Massive Entertainment - A Ubisoft Studio

Tom Clancy's The Division 2 is heading to Central Park 👀 A new DLC for the game is coming out later this year, stay tuned!

Imagine that you have the freedom to design anything in the vast Star Wars galaxy. Where do you start? For Marthe Jonkers, Art Director, this question became very real when she and the rest of the Art Team at Massive Entertainment were tasked with designing Kay Vess’ trustworthy partner-in-crime in Star Wars Outlaws: Nix. With a blank canvas in front of them, they decided to focus the process on observation and emotion. Real animals were the first reference point (specifically macaques, lizards, and pangolins), each contributing a detail that made Nix feel believable. ✨ But the heart of Nix came from something closer to home: the team’s own pets. How a cat tilts its head, how a dog shows excitement or fear, and how those tiny signals build connection. Those everyday moments shaped Nix’ expressions, body language, and even the way he moves. But not just that, it also shaped the relationship between Kay and Nix, which goes beyond simple companionship. Just like Marthe has a tattoo of her cat on her arm, the team decided Kay should have a tattoo of Nix on her wrist, signaling their deep connection. 🐈 In Star Wars, clarity is everything. Nix’s expressive feelers (or “ears”) became the defining feature—practical, readable, and full of personality. They lift, curl, or droop depending on his mood, allowing players to sense what he’s feeling immediately. At its core, art direction is about shaping visual identity, guiding teams toward cohesion, and ensuring every stylistic choice has purpose. But it also requires close collaboration with other teams and the game engine Snowdrop to create a cohesive and compelling world for players to engage with. In Nix’s case, this collaboration was focused on Gameplay and Narrative teams, as well as Lucasfilm Games to ensure Nix’s design matched his role in the game and remained authentic to the Star Wars visual language. Each iteration pushed Nix closer to who he needed to be: capable, charming, and unmistakably part of the Star Wars galaxy. �� Nix represents Marthe’s favorite kind of craft: the one where research, instinct, and emotional observation come together to create a memorable character that truly feels alive. Shoutout to concept artists Iuliia Misiul and Diego Peres as well as character artist Michael Hansen who created the depicted sketches and 3D models!

We had the great honor to host this year’s Ubisoft Developer Conference. In this annual event, people from studios around the world gather to share knowledge, inspire each other, and network. 🌍 Thank you to everyone who came to Massive and helped making this a truly unforgettable experience – everyone from the teams from UDC and Massive who made sure everything was running smoothly to speakers and guests who delivered inspiring presentations and valuable talks. ✨ And one last thank you to Ubisoft Montréal for handing UDC over to us this year, we are excited to visit Montréal next year when it’s coming back home again!

Tommy has a visitor 👀🎮 Congrats to all the teams working on the Rayman: 30th Anniversary Edition for bringing the classic back!

To enable our developers to estimate a builds performance before deploying it on the target hardware, the Snowdrop team has created Snowcap, a GPU profiling tool driven by machine learning. The team sat down with AI and Games to explain it in-depth, watch it on their YouTube channel: 🎥 https://lnkd.in/gTfrW_bi

Nix managed to get his paws on a couple editions of Star Wars Outlaws: Low Red Moon. 📖 Follow the story of ND-5 and Jaylen Vrax as they embark on their descent into the galaxy’s underworld in search of answers and opportunity, written by author Mike Chen!

Great sound design is the difference between watching a world and stepping into it. Jacob Coles, Lead Sound Designer at Massive Entertainment, is one of the talents who make that leap possible. 🎧 In Star Wars Outlaws, Jacob and the team aimed to sonically create a cinematic, authentic, scoundrel experience. Inspired by the organic, analogue magic of Star Wars, they started out by analyzing existing Star Wars material. Armed with what they’d learned, the team dove into their own collection of source material, transforming recordings of robotics, jet-cockpit buttons, trains, cranes, and slinkies into something entirely new through intricate layering and processing. As a nod to the original work by Ben Burtt, who famously used an elephant’s trumpet for the Tie-fighter, the team’s own elephant recording was used as a layer in the player's Rokana Raider ship in the story pack A Pirate's Fortune. Extra care went into designing the sound of Kay Vess’ speeder: it needed to feel playful and full of personality, sit comfortably alongside other iconic Star Wars vehicles, but avoid overwhelming the player during long stretches of gameplay. To strike this balance, Jacob along with Principal Sound Designer Martin Weissberg studied speeder sounds in other Star Wars films, shows, and games, and experimented with layered textures and tones. In-engine, they pushed the speeder’s voice even further by dynamically adjusting pitch, filtering, and loudness based on whether the player is racing in a straight line, weaving through combat, or soaring off ramps. Even the subtle wub-wub of the drive was designed to constantly shift and respond. The result is a speeder that reacts and feels real, making every ride an experience rather than just a mechanic. 🏍️💨 This sense of aliveness takes more than tools. For Jacob, the magic isn’t just in making sound, it’s in doing it alongside a passionate and wildly talented team. Their shared passion permeates every detail, and players feel that care in every moment they experience.

Dogfights in space, infiltrating an Imperial space station, and of course, Nix. Join Acke Hallgren and Juan Miguel Lechuga Pérez as they play Star Wars Outlaws and discuss the intricacies of Gameplay and Level Design in a galaxy far, far away. 🎮 🎥Full episode: https://lnkd.in/eFBfXEbv

Some creators leave something behind that becomes part of a studio’s soul. Julian Gerighty, Executive Producer of The Division franchise, and former Creative Director of Star Wars Outlaws, is one of them. Today, we want to share that Julian is heading off to a new adventure at Battlefield Studios, and while we’ll miss him, we’re incredibly proud. And we’ll continue to bring the world he’s been part of creating to our players for years to come. And Julian: remember: once an Agent, always an Agent. Now we can’t wait to see what you create next. 🧡 Good luck over at DICE! As for The Division, don’t worry, Agents. The watch isn’t going dark. The teams who built this world with Julian are still here, carrying it forward with an ambitious, unchanged commitment for the future with The Division 2, The Division 2: Survivors, The Division Resurgence and The Division 3.

Happy 2026! 🥳