Assassin's Creed Almost Had "Huge" Co-op Mode

[Marshall Honorof]

Assassin's Creed Almost Had "Huge" Co-op Mode

Ubisoft thought that allowing a second player in would create story paradoxes.

Although more recent games [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/10015-Assassins-Creed-III-Review] have added well-received multiplayer modes, Assassin's Creed is a series that's in love with the single-player experience. Each game provides a long campaign with a rich story and tons of extra content. At best, sitting down to play an Assassin's Creed game is like reading a great novel, which is why fans may find it odd that this series very nearly went co-op. The original Assassin's Creed had an ambitious cooperative mode planned, but dropped it due to thematic reasons.

"We had a huge co-op component in there," explains Philippe Bergeron, the mission director for Assassin's Creed III. He reveals the rationale behind ditching cooperative play: "The engine couldn't support it, and then the metaphor we had above it didn't support it." The developers at Ubisoft decided to add a drop-in, drop-out cooperative mode to Assassin's Creed very early on in development, but as time went on, both technological and storyline considerations prevented them from doing so. "There was no way to reconcile having multiplayer or co-op in an ancestor's memories," says Bergeron. "Your ancestor lived his life in a certain way, so assuming you had branching storylines, it creates a paradox. It didn't fit."

Multiplayer did come to the series with a competitive stealth mode in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, but to this day, there has never been a cooperative mode in an Assassin's Creed title. As Bergeron pointed out, it wouldn't make much sense considering the ongoing story. Now that the arc in question has come to a close, though, perhaps one of the future titles will leverage the power of teamwork. You can't have a guild of assassins [http://assassinscreed.wikia.com/wiki/Assassins_Guilds] without a few friends.

Source: Official Xbox Magazine (UK) [http://www.oxm.co.uk/49887/assassins-creed-once-had-huge-drop-in-co-op-mode-but-it-didnt-fit/]

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[gigastar]

Ubisoft is worried about story when they left a gaping plothole in AC3?

 

[GAunderrated]

Ubisoft is worried about story when they left a gaping plothole in AC3?

They are worried AFTER they make the money, they are never worried BEFORE they are going to make money.

 

[FFP2]

It would have been DS3 all over again...

I actually think it would be a cool idea, but only if the co-op partner was just a generic member of your Assassin guild.

 

[gigastar]

Ubisoft is worried about story when they left a gaping plothole in AC3?

They are worried AFTER they make the money, they are never worried BEFORE they are going to make money.

Wierd, i remember that approach to things brought an almost tragic end to THQ.

You would think people would learn...

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Eh? I'm guessing it must have been mainly tech reasons, or otherwise either they or I are a bit dim.

In ACII, you hear Lucy (is that her name? I don't exactly remember) telling you to go and look at some things when you're in the Animus. This means that either Ezio heard some random woman's voice telling him to look at some things, or he is being mind-controlled by people in the future. My understanding of the Animus is that you're viewing his memories, rather than it being a Matrix-style simulation type thing.

Maybe I'm just overthinking a device that couldn't possibly work anyway.

 

[CrazyBlaze]

Simple way to explain. One of the other remembers of the team drop in and out to help Desmond out. Also isn't the wolfpack mode Co-op? Just not story co-op?

 

[ProtoChimp]

Simple way to explain. One of the other remembers of the team drop in and out to help Desmond out. Also isn't the wolfpack mode Co-op? Just not story co-op?

Yes that could work, or if there are new protagonists after Desmond since AC3 is meant to be the end of his arc, why not have siblings or people related in some distant way, and the story could be their friends. There could also be a husband and wife as the co-op partners.

 

[elilupe]

If they really are this worried about things not making sense in their games, maybe they should think more about the main campaign and all of the many, many plot holes and bad decisions that made up that Idiot Plot before they think about added bits.

 

[Darth_Payn]

It would have been DS3 all over again...

I actually think it would be a cool idea, but only if the co-op partner was just a generic member of your Assassin guild.

Holy cazzo, that's a great idea! Another one that would enable co-op in the story is two people in the modern day using the Animus together.

 

[Frezzato]

Well... maybe next time we just cut out the Animus altogether?

Is it possible that I'm not alone in thinking that the animus was a completely unnecessary plot device? That's the only thing that kept me from finishing AC1 and buying any of the sequels. I'm weird like that.

The same goes for Infamous, the first one, where you have to

Spoiler

save your girlfriend. It's not so much the fact that nothing you do can save her, it's the concept of trying to save someone you care about and having that considered evil, or greedy. Screw that, I'll save whoever I want to. It seemed like a junior high student wrote the story.

 

[FFP2]

Holy cazzo, that's a great idea! Another one that would enable co-op in the story is two people in the modern day using the Animus together.

Haha and it would be like LAN... melding old school and futuristic shit together

I doubt that they will implement it for AC4 after looking at how badly DS3 will do.

Hopefully.

 

[RJ 17]

Seems like it would have been easy enough from a story point, at least. Just make the co-op partner NOT someone who's plugged into the Animus. Just have whoever jumps into your game fill the role of "generic assassin #154", now you don't have to worry about two people being in an Animus.

Well... maybe next time we just cut out the Animus altogether?

And give people the game they actually thought they'd be getting when the original trailer was released? THAT'S CRAZY TALK!

 

[Darth_Payn]

Holy cazzo, that's a great idea! Another one that would enable co-op in the story is two people in the modern day using the Animus together.

Haha and it would be like LAN... melding old school and futuristic shit together

I doubt that they will implement it for AC4 after looking at how badly DS3 will do.

Hopefully.

But, Dead space 3 just came out, right? How do you know for sure it will suck?

 

[Vrach]

Sad, but I don't blame them. It's not easy to make good co-op without sacrificing other parts of the game and AC isn't just coming out, it's a part of a well ongoing series (introducing something like this after so many titles is near impossible). Hopefully they'll keep trying, I've wanted a triple A, full on co-op game since forever. Not with AC though. That's a lost cause. But they could easily pull off something like that with another title. Far Cry 4 comes to mind, it starts with a new story each time and throwing an extra gun into the mix in the form of a mercenary/friend/whatever seems like a walk in the park compared to doing it with an established, continuous franchise.

That said, I don't get why they went with a new engine. AC3 doesn't feel like it's ahead of AC:B or AC:R in anything other than system requirements. I'm not seeing any new gameplay that would've been difficult to work in with the old engine and the graphics don't seem to show much improvement either. The only thing that's different is the UI, which is actually a step (or several tbh) backwards, giving you less control and even making less sense in the storyline (if the idea is for Desmond to learn from his ancestors, simplifying how he controls them seems a counterproductive way to go).