Getting the lowdown ahead of its November 17th release date
Creative Director of Assassin's Creed II, Patrice Desilets, gives us the lowdown on the mystical action adventure.You previously insisted on the fact that character progression was a central development aspect of Assassin’s Creed II. How did you represent that progression in the game?
As immersion is a point we wanted to push, the main idea behind Assassin’s Creed 2 progression was to relive the life of our main character – Ezio – and his evolution throughout the story that spawns for 30 years. Ezio isn’t born an assassin. He will have to learn to become one. A large part of Ezio’s story is him answering the question – who am I? What’s my purpose? – He can’t find the answer to this question in 1 year or 2; it takes the spawn of his entire life.
The player will have to accomplish a certain number of achievements in order for Ezio to learn new skills and turn into a Master Assassin. He will meet a lot of characters that will teach him new skills, how to behave and reach his full potential. As Ezio matures, his values, his morals, his sense of self – will also change.
We’ve heard about a lot of major locations Ezio will get to explore, like Florence, Venice, Tuscany/San Gimignano, the mountains etc. Is the Italian capital – Rome – going to be a part of the game?
It would be a shame to make a game set during Renaissance Italy and not include its capital. Rome is definitely going to be a part of the game! The city was also subject to a lot of suspicious activity at that time which is in line with the atmosphere/storyline of our game.
