Summary
- Star Wars Outlaws is an impressive game marketed as the first open-world Star Wars RPG with exciting gameplay mechanics and features, and it will be built within the Snowdrop engine.
- Ubisoft's Snowdrop engine is a powerful tool that allows developers to create games faster and easier.
- The upgraded version of the Snowdrop engine, with realistic lighting and detailed environments, will be used in Star Wars Outlaws and other upcoming Ubisoft games like the Splinter Cell remake.
From what Ubisoft has released so far, Star Wars Outlaws looks like a pretty impressive game. Being marketed as the first true open-world Star Wars RPG, Star Wars Outlaws' gameplay trailer revealed a handful of mechanics and features, most of which look very exciting. From the ability to fly from the planet's surface into space seamlessly to some light stealth mechanics to a furry little companion that can interact with the environment, Star Wars Outlaws has plenty of intricate systems already present, and it's all running on the continuously impressive Snowdrop engine.
For those unaware, a video game engine is the very tool that allows developers to create a game. A video game engine will often include extensive libraries of assets, streamlined tools like a level editor or character modeling program, along with just about anything else that a developer needs to build a game from the ground up and get it running. For a while now, Ubisoft has been using its own Snowdrop engine for some of its bigger projects, and an updated version is set to be used in Star Wars Outlaws, though its history is much longer than some might realize.
A Brief History of Star Wars Outlaws' Snowdrop Engine
Beginning development all the way back in 2009, Massive Entertainment designed the Snowdrop engine to be an accessible, feature-complete tool that would allow devs to create games faster and easier than ever before. The Snowdrop engine was first used with The Division back during its initial 2010 E3 reveal, and some of the engine's more noticeable features became an immediate talking point when the game was first seen. Snowdrop's highly advanced PBR lighting system, for instance, was one of the biggest features that critics and fans praised in The Division, with the lighting interacting with objects in a natural, realistic way. Snowdrop's impressive destruction physics were also praised heavily.
From the get-go, it was clear that Massive's Snowdrop engine was something special, and the developer quickly allowed Ubisoft to use it across its various franchises. The first game after The Division to be built with Snowdrop was the critically acclaimed Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, which launched in 2017. South Park: The Fractured but Whole also used the Snowdrop engine, along with the somewhat underrated Starlink: Battle for Atlas, and of course The Division 2.
Over the years, Massive's Snowdrop engine has been continuously upgraded with each new release, and in 2021, Ubisoft announced that it would be undergoing a big renovation ahead of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. This new and improved version of the Snowdrop engine will apparently continue to emphasize realistic lighting, bringing real-time ray-tracing technology to the table. Along with its improved lighting systems, the upgraded Snowdrop engine will also reportedly feature more realistic NPC AI behavior, along with a new rendering system that allows for even more detailed in-game environments.
While the upgrades to the Snowdrop engine were allegedly done specifically for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, this shiny new version of the engine will also presumably be the one that Star Wars Outlaws will use. And Star Wars Outlaws is sure to use the Snowdrop engine to its full potential, with its realistic lighting systems being perfect for Star Wars' various colorful planets and locales. Star Wars Outlaws isn't the only highly-anticipated upcoming game using the Snowdrop engine either, with Ubisoft's Splinter Cell remake also being made inside of Snowdrop. And with lighting being such an integral part of the Splinter Cell series, the Snowdrop engine seems like a perfect fit already.
Star Wars Outlaws is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S in 2024.