Wookash Podcast Why Assassin's Creeds share monorepo | Nicolas Lopez
Dec 6, 2025
Nicolas Lopez, engine architect at Ubisoft, delves into the intricacies of the Anvil engine and its role in the Assassin's Creed series. He discusses the benefits of a monorepo approach, which enhances collaboration and streamlines code management. Topics like balancing shared and specific resources, optimizing for GPU vs. CPU, and implementing ray tracing are explored. Nicolas also shares insights into Ubisoft's telemetry systems that help test dynamically changing game environments and the management of vast codebases, all while ensuring performance remains high.
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Micro Polygon Helped Many Teams
- Micro polygon virtualized geometry was developed in Anvil and benefited many teams without them writing a line of code.
- Nicolas used this example to show mutualization in a mono-repo pays off across productions.
Control Every Feature With A Platform Manager
- Use a data-driven platform manager to expose every performance-affecting feature so tech-art can tune per-platform settings.
- Tailor presets for contexts (cinematic, menus, 30/60fps) and iterate quickly to target platforms like Steam Deck.
CPU Bottlenecks Are Harder To Solve
- CPU bottlenecks are harder to mitigate than GPU ones because gameplay cost often can't be traded for resolution.
- Optimize update frequencies, batch systems, or remove gameplay features when CPU time dominates.