UBISOFT MONTPELLIER | BETA
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company’s early efforts at expansion. But despite much change, its creative spirit has remained largely untouched since it was known as Ubisoft Pictures and merged with locally acquired developer Tiwak in late 2003. “There has always been a desire here to
create new things,” says studio director Benoit Lambert. “That has never changed, but it isn’t only a good thing. Of course it is exciting for people, but it is also quite tough, because you always have to recreate and re-prove yourself constantly. It is difficult here in that way, but that is how the people here like it. It is how they have always liked it.” It’s unusual to hear a manager introducing the studio they oversee with talk of difficulty and challenge, but for the team at Ubisoft Montpellier, it seems to be a matter of pride. There’s much talk of achieving the output of far more sizable studios. In 2011 alone, the team of 200 released four high-profile boxed games – Rayman Origins, Tin Tin, From Dust and one iteration of Michael Jackson Experience – all the while working on a new triple-A WiiU title and continuing the efforts of a fiercely productive R&D department. And yet there is still time for some misty-eyed romanticism.
PEACE BE WITH THEM “There is this pacifistic aspect to what we do here,” insists Lambert when asked what defines the games that Ubisoft Montpellier
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creates. “It comes from many things. It comes from the feeling, the atmosphere and the history of this studio. Many people have been here for a long time and have created families here, and their lives have become about balance. Part of that balance is about making positive game worlds. There is that family influence – both our real families and the family of the studio – that drives us to do positive things. The lives of the people that make up this studio are what influences the positive feelings of our games.” The aforementioned Wii U game, Killer
Freaks From Outer Space, might signal a very definite end to Ubisoft Montpelier’s claim to pacifism, but Lambert’s point still stands. The team around him do things differently, thanks to a confident sense of creative culture, and a knack with technology that surpasses even that of some dedicated middleware companies. “There is always a focus here on
productivity – on being agile and being fast – and how you do that is not through ideas, but through technology and how you perceive technology,” offers Lambert. “We are driven here by a strong desire to have flexible tools and technology that can help us be efficient and reactive. Making our own tools is really as simple as us giving a painter the best brush.” The engineers at Montpellier have made those brushes in abundance over the years,
Of all of Ubisoft Montpellier’s achievements, its work with licensed games may not be the most talked about, but the studio’s ability to be creatively bold with closely protected external IP is worthy of commendation. The game of Peter Jackson’s King Kong film was well-received by consumers and critics, and the recent Tin Tin title based on the animated movie took the relatively commercially risky step of being a platformer in the traditional mould.
The directors of films like Tin Tin and
King Kong speak the same creative language as the team at
Montpellier.
Dominique Duvivier, Ubisoft Montpellier
The latter may have divided critics, but
everyone agreed it was far from typical compared to modern lincesed games. “We’ve spent months with teams like those behind the Tin Tin movie, carefully working out concepts, prototyping, storyboarding and scriptwriting,” says technical architect Dominique Duvivier of Ubisoft Montpellier’s knack with the movie tie-in. “We’ve been able to gain their trust by respecting their IP and their creative vision. It takes a long time, and like everything here it comes down to a core creative competency and an ability to tell stories. The directors of films like Tin Tin and King Kong speak the same creative language as the team at Montpellier.”
FEBRUARY 2012 | 31
Ubisoft Montpellier staff (Top-to-bottom) Benoit Lambert, studio director, Christophe de Labrouhe, senior gameplay programmer, and Philippe Vimont, senior programmer and technical engineer
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