The Tom Clancy-founded studio is lending its expertise to Massive Entertainment

Apr 11, 2014 23:26 GMT  ·  By

Ubisoft has confirmed that another studio has joined the group in charge of The Division, its upcoming online action game, in the form of Red Storm, the developer of the first Tom Clancy games.

The Division was revealed last summer at E3 2013 by Ubisoft and its Swedish Massive Entertainment division. The online action game impressed many people around the world with its great visuals powered by the Snowdrop engine, which is developed in-house by Massive.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that UK-based Ubisoft Reflections was also lending a hand on the development, and now another studio has just been confirmed to play a big role in The Division's creation process – Ubisoft Red Storm.

The studio, based in North America, U.S., made the very first Tom Clancy games back in the 1990s, so Ubisoft believes it was obvious that they'd lend a hand, seeing as how The Division is also billed as a Tom Clancy game.

While Massive is still leading development by working on the Snowdrop engine, the story, and the core gameplay, Red Storm will provide its expertise when it comes to weapon design, given its experience with shooters over the years.

According to an in-depth post on the UbiBlog, Massive started selecting the weapons it wanted in the game and the Red Storm team started painstakingly forging them in 3D so that they can be implemented into the Snowdrop engine.

According to Red Storm Producer Tony Sturtzel, Red Storm is privileged to have close ties with military and weapon manufacturers in the North Carolina area.

"One of the huge benefits that we have is our connections with local military," Sturtzel said. "We’ve had manufacturers come in and literally disassemble the entire weapon all the way down to the nuts and bolts, and our guys are taking hi-res photos of those things. We probably have unparalleled access to these types of things because of our authenticity department and their focus on relationships. We’re not ever gonna let the cat out of the bag on some of the relationships we have!"

From recreating the guns in terms of visuals, to their sound, Red Storm has experts in all these areas.

"We know that that we can build absolutely the most authentic piece of equipment, right down to the millimeter," Sturtzel added. "And the guys who are coming in from the gameplay side maybe want to push the envelope a bit, which is a great jumping off point to push the collaboration, because we have to get together regularly and talk about it from both sides."

The Division isn't the first game to be created by a multi-studio team, as Ubisoft has a rich history using such a strategy for its big titles, like Assassin's Creed.