How Assassin’s Creed Shadows makes environments imprint sizable up finish and at a distance

All video games, in one form or another, function as elaborate Rube-Goldberg contraptions. However, open-world video games exhibit some of the most intricate behind-the-scenes systems among them. Titles such as Assassin’s Creed Shadows are designed to keep players from pondering the complexity of interconnected technical systems, aiming to hide as many of these systems as possible so players can traverse vast environments filled with stunning details.

Significant choices, of course, can only be so appealing, especially when it comes to minimal resources or viewing an object from hundreds of miles away. Video games rely on CPU and GPU memory to portray these expansive scenes, and many game creators are familiar with the challenge of achieving an impeccable glow while managing how much memory is allocated for gameplay and other environments.

Ubisoft Montreal has devised a rather clever solution for this dilemma in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, a game whose release, for better or worse, has become a significant turning point for the company. While industry experts are carefully examining its sales, players and developers trying out the game will certainly scrutinize the environments of feudal Japan. This is because the tech team behind Anvil has introduced a new approach that revamps how open-world video games are rendered: “virtual geometry,” or what Ubisoft refers to as the Micropolygon system.

In an interview with Game Developer, Assassin’s Creed Shadows technical director Pierre Fortin detailed the foundations of the Micropolygon system and explained how the method disrupts the way environment artists have been managing open-world art assets for years.

Virtual geometry utilizes dynamic meshes to maintain detail at a distance and render more up close

Here’s how the enchantment typically unfolds. In an open-world game, a game engine like Ubisoft’s Anvil Engine determines the best approach to rendering graphics using a variety of factors, with one major factor being distance. Items such as a sword, a chair, or a painting on a wall require multiple variations to be produced. Higher-fidelity versions will have more polygons and will look just right when the player is within a few meters of them, while other versions will contain fewer polygons and may be used when the player is farther away. When functioning smoothly, the illusion of an object coming into focus is seamless.

However, it doesn’t always run smoothly. When objects “pop in” to view while players navigate an environment, they may quickly approach an object, and the lower-poly version rendered from a distance is what they see first. It’s not the most egregious glitch they might encounter, but it can be somewhat of an immersion breaker.

Image by Ubisoft.

And perhaps even more frustrating for game designers—this process often restricts how much detail can be incorporated into an object when viewed up close. If you wanted to render a painting such as, for example, Sōami’s Panorama of the Four Seasons (Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers), you might have to compromise on depicting the pencil work that makes such an image so captivating.

Enter the Micropolygons system. In a tech demo sent to Game Developer by Ubisoft, the studio explained that this method enables the Assassin’s Creed Shadows team to dynamically adjust the number of polygons assigned to an asset rather than swapping different versions out. This is achieved by creating a dynamic mesh that flows throughout the game world, across specific objects. It is powered by the dedicated SSD of modern game consoles and high-end PCs, marking a significant technological milestone for the series (Shadows is the first Assassin’s Creed game designed exclusively for Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the previous entry, was released on both current-gen and last-gen consoles).

“We had to create the same asset multiple times, but we weren’t always showcasing it in the best possible way,” Fortin stated. By dynamically updating the number of polygons displayed for each asset, players are no longer confronted with static resources that react to light and other elements in the same way at all distances. The closer the player approaches, the microadjustments made by the game reveal more and more detail, and when the player zooms in very closely, everything from scratches and dents to reflections and dirt smudges are all perceptible to the naked eye.

“In the past, to adhere to budgets, we sometimes had to cut back a bit, whereas now we’re capable of pushing it a bit further,” he added.

Ubisoft has also elaborated in

assorted locations that the Micropolygons system enhances the visual distinction that can even be exhibited on computers with diverse specifications. Previously, less powerful machines might have rendered resources in reduced detail, but now the system can analyze the computer’s SSD and make adjustments accordingly.

Image credited to Ubisoft.

According to Fortin, focusing on the Xbox Series S enabled Ubisoft to increase the number of PCs that could also run Assassin’s Creed Shadows. On the Series S, Ubisoft only needs to render Shadows at a maximum of 1080p, whereas the Series X can support resolutions up to 4K UHD. “In terms of the capabilities of the CPU and SSDs, this is not where we need to adapt,” Fortin clarified. “What we will be modifying is more about the systems that are demanding on memory.”

For example, a Series S may allocate less budget for preloading resources and textures ahead of time. Fortin couldn’t provide additional specifics (he mentioned that the difference can be “difficult to quantify”), but since the optimization was aimed at the Series S and Series X, it effectively enhances PCs with similar capabilities.

Graphical enhancements have become subtle, yet still significant

Developers have frequently noted that the gap between visuals from the PS4/Xbox One generation and the PS5/Xbox Series S|X generation are not as pronounced as the leap from the PS3/Xbox 360 to PS4/Xbox One. It would be interesting to compare Assassin’s Creed Shadows to Valhalla and ask, “what exactly is the distinction here?”

According to Fortin’s explanation, the difference isn’t solely about how many polygons can be used to create 3D objects, but rather the ways in which those polygons are presented to the player. It’s a captivating area for the technical experts in the gaming industry. With graphical power so robust, how do you make environments appear “better?” The answer, it seems, involves not just “what” is displayed to the player, but also the presentation, and how players perceive objects from different angles. The ability to get closer to an object and observe additional details that were not visible from a distance represents a subtle, yet potentially significant advancement.

In other words, the future of “better graphics” in video games is not going to rely on processing power—rather, it’s about presentation.