There has been quite a bit of talk about how Ubisoft has managed to take advantage of newer technology to put together a pretty massive Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate. At this year’s SIGGRAPH, Ulrich Haar and Sebastian Aaltonen talked specifically about the kind of tech that was being used, including the AnvilNext Engine. The devs have said that using this engine, they have been able to push 10X more objects/instances than in previous Assassin’s Creed games in Assassin’s Creed: Unity. It’s obvious the same will apply to the upcoming Syndicate since they are basically running on the same engine.
In addition to that impressive feat, the engine was also able to get 1-2 orders of magnitude less drawcalls. That is quite impressive and also quite handy when it comes to making an open world game the size and scope of Syndicate. Unity was one thing, but this engine was the first step towards unlocking a truly great game. Unity might have been something of a bit of a mess when when it was first launched. Having said that, there were plenty of things that were done right. Now that Syndicate is on the horizon, updates to the engine are going to make the upcoming Assassin’s Creed even better.
Ubisoft says that in the very near future, it is going to be working with more batch friendly data. They are also working on making the DX12 a more useful tool when it comes to the next couple of Assassin’s Creed games. Unity might have had it’s flaws, but it appears that the company has learned from those mistakes. Hopefully that means Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate is going to be as good as claimed.