Anvil Engine

Somewhere along the line Ubisoft must have got really sick and tired of using other developers' tech, as there has been an explosion in quality in-house engines coming out of the publisher in recent times. This includes Dunia (Far Cry 2), LEAD (Splinter Cell: Conviction), Fox (Naruto: Broken Bond), LyN (Beyond Good & Evil 2), IRISZOOM (R.U.S.E) and Anvil, aka the Scimitar 2.0 Engine. But for sheer oomph it is hard to go past the Anvil which helped drive Assassin's Creed to one of the most successful new IP debuts in video game history.

For both Assassin's and Prince of Persia, it was the way Anvil allowed the animations and the environment to interact in real-time which shone so elegantly. It was also capable of populating its world with large numbers of smart A.I. For the upcoming sequel, Ubisoft Montreal has focused on a number of key areas including lighting, reflections, dynamic cloth, enhanced A.I. interaction with the environment, longer draw distances and a full day/night cycle. Interestingly, the impressive vegetation technology from Far Cry 2's Dunia engine has also been incorporated into Anvil, although we have yet to see the gameplay this allows.