Making of Assassin’s Creed: This is how part 1 of the cult series was created!

Assassin’s Creed is more than just another open world game. It is the fastest horse in the Ubisoft stable – and that was also reflected in the numbers. As Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot announced in one of the quarterly investor calls, sales of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, released on November 10, 2020, amounted to one sum up to that point of over one billion US dollars. This was indicated at an early stage: between April 2020 and March 2021 Ubisoft increased its revenue by 46 percent. The main reason for this was the good sales of the Viking adventure. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and above all its payment and content model made it the most successful game in the 15-year-old series to date.

But every new brand starts small. Assassin’s Creed had its beginnings (buy now €49.99 / €8.99 ) in the mind-bending action game Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2003). After its successful release, then-director Patrice Désilets and his team at Ubisoft Montreal were entrusted with continuing the series. But everything turned out differently: While Prince of Persia is still waiting for a remake, Assassin’s Creed is one of the biggest Ubisoft franchises ever!

The first talks about a sequel to Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time began in spring 2004. At the time, the action-adventure was released for Sony’s Playstation 2 and Microsoft’s Xbox, among others. However, the development team had big ambitions: They wanted to produce a next-gen Prince of Persia for the later appearing Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

The eagle plays an important role in the presentation of the main character and in the stylistics of Assassin’s Creed. For example, you will also meet the birds of prey when climbing vantage points.

Source: Moby Games

With the additional hardware power, the aim was to bring the prince’s climbing skills into an open-world environment. The management was given to Patrice Désilets and his troupe free hand in the alignment and conception of the successor.

Initially, the goal was to bring the qualities of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time to the next level, and most importantly, to a larger game. The strengths included above all the movement options such as climbing and the parkour elements already interspersed there.

Desmond Miles is about to step into the Animus for the first time. The integration of the science fiction machine gave the story a crucial twist.

Source: Moby Games

At the same time, there were very special requests for the new product, such as the display of large areas or cities along with NPC audiences. Both were difficult with the old console generation, but with the coming one. Junior Programmer Sacha Viltofsky explains versus polygon as follows:

“The watchwords were free will and sandbox: creating your own game experience, exploring the environment and giving the player the opportunity to do all of that. Of course that was ambitious, but when I came on board a year and a half before release, the game was already on course.”

Patrice Désilets wasn’t a fan of the main character of Prince of Persia: “Since I had just finished a game starring a prince, I wanted a different character. So the prince should have a different job than waiting for mom and Dad die and he can take their place. I wanted an action character – something where you can see the action right in the title.”

The horse was a big challenge for the developers. But Patrice Désilets insisted on implementing it. After all, the horse was “the car of the time” and was part of everyday life.

Source: Moby Games

Although Désilets studied film and literature at the University of Montreal, he has always been very interested in ancient history. “The past is just like a fantasy world. It was so different from where we are now. As if we were on another planet. The 20th century changed us. (…) I like going into the to look back and let players experience what we were like,” he said in conversation with PC Gamer out. During his research, he stumbled across an old book about secret societies.

“The first story was about the old man from the mountain. About the assassins. My thought was: what if I was number 2 in this organization and therefore the prince of the assassins?” he explained to Polygon.

The setting and main character chosen in the first Assassin’s Creed were ultimately based on this research. The basis was the novel Alamut by the Slovenian author Wladimir Bartol from 1938. In it, Hassan-i-Sabbah trained elite soldiers in the eponymous fortress.

“Social stealth” was an interesting approach and suited the assassins really well. Amidst the monks, Altaïr sneaks into the city.

Source: Moby Games

This in turn is considered the presumed founder of the order of Hashshashin named after him, from which the term “assassin” is derived. Hassan-i-Sabbah’s alleged last words are said to have been the order’s credo and would eventually become so for the Ubisoft franchise: “Nothing is true, everything is permitted.”