Tom Clancy's The Division publisher Ubisoft has posted a new Q&A on the next-gen shooter and talked about the new Snowdrop engine, and the game's RPG features.
About the next-gen Snowdrop engine:
“Our goal at Massive is to focus on making the best game possible for the players, to increase immersion in our universe and to make them feel like they are part of a real-life situation.
“In our case, in order to build a universe about the fragility of society, we needed to create a brand new engine called Snowdrop, designed from the ground up to harness the power of the next generation of consoles and that allows us to create a universe offering a wide variety of features, such as a reactive living-world system with complex AI, procedural destruction and dynamic global illumination.
“We were also able to integrate more objects than ever before in the environment in order to create a devastated and chaotic New York.”
The post adds, “Next-gen consoles also focus on online and social features. Within our engine, we have developed a new platform with a state-of-the-art matchmaking technology. That enables you to play with people that match your play-style, preferences and behavior.
“One thing we are really proud of is our truly unique experience: a companion gaming app with real-time gameplay on smart phones and tablets, that lets one of your friends play with you from anywhere, anytime.”
Massive also shed light on how they have tried to make The Division's survavalist New York setting as realistic as possible by consuling with the CIA, the military and others, “For The Division, we have consulted with ex CIA agents, the military, survivalists, doctors, as well as experts in this kind of scenario. We are also lucky to have in our teams at Massive, people who have experience on these matters, which is valuable for this game.
“Some team members have even participated in survival trainings to develop first-hand experience of living without the things we all take for granted like food or water.”
The Division is scheduled to be released on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One sometime in 2014.