1666: Amsterdam - Patrice Désilets Gamelab interview
We talked to the creative director of the original
Assassin's Creed about his future and the game known only as 1666 at this year's Gamelab.
Patrice Desilets left Ubisoft following his contribution to
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, and set up shop at
THQ Montreal. In a strange twist of fate, Ubisoft ended up buying his next creation at the bankruptcy auction. After a couple of months came time for a second divorce with Desilets being escorted out of the building and 1666 being put "on ice".
"I cannot detail how I want to evolve the action adventure genre next time because of everything's that going on. But what I said to my team, and I strongly believe it. This generation changed a lot of things, for a game designer in this generation there is a lot with out fantasy that we've been able to do.
Example a crowd. In
Sands of Time I wanted a crowd in the palace, couldn't do it, we could only have six characters on screen and one of them was the prince so it left five for the rest and I wanted fights so no crowds. In AC, yes, now there's crowd, a hundred and twenty
NPCs that gives the illusion of a crowd and you play with it. Now in this generation let's say I can have a thousands NPCs, but as a designer it's the same crowd, so I have it already.
"Now that we know how to recreate a game world that's looking like a real world mostly, now it's about subjects. Now we need to find other types of subjetcs and discuss about something else than we did this generation. But the technical aspect of it we're kind of good already."
"I started working on 1666:
Amsterdam in June
2011 and I was alone so the first 6 months were trying to build up a team.
And then working on a prototype, which we delivered in May
2012. But then THQ was struggling, and it was really tough to assemble the team that we needed, for multiple reasons. Because mostly of THQ people, because in Montreal you have to know that there are so many game studios - they're good, they're all making big games so as a talent why would you go to THQ when I could go and be sure I would have a job for the next five years? Most of the people were right and some came, and I love them for that by the way. But it was tough. But then the momentum when Ubi bought it was going pretty well, it was coming back. The mojo was back and I felt like
... and then it didn't happen. I wish, and that's what I said, I'm fighting for it, I want it back. It belongs to me, and if I can have it back you can have it."
You want it for for you and the players...
"
Hell yeah! I mean it was 'the next Assassin's Creed'!
And I say that in my humble opinion, but I'm paid to have those type of ideas and visions and I did it in the past. And I felt that 1666 was the next big thing I came up with and I was starting to actually play it and feeling it. The first year was yes, building up a team, a studio, but also trying to build up an IP."
"Now we were back into the play part, which was pre-production, and it was all about playing and finding all the mechanics, not giving a 'F' about the IP and the story, just about the gameplay. We were about yeah, nailing it down, and it was not easy because I was not making a little guy jumping around with a sword, and I was not making a shooter. I was trying something different again to push the boundaries. And then the last portion would have been the story part of that Amsterdam first game, and this is where we were. And then life put a bump in the road, but the road continues and I'm confident that at the end of that road everybody will play 1666: Amsterdam and that you'll enjoy it, because it's going to be 'holy shit, again, you did something different!'".
The only thing shown was
Rembrandts'
The Philosopher. On it and its cultural value: "
It's the only clue.
Rembrandt was still alive in 1666, he died in 1669. I took one of his most famous painting, The Philosopher, and I put it there, so that's a bit what I was talking about. It's a good clue about what I'm doing next, but it's not a clue at all. But it is."
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