With The Division, Massive Entertainment hopes to create the most immersive experience possible in a life-like recreation of the game’s New York setting.

“One of the main things is that we want to have full immersion,” Massive brand art director Rodrigo Cortes recently told GamerHub TV. “That’s like a mantra for us when [we] do games. Immersion is very important to us.”

Cortes talked about the new Snowdrop engine that was built in-house, created specifically to make games like The Divison “better”, not “bigger”. He explains how it allowed the studio to recreate settings like New York and Manhattan in stunning detail.

“We knew that we wanted to do New York,” he said. “And it’s based on New York and Manhattan and more of the downtown area and we wanted to do something as realistic as possible, while at the same time, it needs to be fun. So we have done some creative choices there, so it works with the gameplay, but at the same time, it has the same scale and level of fidelity that you expect New York to have. From all the details when it comes to streets, when it comes to signs, when it comes to stores, and when it comes to what you see inside of the windows, there is life still… all of that is something we needed to be able to make.”

Catch the impressive Snowdrop engine tech demo that was recently showcased at this year’s GDC, as well as these new screens captured from the footage.

The Division is an open-world, massive multiplayer online, third-person shooter coming to next-gen consoles and PC.

Thanks, ShackNews.