[6] Rodrigo Cortes, former brand art director at Massive Entertainment, said that development on the Snowdrop engine started in 2009.

[12][13][14] Features of Snowdrop include advanced physically based rendering (PBR), procedural destruction, and a dynamic global illumination system.

[27][28] According to senior technical artist Kunal Luthra, thousands of assets can be propagated inside of each frame to create more highly detailed environments.

[29][30] The engine would also support real-time ray tracing, unified volumetric rendering, as well as improved AI behavior for NPCs.

[35][36] Massive developed its own digital "camera lens" in Snowdrop, which was used to give the game a more cinematic presentation as an option.