Assassin’s Creed: Unity won’t be Hampered by Last-Generation Consoles

Develop recently sat down with Jeffrey Spicer, the Character and FX Production Manager at Ubisoft. In this interview, the two discussed the development of Assassin's Creed:Unity and some of the improvements made to that technology. While Ubisoft may not be leaving the seventh console generation behind this year, they've made it clear that they won't be holding their future games back on its account.

Spicer first talked about the vast improvements to hardware power and how that has affected development.

"Yeah, we’ve been able to reach a new level with the effects, but not too much has changed in the pipeline – they’re just able to have denser, deeper effects. In the demo, we use a smoke bomb which fills the whole screen with smoke and makes it almost impossible to see anything. We wanted the tools to portray what they actually did in the real world (and provide real cover), so we’re now actually able to do that. We’ve got rich fire, and similarly rich atmospherics."

He then talked about how the improving technology at Ubisoft has affected game development.

"We’ve got the biggest crowd ever in an Assassin’s Creed with Unity. We’ve got the most unique characters and the most detail. One of the greatest progressions was on the character side, most definitely. Not just in the amount of characters we’re able to integrate into the game world (because it’s a huge world), but how we’re able to tie the system together and just develop unique characters. We’ve made breakthroughs in facial scanning, skin shaders, eye wetness – all of that comes together to really make much more believable and realistic characters that help draw you into the storyline and make them feel like real people and real characters with a real story to help keep you immersed in the game world."

Lastly, Spicer discussed some of the more nuanced parts of development, with a look at clothing and hair. Spicer indicates that with improved hardware and game development tehcnology, they were able to make Assassin's Creed: Unity just a little bit better even in this minute area.

"Well, every seam and every fold has a different weight. We’ve been able to do a lot with what we call ‘soft cloth’, where we give cloth real physics to make it feel like it’s living and breathing and it reacts to the game world. That’s evidenced on Arno. He has 200 gear items that you can equip through the customisation menu. Each of the character components adds different skills and strengths, but also just adds to the richness of the characters."

"But I think one of the biggest breakthroughs apart from the memory is in hair. We were able to get to a level with hair which was a lot more believable and a lot richer."

Assassin's Creed: Unity releases in North America on November 11, 2014.

Here is a trailer to sate your appetite.