Ubisoft has released a brand-new tech showcase for the recently-announced Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. In the analysis video, the developer shares how the team had to upgrade, tweak and refine certain aspects of the Snowdrop engine in order to create a powerful new platform to build this new game.

While the video acts as a tech showcase for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Ubisoft also shared a few hints regarding the game’s open-world design. For example, the developer states that the new Snowdrop upgrades have allowed them to create a world players can explore from the deep dense jungles on the ground to the grand vistas high up in the skies.

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This does tie into the announcement trailer where we saw the blue people start off in the jungle and the trailer ended as they jumped onto a massive bird and flew away through the air. Ubisoft says the new upgrade to the Snowdrop engine has allowed them to propagate thousands of assets on screen at any given time. This means every scene now packs more plants that move around and alien bugs that walk through the area. This is all thanks to the new data processing method done by the GPU.

Ubisoft also touched on the interactive shaders in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. The studio says that the world is filled with all sorts of interactive objects that move about and react to the player’s presence. Be it an alien plant, the wind that the player flies through or creatures they interact with.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora also works on a new raytracing pipeline that helps bring the world to life with new lighting. This means every alien neon light will glow brighter and bounce off objects while indoor scenes benefit from realistic global illumination.

NPCs will also be smarter than ever before as Ubisoft says they now react to real-world events. This includes the time of day, weather systems and more. It sounds as if the world is dynamic and will change depending on the current scenario at hand. Ubisoft says Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is the biggest visual leap the studio has made so far. Check out the full in-depth video down below. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora  is set to launch sometime in 2022 for PS5, Xbox Series X and PC. 

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