The Division's Engine Being Used In Several New Ubisoft Projects, More Pseudo-MMOs On The Way?

In recent years, Ubisoft has been pushing into the pseudo-MMO space with a number of titles that offer online play in which you are automatically put into an instance with a set number of other players and that utilize the traditional box fee plus DLC model, rather than a heavy microtransaction element or a subscription. The titles in question are The Crew, The Division, and Steep.

It was announced today that The Division's engine, the Snowdrop Engine, is "the lead engine on a number of [...] unannounced Ubisoft projects." It's not surprising to hear this, as the engine is fairly powerful, enabling "the creation of ultra-realistic game universes, enhanced by dynamic global illumination, stunning real-time destruction and an incredible amount of detail and visual effects."

The announcement was made as a tiny footnote in the announcement that The Division developer Massive Entertainment, also known as "Ubisoft Massive," is working on a new game based on James Cameron's Avatar. While there are not yet any details about the title, we do know that it has been prototyped and that it will also be using the Snowdrop engine.

James Cameron had the following to say about the new project.

What impressed me about Massive were the group’s ion for this project and the power of its Snowdrop engine. I believe Ubisoft’s team at Massive Entertainment are absolutely the right partners to bring the beauty and danger of Pandora to life.

Given that we have no details about any of the titles as of yet, one question remains: Are any of these projects pseudo-MMOs? The chances are decent, especially for the Avatar project, as it is being made by the developers of The Division in the very engine that The Division was created in, but, at this point in time, they are still only chances. There's also the question of whether they would want to invest in such a massive project for what will inevitably be a movie tie-in for the second Avatar movie, but, given Avatar's history with video games, perhaps that's not an issue after all.