how the Annecy mountains inspired Ubisoft’s innovative extreme sports game
“We’re live!” The cry resonates in the premises of Ubisoft Annecy on Tuesday, October 27 at 12:37 p.m. The global launch of the game Republic of the Cavaliers was scheduled for 1 p.m. in New Zealand (October 28 in France), but the teams of the French publisher, which has 45 studios across the planet, have moved ahead by a few minutes. After five years of work and two reports from the release date in 2021, Republic of the Cavaliers is finally available on digital platforms. It is a culmination for the Haute-Savoie branch of Ubisoft which directed the entire process of creating the game and collaborating with the studios of Montpellier, Belgrade (Serbia), Pune (India) or Kiev (Ukraine) and thus released its second own production after Soak in 2016.
In the round tower of the Annecy antenna from which we can see the chain of the Alps in the morning mist, everyone agrees, however, that Republic of the Cavaliers is much more ambitious than its predecessor, which was already a board game. More than 100 of the 330 employees of the Annecy site were mobilized on this big budget opus which offers an open world in which gamers can explore a huge territory which includes seven American national parks, including Yosemite Valley, Mammoth Moutain or Bryce Canyon. . It is possible to change it at any time of specific sliding equipment (mountain biking, paragliding, wingsuit, skis, snowboard, rocketwing …). More than 50 players can participate simultaneously.
“It’s a project that draws its inspiration from the team’s passions for the mountains. We have all our technical experience on social games (multiplayer) and on our mountain practice to bring a new experience to as many people as possible. “, enthuses Sébastien Arnoult, the game’s producer
To achieve a very immersive result, staff members were sent to American national parks to soak up the environment of a particular valley as well as possible. “We had already done Soak where there are the Alps as a backdrop. And there, we wanted to bring a greater variety with glaciers, redwood forests, canyons, ocher earth. We were 50 people working on the creation of this world and teams went there to capture the lights throughout the day, observe the insects, in order to render nature as accurately as possible. In Yosemite Park in the game, we have butterflies that fly at dawn, while at the end of the day it is rather animals like ours or foxes that come out. There is also a real difference between each region. We don’t hear the same birds, we don’t see the same trees “, says Yann Fieux, the creator of the world of Republic of the Cavaliers.
On a paraglider, it takes over half an hour to cross Yosemite Park, which is just one of the seven areas on the map. “It’s 12 kilometers long to scale”, points out Yann Fieux. About 20% of the world has been drawn by hand, while the rest of the territory is a unknown land that players can freely explore to find a pristine mountain to slide down, or an unfamiliar glacier to admire at sunrise.
Another strong point of Republic of the Cavaliers is its massively multiplayer mode. From mass races can assemble up to nearly 60 riders at a time. And users from different consoles can come together on the same event. This also forces the Ubisoft Annecy teams to make frequent and important simultaneous updates on the various platforms (PlayStation, Xbox, PC).
“From the start we wanted a social environment with a massively multiplayer game. We managed to create races with more than 50 players that last about 20 minutes. We also use ghosts. As soon as a player spends his session somewhere. is recorded. It will be replayed when a rider passes the same spot later. So you never feel alone in Republic of the Cavaliers. For those who want to explore the territory, we bring together players who can go 4-5 to roam an area», Explains Sébastien Arnoult.
“We managed to create courses for more than 50 players that last about 20 minutes”
Sebastien arnoultproducer of “Riders Republic”
In addition to the free evolution of the open world and mass races, a career mode is offered to the rider behind his controller. “In this huge map, you quickly get lost and that’s also why we created sports careers. The player is guided from competition to competition. There is for example the Red Bull Rampage, a very prestigious event in the world. ‘Utah that we recreated in exactly the same place as in real life. These quarries also allow you to visit places that we have created from scratch in the game from our imagination “, says Boris Maniora, associate game director.
To achieve a bluffing simulation of extreme sports, Ubisoft Annecy has released a third secret boot: the practice of many board sports by its developers and engineers.
Pauline Machabert is a gameplay programmer. She is responsible for developing the gameplay. Before landing at Ubisoft, this paraglider enthusiast traveled the mountains around the world with her sail: the Andes in Chile, the Alps in Chamonix then in Annecy. An engineer, she first worked freelance on a flight simulator to help students in their progress. In real life, she also knows how to react in an emergency. “Above Lake Annecy, we are doing flight incident training. We brake very hard so that our wing suddenly starts backwards, which can happen for different reasons, and at that time you have to know how to comment and react “, she confides from the rooftop of the Ubisoft building.
In the distance, the sun has chased away the morning mists. She points to the nearest peak. It is the Veyrier, which it flies over very regularly. When Ubisoft recruited him to develop air sports in Republic of the Cavaliers, she put her knowledge of the real to the service of the virtual. “In the game, paragliding is believable, but we have also taken care of the gameplay so that it is possible to navigate easily in the open world, Pauline Machabert pursuit. We can land more vertically than in real life and we can also rise more easily in the air. What we have succeeded in reproducing, I find, is the pendulum movement. When we get into a paraglider for the first time, we realize that it is like a big swing. It’s a bit the same in the game “. Ubisoft has also surrounded itself with professional athletes who have done sessions with sensors so that their movements are recorded with great precision.
If the time was right for the party on the roof of the Ubisoft tower on Tuesday, October 27, a few minutes before the game’s worldwide release, the teams of the French publisher are far from having finished with the development of the game. New disciplines and additional challenges will be added over the months in the huge world of Republic of the Cavaliers. With a goal for the publisher: to extend the lifespan of the game as much as possible to make this simulation a commercial success. The industry does not live on paragliding and fresh water.
The game Republic of the Cavaliers has been available since October 28 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series and PC.