Assassin’s Creed III devs on cross-studio work and its advantages
During a GDC panel yesterday, the developers behind Asssassin’s Creed III discussed how four different studios came together to make last year’s action-adventure game. Ubisoft Quebec game director Marc-Alexis Cote, Ubisoft creative director Alex Hutchinson, Ubisoft game director Damien Kieken, Ubisoft Montreal senior producer Francois Pelland, and Ubisoft Singapore senior producer Hugues Ricour participated in the discussion.
Ubisoft Montreal was mainly in charge of Assassin’s Creed III’s core design and main missions. Singapore handled naval battles while Annecy tackled multiplayer. Finally, Quebec “tried to create the sense of the American Dream”, according to Hutchinson.
Having numerous studios work on a project has numerous advantages. Adopting this process does, for instance, let developers polish certain aspects to their fullest potential. It also allows for issues to be solved, sometimes overnight.
“When you are a co-dev partner, you will focus on a limited amount of features. Those features, you will be able to polish them. It’s not easy. It’s not rainbow land. It’s something that you need to work hard at to make it work. But if you do that, I really think it holds the keys to next generation development.”
