The Division's Snowdrop engine and Dark Zone design could be used in other Ubi games

The Division's breathtaking visuals are partially thanks to its engine. An engine which you may see used in other Ubisoft titles.

Part of the reason why The Division took a long time to materialise is due to developer Massive's decision to create an in-house engine for the game that could sustain its open-world nature, and work well on modern platforms.

This engine is called Snowdrop, and if you've played The Division, you'll have already seen its effect on the game's amazing visuals. According to the studio's Martin Hultberg, The Division may not end up being its sole product.

"Internally we try to share as much technology as possible between the studios," Martin Hultberg told Finder. "It’s just more efficient that way.

"In our case we developed the Snowdrop Engine from the ground-up because we needed middleware that could run on the new consoles and PC, while doing everything we wanted to do with the open world, the weather, time of day and such features.

"Now we've made that engine available to other studios, and not just the Clancy teams. Any Ubisoft team can use Snowdrop now."

The Division's Dark Zone mechanic could also be seen in future Ubisoft games, according to Hultberg, who added that the mode is not specific to game tech itself.

"The transitions that we do between the [campaign and Dark Zone] game modes – the fact that we do not use lobbies or menus – is the key part of the Snowdrop Engine," he said.

"I think that feature could definitely be incorporated into other Ubisoft games like Assassin’s Creed. It’s a really immersive feature that I think fits with pretty much all Ubisoft’s IPs."

The Division is out March 8 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

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