Developer interview: Assassin's Creed Unity

Assassin's Creed Unity is one of the year's most anticipated games, being the seventh major instalment of a franchise that has sold over 73 million copies. In an exclusive interview with Krishna Bahirwani, Lead Game Designer Alexandre Pedneault, shares his thoughts on the game

What was the inspiration for Unity?

Unity started when the team received the mandate of creating the first online, next-gen Assassin’s Creed game. The team’s second goal was to renew the AC experience, by revisiting the main pillars of the franchise (stealth / combat / navigation). We decided that we also wanted to refocus the game – make it about being an Assassin inside an interesting city full of renowned landmarks and mysteries.

The team selected Paris during the French Revolution – everybody knows Paris, and its landmarks and the French Revolution is such a pivotal moment in History, we just had to do it there.

Has Unity turned out to be the game you first imagined?

Quite frankly, when you start working on a game you set the bar really high. You have ambitious ideas, crazy systems you want to try out and the expectations are really high.

We did manage to create the game we wanted. The city is more alive than ever before – we have the most impressive crowds ever produced in a game. The combat is more challenging, the stealth has been improved and we gave new tools to the player (crouch stance, new smoke bombs, etc) and the parkour-navigation is more precise and fluid. We look at the game we created and we’re really proud – it really is a next-gen Assassin’s Creed.

What is unique about Unity that we haven't seen so far?

The major breakthroughs for us are the CO-OP, the AI and the new tech we developed to create Paris.

The Co-Op first – that really changed everything. We had to rebuild most of our systems to account for the fact that we’ll have more than one Assassin running around in Paris. It doesn’t sound like something that’s impressive, but every system needed to take into account that more than one player was around the city. Guards need to react to the actions of one player, while another one might do something else on the side, for example! We needed to create systems that informed players on the status of their teammates, that allowed them to revive each other and skills that helped all of them. Since we had to redo our systems to handle more than one player, we had to switch from being a player-centric game to a non-player centric one. We took that opportunity to make sure our AI followed suit – they are now able to react to the players but also to other NPCs. Our faction system (extremists, guards and allies) is always running in Paris. That’s why you’ll see fights break out in Paris even though you had nothing to do with it. The city lives whet ever you do something or not.

Third is all the new technology that allows us to re-create Paris in such a believable way. The amount of details you can see on buildings, in the interiors and the scale of the landmarks is something we never been able to achieve before. The crowds that you’ll see in game are impressive – we’re talking about thousands of NPCs, all in real time.

Why are PC requirements for Unity so high?

As part of our wish to provide our players with the best game experience possible, we have worked hard to make Assassin’s Creed Unity a fully-fledged new generation title. Thanks to the power offered by the latest hardware, the team was able to rebuild the game engine from the ground up and reimagine the navigation, stealth and parkour pillars of the franchise.

The game now includes features previously impossible to achieve, such as the level of visuals, full-scale buildings, seamless interiors and massive crowds, and many others that necessitate the capacities of new generation hardware to maintain the integrity of the team’s vision for the game and the gameplay. We are dedicated to make sure PC players will enjoy the full Assassin’s Creed Unity experience.

What was the most challenging part in Unity's development process?

I think it’s getting the game at the level where we were happy with it. We changed a lot of systems and it meant making sure that all of them worked in the same direction. We also had to be sure that all of the customization items worked and that they were balanced to create a sense of progression for the player. That’s really the most challenging part at the end, making sure everything works as we intended and that the systems are well balanced.