Assassin’s Creed Shadows is in many ways the biggest release in the Assassin’s Creed franchise so far. It’s setting is feudal Japan, the setting that fans have been asking since the franchise first premiered.
It’s the first game that’s meant to kick off Ubisoft’s big next chapter in the franchise with Assassin’s Creed Infinity. And it’s the game that has taken longer to make than any other game in the franchises history.
At four years of development time, that’s double the time it took to make and launch Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and in an interview with GamesIndustry.Biz, lead producer on the title Karl Onnée says that four years is probably where the development time should stay.
“It’s always a balance between time and costs, but the more time you have, the more you can iterate. Yes, you can put more people on a project and do it in a shorter time, but that doesn’t give you more time to iterate, because it takes time to get the feedback from your players, your team…and then see what works and what doesn’t and how to improve it.
Four years, I think, is the right balance to go from conception to production and get the feedback necessary to adapt.”
Part of what helped make Assassin’s Creed one of Ubisoft’s flagship franchises was the clip at which the studio got these games out there door. It was an annual franchise at one point, though now it seems that the approach internally has shifted.
“We are trying to create a game that is as authentic as possible. It’s something we take pride in, and that is also a very long process,” Onnée said.
“When we build a Japanese house from feudal Japan, it is very different from, say, a French medieval house or an English one. So you have to learn as artists where things go inside a feudal Japanese house…maybe the food doesn’t go there. You have to get everything you need to know and learn it. And that process is long.”
While it’s clear that Ubisoft has been able to streamline much of its development processes over the years, this slower approach could be exactly what the series needs to give players enough time with the current release and be excited about whatever’s next.
It also allows for smaller projects like Mirage, or the remakes of earlier titles that were recently announced.
Onnée also added “We always want to go better, which is what we’re trying to do with Shadows. We are pushing the limits of what we can do.”
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is due out this coming November 15, 2024.
Source – [GamesIndustry.Biz]