14 Nov, 2011
25 years ago, the name Ubisoft meant nothing. Now, when you say that name, the image of assassins and a nameless prince come to mind. How exactly this small regional distributor became one of the biggest studios in the world isn’t a fairytale. It’s a story of hard work and innovation, trying to find their way in a dog-eat-dog world.
In 2001, shortly after the acquisition of Ghost Recon developer Red Storm Entertainment, Ubisoft went on to absorb a division of The Learning Company. With this addition, Ubisoft now held the keys to Prince of Persia, among other valuable titles.
The rest is, as they say, history.
Stuck in the two-dimensions, the Prince was ready to make the leap into the third. However, the previous game from The Learning Company was a disaster, and Ubisoft didn’t want to make a repeat of that particular mistake. Following a long night of animation discussions, and how to build a successful platformer, CEO of Ubisoft’s Montreal and Toronto studios Yannis Mallat was excited when the call from Sony Computer Entertainment came. They wanted the newest Prince of Persia to be featured at the booth during E3 in 2003. Mallat couldn’t contain his excitement, as he ran onto the production floor screaming, “We’re going to be in the Sony booth and we’re going to have five pods!”
Executive Director of EMEA Territories Alain Corre said that the overall feeling from the team was extreme apprehension. Was the public going to like it? What about the rest of the industry? Would it be as much of a disaster as the previous Prince of Persia?
“…we didn’t know what to expect,” said Corre in an in-depth interview with Game Informer. “We knew it was very beautiful, but we didn’t know if it would please a lot of people. And so then we saw the booth was completely crowded. Even our competitors were playing there. I remember even the boss of EA was playing there and saying, ‘Gosh, it’s good.’ And we said, ‘We have created something again.’”
Executive Editorial Director Serge Hascoet said that the ultimate deciding factor in the newest Prince of Persia was the animation and character design. There was no other competition at that level during the time, and Hascoet described it as nothing less than “a magical project with magical people.”
“The wow effect of the game was the animation,” he said. “There was competition at that level at that time. The character design was top notch, and the graphics were quite marvelous too. It was a magical project with magical people.”
We would later come to know this title as Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. The success of this title catapulted Ubisoft Montreal into stardom, and they never looked back. Two successful sequels later, and it’s safe to say that the Prince was finally back, having sold over 17 million units to date.
But it simply wouldn’t do to rest easily on your laurels. Ubisoft had to keep on going, and keep on going in style was what they did. With the arrival of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Ubisoft was planning on using what they were given to create another adventure for the nameless Prince. Instead, an assassin stepped into the light.
“Before the new consoles were announced, we started working on a new engine,” explained Hascoet. “It was originally for Prince of Persia, but at one point we saw the potential to create a new IP.”
“As it probably is with any company, when you’re coming off a successful initiative, it gives you the confidence to try something new,” said Mallat. “That’s how we managed to convince [Executive Director of Worldwide Studios] Christine and [Founder and CEO of Ubisoft] Yves. Serge was already convinced because we were talking regularly.”
With a merging of many ideas, a little dash of influence from a book called Alamut, and some team love, a pre-rendered movie was created. What the team ended up with was an assassin, climbing walls and dashing across rooftops during the Third Crusade, and performing stealth assassinations on guards caught unawares.
“…we added a fight sequence, and had him leaving the city on a horse with a huge open world landscape before him,” explained Mallat of the movie. “That was it — everyone was sold. We had no tech at the time, but we knew what we were [aiming] for.”
In such a haphazard scenario, it’s a good thing the team stuck to their guns, otherwise we wouldn’t have the likes of Assassin’s Creed. Can you imagine a world devoid of such a huge title? Neither could Ubisoft.
“We worked with historians and Middle Eastern specialists when doing all the research,” said Mallat. “Patrice, writer Corey May, producer Simon Tremblay, and art director Raphael Lacoste were thrilled at the prospect of visiting something that actually mattered in terms of shaping today’s world. …So it was easy for the team to get absorbed in the work up to the point where we were actually visited by the Aga Kahn movement.
“The Aga Kahn is the descendant of the prophet Mohammed and the Ismailis — the very first assassins. That was quite a scary moment, actually. They came to the studio, and they wanted to make sure they were being portrayed in the correct way…”
One would expect intimidation to work its terrible magic and see the team falling apart at the seams. With little tech to support their vision, attempting to create an open world when they hadn’t even done it before, and an intimidating amount of research to do, it sounded almost impossible to go on. But, said Mallat, the game came to fruition not because of hard work, but because “the team loved each other.”
“This game was only created because the team loved each other,” said Mallat. “Otherwise it would have collapsed. The reason this game was possible was because those guys had already gone to war together with [Prince of Persia]. There was a mutual respect… In any other team, this would have turned into chaos. But because it was that team, it worked.”
Upon introducing it to the public, the team knew that they were taking a huge gamble. It seemed the gaming industry would be split right down the middle — many loved the new ideas, the fresh concept. However, just as many hated it and brushed it off as not impressive. Ubisoft reveled simply in the noise that Assassin’s Creed made, be it negative or positive. Using feedback from both ends, the team moved forward and created Assassin’s Creed II. In the process, they made a daring move, putting Altair away on the back burner and introducing us to the more brash and vocal Ezio Auditore.
It was a hit with the public, especially after the many errors from the first game. The introduction of a larger and more lively world where the player could have a choice in side missions, having the ability to interact with shopkeepers, and a more fleshed out character and story pushed the new addition to the forefront.
“The introduction of Ezio was a hot topic for quite some time,” said Mallat. “It’s the kind of topic that you have to compartmentalize to create an argument. When you decide to just talk about that point by removing it from the whole, then of course we can argue. But when you look at the whole series, then it’s not an issue. When some folks got their hands on the new playable build with Venice and the new setting, then it was okay that Altair was just part of the brand and not the icon.”
But not everything was great. What goes up must come down, and shortly after the release of Assassin’s Creed II, creative director Patrice Desilets took his leave of Ubisoft and the series. The team was saddened, but they were determined to keep looking upwards and onwards.
“I made the mistake of not being as close to him as I should have been at this time,” said Hascoet. “Maybe he had something to speak about, but now it’s all water under the bridge. I’m sad he left, but it’s life. You know, Spielberg and Lucas don’t work that much together anymore, and it’s part of life. I think it was time for him to go somewhere else to see if the grass is greener.”
The rest of the team was just as heart-broken over Desilets’ departure. Mallat said that while the team was still sad, they had to keep going. It definitely helped the bond grow stronger, as the team had to work to plug up the gaping hole now in their midst. “We managed to prove that the strength of the franchise and the team does not rely on one individual, as good as he could be,” said Mallat.
The challenges continue to arise, as Assassin’s Creed moves on. With the release of Assassin’s Creed: Revelations just around the corner, Ubisoft has risen from superstar to something even bigger. In just the four years since the beginning of one assassin’s mission against the Templar Order, more than 50 million units have sold worldwide. Even after Desilets’ departure, the team continues to hold strong, and the future is still looking good for our high-flying killers.
Assassin’s Creed: Revelations releases on November 15th worldwide.
Source: “Ubi Uncensored.” Game Informer Nov. 2011, #223: pp. 40-49
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