Q&A mit Assassin's Creed 2:Discovery Produzent Carver

My name is Dan Carver and I’m the Griptonite Games Producer on Assassin’s Creed II Discovery.  Our development team here is working hand in hand with Ubisoft Montreal and the Assassin’s Creed II Core Team to develop a great game that will respect all of AC brand pillars and be designed for the Nintendo DS Platform.

 

Well actually, Assassin’s Creed 2 Discovery is part of the AC2 universe. It’s definitely not a port, but rather expands on Assassin’s Creed 2’s storyline by filling in a time-gap in the next gen version. The player will play as Ezio and will get to meet Christopher Columbus and will be drawn into a completely new adventure!

 

After meeting Christopher Columbus in Venice and uncovering a Templar plot disguised under the banner of the Spanish Inquisition, Ezio decides to rescue the assassins being held in Spain. There Ezio becomes a catalyst in the discovery of America’€¦

 

Ezio will get to explore various large cities. The action occurs in a wide variety of locales throughout Renaissance-era Italy and Spain, namely Venice, Barcelona, Saragossa and Granada during the Spanish Inquisition.

 

Does the title Assassin’s Creed 2 Discovery point to Christopher Columbus’ impending discovery of ’€˜The New World’ at the time? Why choose this time period?

When Ubisoft created the Assassin’s Creed franchise, they knew they wanted to talk about pivotal periods in History. So when we developed the concept for Ubisoft we looked for moments in time where everything changes, defining the world in which we now live. Christopher Columbus’ voyages of discovery, funded by Queen Isabella of Spain, initiated the process of Spanish colonization, consequently shaping the world we live in today. Also, the Spanish Inquisition was a fascinating period of history in itself and was directly linked to the Discovery of the ’€œNew World’€.

 

You can expect to enjoy the core gameplay of Assassin’s Creed 2 including the signature free-running and the intuitive combat system. Ezio can wall run, wall jump, scale walls, and ledge grab to reach higher platforms to drop on enemies to perform stealth kills, or avoid and evade guards. This is paramount to the gameplay in Assassin’s Creed II Discovery for the Nintendo DS. Movement is performed through the use of the Control Pad, by button input only.

 

As is the case in both next gen versions of Assassin’s Creed, the player seamlessly interacts with his environment using fluid, acrobatic moves. In the DS version, the player will navigate at high speed across the 3D world within a fixed 2D plane, the focus being on the Parkour, that’s to say free running and chase elements, present in Assassin’s Creed 2, presenting them in 2.5D. Ezio will swiftly navigate Italian & Spanish cities while eluding those who would try to prevent him from reaching his targets.

 

For Assassin’s Creed II on the Nintendo DS, a 3D engine will be used that utilizes a fixed perspective locked in the style of side-scrolling/platforming titles. This is commonly described as the 2.5D perspective.

 

Small wanted posters appear on the walls of the exterior levels of both the DS and DSi version of the game. Ezio must tear down these posters. Players that manage to view and tear down enough wanted posters in the game will increase their Sync ’€“ the Assassin’s Creed equivalent of health.

 

If the player is playing the game on the Nintendo DSi, they can use the DSi’s camera to take a photo of themselves that will appear on the wanted posters in the game. This photo is saved to the game’s EEPROM at a resolution of 128 x 128, with effects performed on it to make it look like a charcoal drawing.

 

If the player is playing the game on a regular DS, a picture of Ezio, rendered in charcoal, will appear on the wanted poster.

It’s been great! My counterpart on the Ubisoft side, Ben Mattes, has a real crack team working with us and developing for the Assassins Creed brand is a blast.