Based on the recently leaked technical insights from interviews with Ubisoft's rendering engineers, Assassin's Creed Shadows represents the most significant technological leap for the franchise since Assassin's Creed Unity in 2014. The revitalized Anvil Engine introduces cutting-edge rendering technologies that push the visual boundaries of the series. Here's what the leaks reveal about the game's impressive technical advancements.

Ray-Traced Global Illumination: A New Lighting Era

The most transformative change is the transition from pre-computed "baked" global illumination to real-time ray-traced lighting. This hybrid RTGI system combines:

• Per-pixel ray tracing (both screen space and world space rays)
• DDGI-like probe cascades for subsequent light bounces
• Enhanced real-time lighting that dynamically adjusts to the game's expansive world

This technology allows for realistic effects previously impossible with the old system, such as:

• Accurate ambient light transmission through thin materials like Japanese shoji dividers
• Bounce light from moving sources
• Subtle ray-traced reflections on water and glossy surfaces

Interestingly, the game ships with two GI solutions rather than being RT-only. The developers maintained their refined baked GI system for performance modes on consoles and lower-end PCs, allowing them to allocate GPU resources to other features like procedurally simulated vegetation.

The Atmos System: Dynamic Weather and Environmental Simulation

The leaks detail an impressive "Atmos" system that simulates realistic weather patterns based on environmental factors:

• Dynamic simulation of humidity, temperature, and wind
• Procedurally affected world elements: trees sway, hair moves, leaves and snow particles react to wind
• Real-time lighting adjustments based on weather changes

Enhanced Interactivity and Physics

The game emphasizes environmental interactivity through a physics-driven destruction system:

• Realistic breaking of bamboo and other objects
• Advanced cloth cutting mechanics
• The ability to cut through thin walls
• Destruction physics that match points of collision, enhancing tactical gameplay

Micropolygon Geometry: The End of LOD Popping

Similar to Unreal Engine's Nanite technology, the micropolygon geometry system:

• Eliminates level-of-detail popping for rigid objects like buildings and rocks
• Enables real-time switching between high and low-quality triangle clusters based on camera distance
• Uses mesh shaders to optimize the rendering of triangles
• Future plans to expand this system to vegetation and characters

Technical Performance Considerations

The leaks also reveal interesting decisions about performance and anti-aliasing:

• Cutscenes are limited to 30fps to enable higher resolution, enhanced hair strands, and depth of field effects
• The team uses a proprietary TAA implementation instead of FSR
• PS5 Pro will receive PSSR support in a future update
• RT reflections, initially exclusive to the PS5 Pro's quality mode, will be added to balanced mode in a future update

The developers implemented an innovative approach to prevent shader compilation stutter on PC, using a PSO database that self-corrects during the QC process.

This leaked technical deep dive demonstrates Ubisoft's commitment to pushing the Assassin's Creed franchise forward with technology that enhances both visual fidelity and gameplay immersion in their recreation of feudal Japan.