Ubisoft: Assassin's Creed Has "An End"

[StewShearerOld]

Ubisoft: Assassin's Creed Has "An End"

Assassin's Creed IV director Ashraf Ismail says that each new game is working through a planned overall arc.

You could be forgiven for thinking that Ubisoft, the company behind the Assassin's Creed franchise, was perhaps making the series' story up as it went along. How else are you supposed to react to a franchise that began in the Crusades, worked its way to the Italian Renaissance, landed briefly in the American Revolution, and will now transplant its experience in a world of swashbuckling pirates? It's brings to mind a dart board covered in settings and is the sort of storytelling that's hard to see coming to a tidy end.

That said, according to Ashraf Ismail, the director of Assassin's Creed IV, the series does have an end point and its creators know what it is. "We have multiple development teams, then we have the brand team that sits on top and is filled with writers and designers concerned with the series' overall arc," explained Ismail. "So there is an overall arc, and each iteration has its place inside this." Whatever this arc may be, it's apparently flexible enough to allow for the annual release schedule that Ubisoft <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/123044-Ubisoft-Says-to-Expect-More-Annual-Sequels>requires of the series. "We are a yearly title, we ship one game a year," said Ismail. "So depending on the setting, depending on what fans want, we've given ourselves room to fit more in this arc. But there is an end."

There are some who have suggested that an inevitably be detrimental to a franchise. That said, Ismail believes that the story being spun in the Assassin's Creed games actually benefits from its regular releases. For instance, developers across separate teams have been able to coordinate new narrative elements across new Assassin's Creeds while they're still in development. "We're now able to seed stuff earlier and earlier in our games," Ismail continued. "So for example in [AC4] we have Edward, who was seeded in AC3. But there's a lot more stuff in our game that is hinting at other possibilities." Possibilities that will doubtlessly be explored in sequels upon sequels to come.

Source: <a href=http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-08-05-ubisoft-talks-assassins-creed-series-ending>Eurogamer


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[Starke]

Let me be the first to say: Bwhahahahahahaha

Yeah, right.

 

[Jandau]

Spoiler: Here is a piece of leaked concept art for the Assassin's Creed overall story arc that Ubisoft has been using.

I don't think anyone is buying this crap anymore. Even the people that like the games must have realized that it's being diluted and rehashed. Personally, I can't bear playing anything beyond vanilla AC2...

 

[Grabehn]

Naah, some more Ubisoft bullshit to start my day is always good. "it has an end" There should've been an end 2-3 games ago.

 

[AgentLampshade]

The end will come as soon as Watch_Dogs proves to be more profitable. Mark my words.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

Eventually Desmond will have to relive his dad's memories until the moment of conception. Awkward boners ahoy!

 

[Teoes]

I too am most doubtful. Sure it'll have an end; then the following year the prequels/next "arc" will begin!

We are a yearly title, we ship one game a year..

Spoiler: Really? Tell me more.

So depending on the setting, depending on what fans want, we've given ourselves room to fit more in this arc. But there is an end.

This just tells me that there's an end, but whether they plan to reach that end or if they'll just continue to meander about padding the story with more and more games depends on how much cash is coming in. See aforementioned milked moocow.

 

[Adon Cabre]

This Next Gen console will globalize: example, a US cinema flop like Pacific Rim gets a whole new sequel because it breaks new ground in China.

In other words, publishers are no longer going to care about the US or European community, because they're
interested in the global market, which doesn't always demand quality.

 

[Ian Kapsthan Frost]

This does strike me as rather odd.

Spoiler: AC1-AC3 Spoilers

There did seem to be a clear arc at the very beginning, with the 2012 apocalypse and all that. After all, the second game was originally supposed to take place in Yucatan as far as I know. Even the ending of the first game basically hinted at the possibility of Mayans becoming important later on. When they re-decided and changed the setting to Renaissance-Italy they kept that, and the ending of AC2 further clarifies the importance of Desmond and the approaching apocalyptic event.

However, they basically wrapped that up in AC3, probably because they felt that they couldn't push this particular event even further away, and then introduced a new antagonist after the crisis was averted.

The 2012-apocalypse arc does appear like it was the original structure of the franchise, perhaps mapped out after AC1's surprising success, and the new post-AC3 arc appears to have been created after they realized just how big this franchise was going to be.

Basically it could very well be that there is a (new) end set for the story, but they can/will probably change that as needed. Or just make tons of prequels afterwards.


And just for the record: Although I severely loathe yearly installments, especially since one of my favorite franchises/genres of the past generation was basically killed by them (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater), I still believe that AC is one of the very few franchises that can pull that off, mostly because of the notably diverse historical periods and places that they can set their games in.
On the other hand, the fact that they decided to make what appears to basically be a pirate-game is somewhat disappointing, especially given the myriads of other settings of greater historical relevance they could have chosen. But maybe the game will turn out to be much better than I currently expect, we'll see.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I figured as much. But the ending won't come until they've milked it for all it's worth.

 

[piinyouri]

This sounds like me making my first Neverwinter Nights module.

"First a starting town, then you venture past the winding cliffs of Trolloch lake which harbours a scary cemetary that sits at the foot of Mt.Snow, a towering behemoth of ice and windshear that is riddled with multiple caves descending further into the mountains belly which eventually lead to a vast underground spread over miles of subteranean caves and deeper, deeper still below lies misplaced and odd technology left by an unknown civilization and..and...AND....."


Yeah I never made an end to that either.

 

[ExtraDebit]

Can someone remind me who "Edwand" was in AC3? The story was so forgetable that the only ones I remember is desmond and connor.

 

[Metalrocks]

ok, i see now. i still will get AC4 and probably enjoy it but i have canceled my pre order for watch dogs since they intend to make franchises out of every IP they create.
but if they still keep intending to make more Ac games, part 4 will be my last one.

 

[Xisin]

I played a bit of the AC1 at a friend's house when it first came out. I remember saying that I'd pick up the series when the Desmond game comes out. Here we are, 6 years later and game number 14 in sight. I can now promise Ubisoft that unless they package all these games together at some point, I will not be buying them.

 

[AidoZonkey]

So they probably have an end goal in sight for the series and have an idea of what the build up for the ending should be, but they probably insert new parts to the story all the time to extend the length of the series allowing for a constant flow of games. The ending of Assassins Creed 3 felt as though they changed it last minuet to allow for more squeals. It just didn't feel right. I am interested in how Assassins Creed 4 works out because it could potentially just feel like more padding after that ending.

 

[Ace Morologist]

According to Ashraf Ismail, the director of Assassin's Creed IV, the series does have an end point and its creators know what it is.

Didn't the makers of Lost say this same thing back in the beginning? Wasn't that also a disappointing lie in retrospect?

Regardless, if the arc of the Assassin's Creed series is flexible enough to allow for endless yearly releases, it probably doesn't have a real end point in mind. What it more likely has is a short-term plan to end this new story arc that got started at the end of AC3. And when that one's over, they'll start a new one.

--Morology!

 

[RJ 17]

There is an end! It's just in.....20 more sequels!

Yeah, I call bullshit on this, and I do think they're just making it up as they go. Why? Because I feel like being a dick this morning.

But seriously, the storyline so far has been rambling at best, and just "wtf" inducing at worst. I mean hell, the main character of ACIII didn't even want to be an assassin.......at any point. He just wanted revenge, pure and simple. Granted, Ezio's story starts out as a quest for revenge for the deaths of his father and brothers, but he matures over the course of ACII and starts believing in the cause of the Assassins, fully embracing that lifestyle as his own. The main character of ACIII just bitches and moans like Daniel-San from Karate Kid, wanting the old dude to teach him how to fight and grant him more resources to take down the people that burned his village.......he doesn't care about the revolution and doesn't care that he's hunting down Templars for a greater good and not just for his personal revenge.

And now we've got a frickin' pirate? Really? Is this quite literally just going to be the plot of the last 2 Pirates of the Caribbean movies (Edit: Of the first trilogy...since they're apparently making another one.../edit) played out in the Assassin's Creed universe? Maybe even involving a man with an octopus for a face and a giant woman that has the worst case of crabs I've ever seen?

Bah, sorry, I'll cut myself off there before I REALLY start going off on a rant. I used to the love series. The first two games were great, I really enjoyed Brotherhood's campaign, I would have liked Revelations if it was just a DLC expansion to Brotherhood (a lot of people said Brotherhood felt like it should have been an expansion to 2, but I'd say there's enough content and meat to that game to warrant it being it's own game. Revelations just felt short. The city was tiny compared to Rome, you only kill 3 guys, the first guy you kill is half-way through the frickin' game, and it turns out that he was actually a good guy who was trying to kill the person you're really after!). And then ACIII was just atrocious. So needless to say, I'm a bitter, jaded, FORMER AC fan who has lost faith in the series. I can no longer justify dropping $60 every year to follow this crap.

 

[RJ 17]

So depending on the setting, depending on what fans want, we've given ourselves room to fit more in this arc. But there is an end.

This just tells me that there's an end, but whether they plan to reach that end or if they'll just continue to meander about padding the story with more and more games depends on how much cash is coming in. See aforementioned milked moocow.

That translates to "The ending to the story will be when Ubisoft tells us the series is being cancelled so the next game will be the last."