Eye-tracking technology company Tobii has once again teamed up with video game publisher Ubisoft to bring the former’s tech to the latter’s games. Attendees of CES 2016, going on this week in Las Vegas, will be able to play the latest and greatest entry in Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed franchise, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, with several eye-tracking designs implemented.
Specifically, the Tobii eye-tracking enhanced PC version of the London-based Assassin’s Creed Syndicate allows players to aim weapons and throw the rope launcher that’s become synonymous with the video game. But it’s not just slightly gimmicky implementations of already existing features that Tobii’s cooked up. In addition to the previous, they’ve also added eye-tracking light adaption “where the scene becomes overexposed when looking into a dark room with a bright window,” according to the company’s press release. The idea is to mimic the way the character’s vision might refocus in a real version of the situation.
This isn’t the first time Tobii and Ubisoft have teamed up on an Assassin’s Creed title. They’d previously partnered in early 2015 to bring “Infinite Screen” implementation to Assassin’s Creed Rogue. Essentially, the players controlled the game’s camera by looking at certain portions of the screen. If they looked at the right edge, for example, the camera would naturally pan that direction to be more in line with where it was registering any given player’s eyes were resting.
The eye-tracking stuff for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate isn’t just for CES 2016, however. Tobii intends to ship the features for PC later in the first quarter of 2016. It will, of course, require the physical Tobii IS4 Eye Tracking Platform, which is powered by the Tobii EyeChip, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) developed specifically for eye tracking.
Those who want to try the technology can buy Tobii's EyeX eye-tracking controller and Assassin's Creed Syndicate from Steam for $119.
