Ubisoft recently found its foot in its mouth when talking about how well Assassin’s Creed: Unity runs on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, but it’s not gonna make the same mistake when it comes to The Division.
Executive producer Fredrik Rundqvist at The Division developer Massive made it clear that his team is squeezing everything they can from the newish systems. In an interview with website PlayStation Universe, Rundqvist explained that Massive began The Division with the new consoles specifically in mind. It’s no surprise that a developer would come out and say its game is doing something really well, but Ubisoft is likely skittish about permitting its developers to talk after recent issues with Assassin’s Creed. The Division producer also baked in a bit of an excuse for why Ubisoft’s other games might not look as good.
“We developed both the engine and the game specifically for this new generation of consoles,” said Rundqvist. “So we didn’t have any problems at all, it was perfectly built for that.”
Rundqvist pointed out that this is different from a game like Assassin’s Creed, which runs on an older technology that Ubisoft upgraded for Sony’s and Microsoft’s new systems.
“Ours was built from the ground up [for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One],” said Rundqvist who went on to specifically praise Sony’s tech. “[The Division] takes full advantage of the PlayStation 4. It’s an amazing machine.”
Last week, Ubisoft dealt with some unhappy fans after Assassin’s Creed: Unity producer Vincent Pontbriand explained the game is 900 lines of horizontal resolution and 30 frames per second on both Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The reason he gave was to avoid “all of the debates.” Fans thought this meant Ubisoft purposefully held back the PS4 version of the game — although Ubisoft came out and denied that is the case.
While Rundqvist is taking pride in maximizing the PlayStation and Xbox One, that doesn’t mean the game will run at 1,080 lines of horizontal resolution and 60 frames per second, which is an ideal that many gamers want to see. Instead, the studio has previously said that it wants to lock The Division in at 30 frames per second. That will enable the developer to put more effort into the visual fidelity.
While Rundqvist and his team at Massive are working to build an amazing looking game right now, they are also looking forward to the future.
“With a console generation there is a lot of growth once people learn to use the system,” said Rundqvist. “I think the same will happen with the PS4. We will be able to push much more from the consoles when we learn to use all the details. They are incredibly powerful by default but there is more to get from them.”