AnvilNext has seen a number of changes throughout the years with AnvilNext 2.0 effectively owing for structures to be generated and adjusted as necessary. The support for physically based rendering allowed for light to reach with objects and surfaces in different ways, thus leading to more realistic visuals overall. In tandem with global illumination support and improved physics, leading to objects in the environment behaving more realistically, gives an overall better visual fidelity.

In the case of Rainbow Six: Siege, AnvilNext 2.0’s capability and range for real-time destruction really comes into play. Nearly every surface in the game is capable of being destroyed – you can blow holes through floors, ceilings and walls, and they react realistically to any damage inflicted on them. You can knock holes through plaster walls and observe enemy moments before pumping them with lead. Walls can also affect the movement of your bullets. As noted by Ubisoft, each wall is full of layers, leading to different effects. Wooden floors will splinter into little pieces on firing while a wall containing gypsum will generate its fair share of dust on exploding. These walls can dull the impact of your bullets as well, depending on their thickness. Doors can also react differently to damage, depending on whether you’re knocking them down with hammers or igniting them with breach charges.

On this note, Rainbow Six Siege is very physics-heavy. The nature of the destruction isn’t very comical – everything explodes and reacts to gunfire as you’d expect. Not every surface is destructible – and that’s not including the reinforced walls and such – but you’ll still have an incredible moment of freedom with regards to how you can tear a place apart. Don’t count on Just Cause 3 or Red Faction levels of bringing down buildings though.

Rainbow Six Siege is also very CPU-heavy. Screen space reflections throughout the game are numerous, leading to nearly everything being reflective. An additional number of cube map reflections can also be noted which bolsters the screen space reflection quality all the more. We also noted some kind of global illumination passes with lights bouncing off of different objects. While playing in the daytime settings, the PBR pass can be clearly noted. Shadow quality is pretty decent on all platforms but depending on one’s field of view, the cascade region of shadows can vary at times.

The PS4 and Xbox One versions both support adaptive V-sync with a target of 60 FPS. Terrorist Hunt is at 30 frames per second but on the whole, both show excellent frame rate performance. The PS4 has the advantage here with native 1080p resolution support while the Xbox One features a 900p resolution. This results in softer images for the latter but the pixel differences aren’t as apparent in Siege when compared to other games.

In terms of ambient occlusion, the PC version is equipped with HBAO+ support while the console versions use SSBC, Ubisoft’s own unique solution. When observing mid to long range shadows, SSBC actually produces results very close to HBAO+ without the accompanying performance hit. Close range details are still superior in HBAO+ but SSBC works just fine on the console versions. Other advantages the PC version has compared to consoles include less aggressive LOD along with denser and more detailed foliage.

Coming to the PC version, the number of graphical options is above average. Along with determining the overall quality of the visuals, you can adjust texture quality, texture filtering, LOD quality, shadow quality, reflecting quality, ambient occlusion, lens effects, depth of field, shading quality, post-process anti-aliasing and even multi-sample anti-aliasing. A benchmark option is also included for those who want to fiddle with settings to achieve the right combination of visual fidelity and acceptable frame rate performance.

We tested Rainbow Six Siege on an Intel Core i7-5960X with 16 GB of RAM and a variety of GPUS across different resolutions. Here are the results:

1080p Resolution

GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB – 99 FPS

AMD Radeon R9 Fury X 4GB – 91 FPS

GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB – 77 FPS

2K Resolution

GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB – 64 FPS

AMD Radeon R9 Fury X 4GB – 54 FPS

GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB – 45 FPS

4K Resolution

GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB – 33 FPS

AMD Radeon R9 Fury X 4GB – 28 FPS

GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB – 19 FPS

Obviously if you’re looking for the best possible visuals in Rainbow Six Siege, then the PC version is the one to opt for. That being said, there are no setbacks to picking it up on consoles. The PS4 version scores slightly ahead here thanks to its native 1080p resolution, followed by the Xbox One. Both versions sport great frame rate performance coupled with all the destructibility your tactical heart could desire.

When talking about Anvil, Ubisoft’s proprietary engine for the Assassin’s Creed series, it’s important to understand where the publisher was coming from. During development of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time back in 2003, Ubisoft had been facing issues with data corruption. Source control was bottle-necking the entire production process, teams waited for their chance to submit assets and it very much put the delivery of the project at risk. After the success of the first Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft began to devote more resources and time to managing its data assets, first seeking a custom solution and then using Perforce, going so far as to integrate it into their own engine. The engine itself was considered as Scimitar but Anvil was the official name and served as the presentation layer while Guildlib was taken to be the data exchange layer.

Over the years, Anvil saw significant changes especially as franchises like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry grew. Day and night cycles, better draw distance, improved vegetation, enhanced lighting, reflection effects and much more began to be implemented overtime. The game changer was AnvilNext though, which was introduced in Assassin’s Creed III (and unsurprisingly, that title had a number of development issues and bugs) and would serve as a sort of template for next generation ventures with its ability for a more dynamic sandbox, large crowds of real-time NPCs, a more efficient renderer and more post-processing effects. As time went by, AnvilNext 2.0 sought a different approach of sorts – Ubisoft was now looking for the ability to create large, intricate buildings and structures without expending too much time.

Head to head comparison between Assassin’s Creed Unity and PS4, Xbox One versions of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. Select 1080p and 60fps option for best possible video quality.

AnvilNext 2.0 put a lot of stake into using all these new technologies to affect the way players interacted with the world at large. For example, the ability to easily generate buildings in Unity allowed for a 1:1 scale of their size and interiors, thus allowing deeper exploration and expanded movement opportunities (which were the idea anyway). HDR, volumetric lighting, fog and advanced reflection mapping could be seen in Unity along with thousands of real-time NPCs flooding scenes at a particular time.

Of course, the release of Unity was rife with performance issues, graphical glitches and whatnot. It served as a strong benchmark for what current gen consoles could be capable of with physical based rendering, global illumination, skin shaders, advanced tress effects, HDR and more. This was at the cost of the frame rate though which was unstable on both platforms even with a default 30 FPS.

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate takes a rather interesting approach to the technologies seen in Unity. A lot of effects have been reduced in Syndicate, though the tress tech and skin shaders still look fantastic, especially when combined with custom global illumination and physical based rendering in objects and environments. Fast approximate anti-aliasing (FXAA) can be noticed which doesn’t weigh too much on resources and helps reduce jaggies. Depth of field, blur, HDR lighting, parallax occlusion and screen space reflections are all present and accounted for. Despite lacking Unity’s “moving painting” effect, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate still incredibly good.

Both the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game run at 1600×900 resolution and 30 frames per second with V-sync enabled. Frame drops can be noticed during cut scenes though in less demanding scenarios, vehicular sections, combat and normal exploration, the frame rate stays stable throughout. Though the cut scenes are scripted, it’s likely that they utilize much of the rendering budget, thus resulting in crisper details. The aggressive level of detail from Unity has been toned down, resulting in less but visible pop-in issues though the lack of larger crowds is the main reason. Draw distances are fine but details can be blurred by an odd fog effect that only looks worse when traveling via horse cart. If the engine streams too quickly, then pop-ins tend to occur but it’s still not as bad as Unity.

There are still shadow dithering issues though but we’ve somewhat come to expect that this generation. Texture filtering is fairly decent and once again on par with Unity, and parallax occlusion makes a return. It should be noted that reflections, be it objects or characters’ reflections in puddles, are low quality. Overall, while performance is better than Unity, it’s still a bit of a shame that the 30 FPS frame rate isn’t locked – we’ve just come to expect as much this generation.

Also, it should be noted that the aesthetic feel is somewhat dull. Of course this is a personal preference – many may actually like the gritty, Industrial-era atmosphere that Syndicate captures.

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate uses much of the same tech as Unity and it feels like the game the latter should have been. Performance shows a significant uptick and it will be even better if Ubisoft can lock the frame rate to 30 FPS in future patches. Though Syndicate performs well, Unity was on a different visual level. It’s a case of performance versus fidelity and the reduced effects do bring better performance…and we can’t argue against that. Hopefully the PC version will bring forth a solid 60 FPS frame rate but we’ll have to wait and see.