Ubisoft unveils PC UGC platform

By Tom Bramwell Published 15 June, 2010

Setting for Track, Shoot and QuestMania.

Ubisoft has announced plans to create a user-generated content platform for PC called ManiaPlanet.

Speaking during its packed E3 conference, the publisher said TrackMania developer Nadeo is involved, but the idea is to expand ManiaPlanet to include other games.

Two were mentioned. QuestMania will go into beta soon, while ShootMania is targeting Q1 2011.

Ubisoft said that TrackMania currently has 10 million players across its various guises, and TrackMania 2 will launch in Q4 2010.

TrackMania's big trick - apart from wicked handling and just-one-more-go level design - was to give you a track editor to assemble your own courses from a limited number of track pieces, the idea being to post a fast time between pre-defined checkpoints.

It's easy to imagine that QuestMania and ShootMania will take that idea and run with it - presumably in the direction of the RPG or shooter genres.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000. Follow him on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (11) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Eraysor #1 2 years ago

    Is this ManiaPlanet little or big?

    (and yes, I know TrackMania was both first and brilliant)

  • bad09 #2 2 years ago

    Ubi on PC. Pass....

  • Lusterpurge #3 2 years ago

    I'm surprised that make your own RPG games haven't been made (aside from those awful <a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il3ZcBGh20c>RPG Maker games</a>;).

  • paketep #4 2 years ago

    Sad that Nadeo let themselves be bought by the Ubi bastards. I'll miss the new Trackmanias.

  • ignatiusjreilly #5 2 years ago

    Ubi, stop wasting money and stick to consoles.

    Trackmania is awesome but your new DRM system means the sequel will never reach the heights of the original classic. Shame really.

  • neems #6 2 years ago

    While nobody likes Ubi and its DRM, to be fair the last couple of Trackmania games were effectively online anyway - United and it's expansion Forever had massive online integration, even in single player. You could play it offline, but you missed out on a huge portion of the game, even without taking actual multiplayer into account.

  • ignatiusjreilly #7 2 years ago

    I bought TMUF and rarely took it online for multiplayer (always seemed to get lots of lag). The only thing I used the online for was spending coppers to get new tracks/skins.

    For me it was a hotseat "party" game, which are pretty rare on the PC. I also used it a lot on my laptop on the way to work as it had very low sys requirements, but never took it online then because I had no dongle and the 3G connection was pretty flakey during the journey anyway.

  • Spekingur #8 2 years ago

    This is going to be awesome! I just hope my country is going to be among available choices because it wasn't in Trackmania Nations Forever.

  • sneetch #9 2 years ago

    @neems
    You could play it offline

    There's the key, though. ;)

    I'm personally mellowing a bit on the always online DRM. My own net connection seems to have stabilised a lot recently, I still want the option of playing offline if needs be but if the right "must have" game comes out I might cave in.

  • bad09 #10 2 years ago

    Stay strong Sneetch don't let the PC platform down. If it has an Ubiscum logo, just say no.

  • karstux #11 2 years ago

    "I'm surprised that make your own RPG games haven't been made"

    Well, the Bethesda RPGs have been heavily going into that direction. With the TESCS/GECK editors it was always possible to create pretty much whatever you want. Which is really why I've been a fan of their games for years now...

    Definitely interested in QuestMania and ShootMania.