Developer: Assassin's Creed's 12 Month Development Time is "Ideal"

The Wooster

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Developer: Assassin's Creed's 12 Month Development Time is "Ideal"


Assassin's Creed: Revelations mission design director claims the series' 12 month production cycle is "ideal," and talks about the benefits of developing against the clock.

Ubisoft has produced four "core" Assassin's Creed games in the past five years. The latest in the series, Assassin's Creed: Revelations hits shelves on the 15th of November, almost precisely one year after the previous game. With the games having less than a twelve-month production cycle, Ubisoft is treading dangerously close to the arbitrary, invisible line that marks "milking" territory. According to Falco Poiker, mission design director for Revelations, though the decision to annualize the series has resulted in a lot of pressure, the constant, looming threat of the an impending release date actually makes the development team more focused.

"Yeah, these games, the production cycle is less than a year, which actually for me is about ideal," he said while talking to Edge [http://www.next-gen.biz/features/assassins-creed-revelations-annual-mission]. "Most productions - real production is about that length, but because you have the previous game that's just finishing on production and you start the next game's production, there's this very quick ramp-up time where you're just swallowing resources saying, "OK, let's make this team." And from a 20-person team to a 180-people team within a few months, even that is a bit of a nightmare."

He does admit that the time constraint isn't popular with everyone - presumably somewhere around crunch-time the general feeling in the office goes from "focused" to "murderous" - but he argues that the quick development time prevents indecisiveness.

"A lot of people complain about that, I mean I'm talking internally - people say there's not enough time." He said. "But it gives an impetus to the team and we find a direction that we say we're going to run in, and there's very little of the indecision that comes with teams that spend two, three, four years developing games. Frequently those games will restart completely from the ground-up because they're like, "We're not satisfied where we are." We don't have that luxury so the time actually kind of works in our favour. We go one direction and we go with it. If there's problems, oh well, we'll fix it along the way."

Considering some of the industry's most [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/8949-Duke-Nukem-Forever-Review] disappointing [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daikatana] titles [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/213-Too-Human] have had, shall we say ... abundant, development periods, and each Assassin's Creed game has been consistently, if not drastically, better than the last, it's hard to argue with Poiker's points. Unless Revelations happens to be terrible, of course, because then we'll argue. Oh, how we'll argue.

Source: Edge [http://www.next-gen.biz/features/assassins-creed-revelations-annual-mission]

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Daaaah Whoosh

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Jun 23, 2010
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Why is it always one year with games? Why not one and a half years? Or perhaps some cool number like 333 days or 55 weeks?

Still, I guess it's nice to know that Assassin's Creed isn't going to be skimping out on what really matters: that is, the locations. As long as every new game takes place in a new area, I think I can remain entertained. My only wish is that they'd make the combat progressively harder, since Ezio is getting older, but considering the current trend, that's never going to happen.
 

StriderShinryu

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The problem I have with the shorter development period is not that the games end up being poor, it's that true innovation is stifled under constant crunch time. When you've got such a short window, you can't really think up truly new things to put in your game, test those ideas out and then fully flesh out the ones that really work well (or take a couple stabs at the really worthy great ones that just don't fit somehow). You may end up with a technically proficient series of great titles, and each may be better than the last, but each will inevitably end up feeling a lot like the last too.

Another issue is on the player side of things. It's like that old saying that goes something along the lines of "How can I miss you if you won't go away?" Releasing a title every single year, once again, may not mean you're releasing bad games but it will often lead to player apathy. It may also cause players to opt for time related price drops or used sales because it really hasn't been that long since they played your last game.
 

Woodsey

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Considering they've reportedly got something like 400-600 people working on them, it doesn't really surprise me.

They seem to be fantastic with the iterative evolution of ideas in the games, and as long as that stays the same the only real issue is consumer fatigue, or putting off Desmond's conclusion any more (AC3 needs to be next, that's something they shouldn't go back on).
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

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Sep 8, 2011
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Didn't they say just one week ago that after Assassin's Creed 3 is done, they'll go back to a longer production and development period? I guess they changed their mind.
 

Twilight_guy

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Nov 24, 2008
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The concern I have is that that means employees don't really get a break between games. Maybe they have coffee in the staff lounge when a game is done before going back to work.

Ubisoft knows more about game development then me and if they have separate teams working on different aspects, such as having the production team working on the next while the current is under way, then it should all work out pretty good assuming that everything can be finished in a year and assuming that you aren't crunching employees to death.
 

Rack

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bahumat42 said:
Woodsey said:
Considering they've reportedly got something like 400-600 people working on them, it doesn't really surprise me.

They seem to be fantastic with the iterative evolution of ideas in the games, and as long as that stays the same the only real issue is consumer fatigue, or putting off Desmond's conclusion any more (AC3 needs to be next, that's something they shouldn't go back on).
well they have said this is ezio's last game, but they could be gay and make another altair one, which would be gay, regardless im looking forward to it.(revelations) more stabby sneaky fun in very lifelike surroundings (cannot state how much i adored rome in brotherhood)
Rampant homophobia aside Altair's story has been finished fairly conclusively, in particular his link to Desmond so it would be a shame to see his role reprised. I'm not sure what else they could do without having all of Screed 3 in the present though.

As for the short cycle they're producing decent, but hopelessly unimaginative titles. All considered Screed 2 was far and away my favourite because of this "impetus" killing all creativity.
 

Druyn

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I don't care how long a game takes to develop. After a while I'll probably lose interest while waiting, sure, but if they produce a polished, fun, and overall good game, I don't think it matters.
 

Adzma

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Does anyone else remember after Assassin's Creed II's release the developer side of Ubisoft said they wanted to give the series a break so as not to over saturate the market? Probably not because the publisher side came out the next day barking "HORF HORF THAT IS OUR DECISION AND WE WILL MILK THIS MONEY PILE 'TIL IT DRIES UP."

ACII was great, but Brotherhood was just awful, I don't understand why it gets the praise it does. I have no intention of buying another Assassin's Creed while they continue this one year release BS. While COD may have a one year release, at least they have two seperate games so each gets a two year development cycle... my god did I just praise COD?
 

Not G. Ivingname

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The fact that they STILL are stuck in the Reinissance tells me that preproduction doesn't exist in this series now.
 

Shamanic Rhythm

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Whatever, I refuse to pay full price every year just to see them drag out the various plot resolutions as long as they can. Assassin's Creed is really just another paperback conspiracy thriller, only the conspiracy isn't really a conspiracy, it's just that they never bother to characterise half the people involved so you are left wondering what their motivations are. It's shamelessly milking the Dan Brown religious paranoia for everything it can get.

They should have just gone with the original idea of focusing on different time periods and kept them related in name only. Because the adventures of Ezio are far more interesting in a kind of Grand-Theft-Auto style than any of the ancillary bullshit they're tied into.
 

Nazgual

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Apr 16, 2011
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Overall I like Brotherhood but the ending Ezio's SUCKED. Don't tell me that wasn't because you only had a year Ubisoft.
 

Fiz_The_Toaster

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I feel torn about this.

On one hand they've been turning out an Assassin's Creed game every year and it is close to "milking" territory which I have a problem with, but at the same time, this series has done different things in terms of combat and a fully fleshed out story that isn't incoherent.

I do think dealing with the same characters, locations, and time periods helps a great deal with development and releasing them within a year.
 

The Critic

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Apr 3, 2010
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I can see how this would make sense. It's the same concept that you use in college to keep on top of your classes: time management. If you have too much time on your hands, you put things off for later, and eventully that "Put off until later" pile turns into an insurmountable mountain. You set yourself a limit, work at a consistant rate within that limit, and your work gets done without any rushing or extra stress.

On a more practical note, I'm sure that having plenty of people working on a project does wonders for production time; and I'm also sure that having an established framework to build off of also helps tremendously. Actually, come to think of it, with all the things that Ubisoft has going for it; large development team, established technologies, established build structure, plenty of resources, and (of course) talent, a yearly development cycle actually seems fairly reasonable.
 

dmase

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I don't see how duke nukem can be compared to other long development cycles. Just look at diablo which has received high praise so far and half life. Duke nukem is a special case because it got juggled between developers over and over not just ideas. If it had stuck with one developer that didn't go under it would have been much better.