Microsoft loves to show off the power of the web browser and naturally, they trumpet that Internet Explorer is the best of the best. With past works showing capabilities such as editing video and immersive geographical experiences.
Now, if you are a gaming fan, the collaboration Microsoft has worked on with Ubisoft might be the best yet. The two companies are bringing Assassin's Creed's Pirates demo to the browser. Besides the technical ability of showcasing a demo like this in your browser without having to download the game, Microsoft and Ubisoft are showing how you can begin to rethink the browser as an entirely new platform, and not simply a content navigation tool.
The game was built using Babylon.js and Microsoft is also offering up a competition for building your own shader for the pirate ship. If you build an awesome shader, you could win an Xbox One limited edition Assassin’s Creed Collector’s Black Chest Edition. You’ll get extra bonus points if you include a Neowin logo…ok, maybe no bonus points but we would love it if you did.
Compared to the previous iterations of these Microsoft demonstrations of IE’s capabilities, this one seems to bridge new boundaries with the gaming community. While Cut the Rope certainly dabbles towards the gaming genre, Assassin’s Creed type games are squarely aimed at the hardcore gaming community. While it may be a bit of a stretch, it’s typically this same crowd that loves to say that “IE is only good for downloading other browsers”, so this could be an olive branch offering to help convince the crowd that IE no longer is the crappy browser because of the IE6 legacy.
Take a look at the game and let us know how it runs for you. Even though this game runs in the browser, we will be curious to see how well it performs locally on your machine.
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