What goes on behind closed doors at Ubisoft Singapore?

Game development studios are usually secretive, and for good reason. No one wants their upcoming games and new tech leaked to competitors, and certainly not to the cut throat, trigger-happy press (oops :x). But that also leads to speculation by the curious public. Ubisoft Singapore has 32 nationalities and 300 people on its staff. Just exactly what goes on behind those doors? Having been allowed in twice, I’m here to put your speculation to rest.

Day to day at Ubisoft Singapore

Solaris, the building the studio sits in.

A typical day for Ubisoft employees begins at around 9:30am. They usually hunker down for about eight hours of work a day, with more hours expected to be put in when it’s closer to crunch time. However, staff are compensated for any overtime they put in.

Team meetings – known within the company as scrums – are a big part of each day. Felix Marlo Flor is Art Director of Ubisoft’s first and only MMO, the third-person shooter Ghost Recon Online. He meets up with his team daily for updates on what they are doing before doing his rounds with individuals. Apart from that, he also has to check on the visuals used for Facebook.

Gameplay programmer Benjamin Chua in a work meeting – or scrum.

Play tests for the game begin around 4pm. The team will log into a local server and play graybox maps to check them. Graybox maps are maps with no art in them, and are used to test how each level plays. After they test out the new features, there’s a feedback session.

It’s a little different for programmers. Senior gameplay programmer Fairuz Lokman from the Assassin’s Creed team shared how a new mechanic is implemented in the game. The animators and concept artists first conceptualize the mechanic, then show the programming and design team reference videos. Together with the game designers, Lokman and his fellow programmers create for the rest of the team a functional prototype that demonstrates the mechanic. A feedback session follows, then the team continues iterating on the mechanic until it’s polished.

Staff needing a break can head over to Ubisoft Singapore’s pantry area (pictured above), which contains not just snacks and beverages, but also a pool table, a ping pong table, and includes a video game corner with a Wii U, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and now PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.