbeing and personal evolution.
ARM Strategy - Create and evolve a strategy for Acquisition, Retention and Monetization of the live game, including release schedules, In-game events, live testing, anti-cheat, retention features, acquisition tools and more.
Release Operations - In the critical days and weeks after each new release, triage incoming issues and coordinate live teams to ensure quick resolutions to critical player facing issues.
Online Infrastructure - Work closely with the on-site infrastructure team and global internal IT to ensure a cost effective hosting solution with high uptime.
Digital Business - Working closely with global live brand and business teams, optimize the business performance of the live game.
Game Data - Work in close relation with the on-site analytics team to prepare them for your project needs and make sure you and the dev team have the data you need to make the right, player centric decision.
Frontline Coordination - Ensure your team follows up on issues reported by customer support frontline, and provides information and updates to frontline teams on ongoing issues.

http://www.massive.se/jobs/109533589/
 
I've always felt that one of the biggest missed opportunities regarding Avatar was the lack of any sort of online game. Having a single player only game tie-in seemed odd considering the glaringly obvious idea of creating an MMO of sorts.
 
Well this was a random and overshadowed announcement today, damn. Poor timing on their part, but still a bit strange and out of the blue. (no pun intended... shit)
 
hahahaha, I got that reference.




Yeah gee, I wonder why they don't publicly show all of their unannounced project to all of their 10000 employees !(not kidding, it's the actual number)
I mean it's not like they have a leak problem right ? why all the secrecy ?

I wonder how long you've been working there if it seems surprising to you. It's like you got in 2 weeks ago and just wanted to post on the internet that you work there.

Yah you caught me.. GG champ.
 
Are journalists and people that leak half of the projects par of the "internal level" lol?

No, but any developer from one Ubisoft studio knows what the company is doing in other Ubisoft teams. They have internal events (one a few days ago) talking about their games across the company.

That´s why usually their games are leaked more easily than EA projects.
 
Count me in as another one who first thought of Aang and Korra after reading the thread title. Sad.

Hope the game ends up being good, though. Didn't like the movie but the world was really cool.
 
Hot damn. Glad to see Snowdrop Engine getting used again, The Division really is an amazing looking title with an insane amount of detail and reactivity.

And it was simulating NYC.


Pandora or similar worlds will look absolutely insane.



Wonder what this means for The Division 2 or year 2 stuff?
 
It's definitely an online focused game:

I feel like the appeal of licensed games has really dropped, and find it surprising that Ubisoft are taking focus off The Division in order to make another Avatar game; particularly as I recall them saying the first game didn't meet expectations.

That´s why usually their games are leaked more easily than EA projects.

EA games don't leak because they reveal them 3 years before they'll be ready anyway!

Would've preferred an Avatar: The Last Airbender game to be honest.

A big-budget Avatar: TLB game from a high-quality developer would be amazing. There's tons of interesting lore and a really interesting world to explore as well.
 
I feel like the appeal of licensed games has really dropped, and find it surprising that Ubisoft are taking focus off The Division in order to make another Avatar game; particularly as I recall them saying the first game didn't meet expectations.

Ubisoft already said this will not have an impact on The Division franchise. We already had surveys about potential locations for the sequel, the season pass content has finished, so I'm sure they are already working on the next game.

The sequel that was cancelled (and it was briefly mentioned by Ubisoft during their last FY report) was Rainbow Six Siege 2 (scheduled to launch during this fiscal year) because of how well the community was growing (new purchases of the game + DLC).
 
I feel like the appeal of licensed games has really dropped, and find it surprising that Ubisoft are taking focus off The Division in order to make another Avatar game; particularly as I recall them saying the first game didn't meet expectations.

Massive has 400 staffers and several support studios. They're intending to do both franchises at once.

I imagine the main driver though is that Ubisoft appears *super uncomfortable* with big budget hard sci-fi and fantasy games, but notices that both sci-fi and fantasy are very popular both within and outside of gaming, so they want to pick a very "safe" IP to work with.

Avatar is the highest grossing movie of all time, so they probably feel it's okay to make a game with that as a sci-fi setting.

They might also think it will help with hiring staff. If you go to the websites of AAA developers, you will notice they all have about 70 gazillion job postings open, many for 6-12 months. They need to do something to differentiate to actually hire staff.
 
Oh wow what fantastic news I've always wanted to explore the incredibly interesting and totally not forgettable world of Pandora from the Avatar movie, and now I'll be able to do just that.
 
You guys been living under a rock lately lol? Four more movies are coming out with the first one slated for 2018.

I tend to keep up with movie announcements. Knew about things like Power Rangers and Beauty and the Beast back when they were just rumors.

I still had no clue we were getting new Avatar movies, haha.
 
The talk of Pandora being such a great realized world always surprises me. If nothing else, there's the huge glaring biological issue that the Na'vi only have 4 limbs despite evolving from the same ancestors as everything else on Pandora (because of the tree). I know that's being a bit pedantic but considering how much it's stressed that everything is linked through the life tree it hurts the world building for me to miss a detail like that.

I know they were going for the whole close enough to humans to easily have empathy for trope but small vestigial arms would have worked.
 
Didn't think there would be a great profit with licensed games for a studio not tied to the maker.

Is playing as a Na'vi going to be different or just like a human only bigger.
 
Ah man , I was hoping this was the last air bender. I don't like the other Avatar movie at all but so many people do so this will do gangbusters especially when it launches around relesse of one of the sequels
 
I wonder if the original game, itself also an Ubi endeavour, will return to digital stores.
 
D dark10x

Hey John, I've had a very hot debate with my friends about if this being next- gen only looks better than Horizon forbidsn west. What's your opinion? We would really appreciate if you do a DF analysis on it.
 
Surprising to see this game announced, Avatar movie sequels have been in pre-production planning for a long time with no sign of progression. Who is funding this game I wonder ?

I suspect some kind of evolution of the division with vehicles, (machines for humans, animals for navi) and you can play as either side.
 
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