The studio noted, “Using the first Splinter Cell game as our foundation we are rewriting and updating the story for a modern-day audience.” It wants to “keep the spirit and themes of the original game while exploring our characters and the world to make them more authentic and believable.” The goal is to create a “cohesive and compelling narrative experience” that will appeal to “a new audience of Splinter Cell fans.”

Some aspects of the job include dialogue for in-game VO and cinematic scenes, scripted and systemic dialogue like NPC conversation, developing character arcs, and so on. The Scriptwriter will also be “Revising and editing dialogue based on director/lead feedback to ensure quality and consistency.”

As such, the updates and rewrites could ensure better flow for the dialogue, along with being more realistic and relevant to the modern age. Time will ultimately tell if any story beats are changed or outright removed, but it wouldn’t be the strangest thing for a remake, as seen with the remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 3.

The Splinter Cell remake is in “the very earliest stages of development” as of last year, so it may be a while before anything is revealed. Stay tuned in the meantime for any details.

Creative director Chris Auty, producer Matt West and technical producer Peter Handrinos were interviewed about various aspects of the remake. When asked about his approach and how this isn’t a remaster, West said, “To me, a remake takes what you’d do in a remaster and goes a little bit further with it. The original Splinter Cell has a lot that was amazing and revolutionary at the time it came out, 19 years ago. The gaming public now has an even more refined palate. So, I think it kind of has to be a remake as opposed to a remaster.”

He also noted that the project is in “the very earliest stages of development” and that the team is ensuring that the “spirit” of the early games remains intact. “So, as we’re building it from the ground up, we’re going to update it visually, as well as some of the design elements to match player comfort and expectations, and we are going to keep it linear like the original games, not make it open world. How do we make sure that new fans are able to pick up the controller and dive right in, and fall in love with the game and the world right from the get-go?”

As to the use of Snowdrop (Ubisoft Massive’s engine which is also being used for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and their unnamed Star Wars game), Handrinos said it’s “a proven modern AAA engine. It empowers content creators and programmers alike to try things quickly, see what works, and ultimately find success. I think that’s one of its major advantages, allowing us to quickly find the modern equivalent of that core Splinter Cell gameplay. Some other AAA engines out there do not afford this type of iteration speed, necessarily, and so this is really what gives Snowdrop an edge when bringing Splinter Cell up to speed on a modern engine.”

Auty further added that, “From a team perspective, we’re all behind that philosophy, that the stuff that gets added is not just eye candy. It has a relevance and a bearing on the on the game itself. So that was a huge, defining moment for me playing Splinter Cell for the first time, seeing that tech and being blown away by it, and then seeing it integrated into gameplay. That was a big moment, and a good memory.”

A new team is being built, for which Ubisoft Toronto is currently hiring for the project but Handrinos noted that, “There are a lot of vets here, so we’re going to have a really good mix of people who have worked on previous Splinter Cell games, and new team members who are joining and bringing fresh energy and fresh ideas.”

“It’s safe to say a lot of us on the team are stealth purists, and we’re behind that level of seriousness when it comes to those kinds of mechanics, and those sorts of things that we want to see in this game. And we’re very, very aware of what makes classic Splinter Cell what it is,” said Auty.

Various rumors have noted that a new Splinter Cell is in development and will have an open world approach similar to Halo Infinite. No details were provided here but it’s reportedly being announced in 2022. We’ll have to wait and see how the Splinter Cell Remake ties into that – if at all – over the coming months so stay tuned.

When Ubisoft Massive presented The Division, it also introduced us to a curious new engine called Snowdrop. In an interview with Making Games, brand art director Rodrigo Cortes talked about creating an engine that was about more than just brute force. Rather, it would use resources intelligently and instead of balancing between high fidelity visuals versus content, the development team wanted to create an engine that could offer both. Cortes even talked about how, “In my opinion it has already been proven what the new console generation is capable of if you give the developers enough time and if they know exactly which resources they can make use of.”

Development on the Snowdrop Engine began five years ago in the lead up to Ubisoft acquiring Massive Entertainment and it’s grown organically since then. Written in 64-bit with the goal of accessing individual threads and efficiently utilizing memory, Snowdrop’s features include dynamic global illumination, procedural destruction and a heavy amount of effects.

Comparison of all The Division Beta versions. Select 1080p and 60fps for best possible video playback quality.

How much of that plays into the PC version, which we’ve noted as the closest The Division gets to its initial E3 2013 reveal? To start with, it’s packed to the brim with options. Contact shadows, post FXAA, shadow quality, streaming distance, shadow resolution and even wind affected snow can be customized. For those worried that the PC version would compromise on visual quality, especially since it wasn’t initially planned along with the console versions, you can rest easy.

Performance is similarly impressive. The Division on PC is GPU-bound and we tested it on two configurations. The average frame rate on an AMD FX 8350 and Radeon R9 4 GB was 48 FPS while an Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan 6 GB offered a solid 60 FPS frame rate. Make sure your GPU is up to snuff – Ubisoft Massive wasn’t kidding about its recommended PC settings.

Obviously, the PC version looks superior to consoles thanks to better textures, improved draw distances, better shadow quality and support for 60 FPS. On top of that, the PC version is extremely well optimized and we look forward to seeing how much it improves with the final build.

As for the Xbox One and PS4 versions of the closed beta, they’re both capped at 30 FPS. Performance across both is similar with minimal drops during cut scenes but as a whole, they offer a solid 30 FPS frame rate. Furthermore, both console versions are running at 1080p native resolution, as we confirmed before. [Update: The game runs at a dynamic resolution on the Xbox One]

The console versions have their issues though. At times, the shadows of NPCs go missing and we also noticed the player character’s self shadow missing on occasion. Other times, it would look flat. The lack of motion blur can be pretty jarring at 30 FPS but at least the post processing AA offered stable image quality on both versions. Texture streaming issues were spotted on the PS4 version with textures on hoardings noticeably loading a bit late. The Xbox One version suffered from issues with level of detail where certain objects and NPCs would load much later. Though these two issues didn’t occur all the time, they were still present all the same.

One of the bigger surprises from The Division on consoles is the graphics options available, much like Project CARS. You can change image sharpness and chromatic aberration to modify image quality. While these are purely subjective at the end of the day, it is pretty cool to be able to switch off chromatic aberration if you don’t like it. Hopefully more developers follow this trend with their triple-A releases.

If you want to experience the best visuals that the closed beta for The Division has to offer, then the PC version is the way to go. The PS4 and Xbox One versions were never going to meet the same standard but they still offer decent performance all-around and an enjoyable experience at this stage.

Massive Entertainment spoke about making things “better, not bigger” with their Snowdrop Engine and some new screenshots for Tom Clancy’s The Division indicate just that. They show a variety of settings and circumstances along with abandoned streets, bridges and even a few corpses here and there. Check it out below.

The Division takes place in a post-apocalyptic world that has seemingly been wiped out by a mysterious plague. It’s not clear what caused it or what the plague really is, but society as we know it has collapsed. Humans now need to scavenger supplies in order to survive and as players engage in the game, they must fend off other humans in the process.

Tom Clancy’s The Division is expected to arrive in Q4 2014 for PC, Xbox One and PS4. It might end up being delayed into 2015 according to recent rumours but as of now, that’s unconfirmed. Stay tuned for more information.

Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft have revealed a new developer diary for Tom Clancy’s The Division, focusing on the next-gen Snowdrop engine used to create the game. Developed in-house by Massive, it provides real-time deterioration, highly detailed textures and dynamic weather to the massively multiplayer experience.

According to Massive, the engine was created in order to “work better, not bigger, by giving content creators the freedom to experiment, prototype and truly unleash their creativity.” It certainly seems to have helped bring The Division and its post-apocalyptic landscape to life.

Tom Clancy’s The Division takes place in the near future where humanity is forced to fight for survival after an epidemic brings about society’s ruin. Players will be able to scavenge for and craft supplies from their surroundings. It is currently slated to release in Autumn 2014 for the PC, PS4 and Xbox One, though rumours indicate that it could be pushed back into 2015.

Whether you’re fan of its always online gameplay or not, there’s no denying that Tom Clancy’s The Division looks incredible. We recently witnessed a showcase for the game’s Snowdrop Engine, which allows for real-time destruction and realistic weather effects. This is thanks to the power of next gen consoles but managing director at Ubisoft Massive David Polfeldt reveals that there’s more to the PS4 and Xbox One than just sheer power.

On being asked by VentureBeat about how far the studio can carry its narrative in the next generation, Polfeldt replied, “It’s a difficult question to answer. I might not say it’s because of the machines, per se, so much as the maturity of the engines and the simplicity and ease of developing for next-gen. That allows you to think more about things like narrative.

“Before, no matter what we wanted to do, it was hard to do. You’d come to work with a great idea and we’d say, ‘That’s cool, but we have to be pragmatic. What are we really able to do?’ We had to compromise to get things done. With this generation, you have a crazy idea in the morning and we could see it up and running the next day. That puts people in a different mindset. They start thinking, ‘How do we tell stories in games? Does it have to go gameplay-gameplay-cutscene, or can we do it a different way?’

“It’s not so much the technology as the liberty the technology gives you, the freedom to think more openly about how to solve different issues. The same goes for audio. It’s easy to do advanced things with audio. All you need now is a very creative audio director who takes advantage of the fact that it’s a very open landscape of opportunities.”

The Division is currently slated to release in Q3 2014 for Xbox One, PS4 and PC.

After revealing its Snowdrop Engine at the Spike VGX Awards, Ubisoft has published a blog for developer Massive Entertainment’s The Division and how the engine provides for better next-gen development.

The blog states that Massive “is a more intimate studio than its name might suggest, so they needed to build a next-gen engine that would allow the team unprecedented efficiency and flexibility.”

“We re-evaluated the entire development workflow to refocus on a smarter, rather than bigger, way of doing things.”

Massive went about creating the engine with three base concepts in mind – empowerment, real-time and fun. “Each thing the creators develop need to be instant and in-game, so that they know exactly if it will work, with no baking time. We built Snowdrop in a way so that the game is always playable during development. We conduct frequent playtests at Massive to ensure it’s constantly tested at every stage of production. Not only does this allow us to obtain the best quality possible, this enables us to achieve a high level of coherence within the game.”

The destruction witnessed in the showcase trailer is very much real-time, according to the studio. “We developed a very visceral and accurate destruction experience using procedural techniques. The destruction effect is not pre-baked in the game; it reacts differently depending on the physical forces at play.

“Tom Clancy’s The Division has been designed specifically for and on next-gen, using our 100% next-gen Snowdrop engine. This new generation of consoles has opened many new opportunities to create more immersive and dynamic worlds, and enabled us to create the universe we had envisioned for The Division.”

There’s a lot we’re yet to know about some recently announced next-gen titles, not the least of which is Tom Clancy’s The Division, an MMORPG developed by Massive Entertainment. A new teaser trailer has been released by Ubisoft though, and it promises to showcase the technology powering The Division, namely the Snowdrop Engine, on December 9th. Check out the teaser above.

The Division takes place in the future where the Earth has been – you guessed it – ravaged by an apocalyptic epidemic. This seems to have been caused by a virus though, leaving the survivors to fend for themselves and scavenge from their surroundings. This means finding items, scrapping together weapons and even taking cover when a firefight breaks out.

Releasing for Xbox One, PS4 and PC, Tom Clancy’s The Division is expected to be out by late 2014. Stay tuned for the official Snowdrop Engine showcase and other new details in the coming days.