In moving the Assassin’s Creed series forward into Victorian London with Syndicate Ubisoft Quebec realised it’d need to make some significant changes in order to have the title stand out from the pack.
Speaking to Official Xbox Magazine (via GamesRadar) Senior Producer François Pelland described how those changes came about and how the dual protagonist system was a very early decision. “I guess that it was a creative direction, it was a story and narrative direction right from the start,” he said. “Jacob is an extremely charismatic, very confident personality. He’s a leader. On the other side, you have Evie who tends to be more cautious, she’s more on the strategic side, she has stealth-specific skills that are specific to her. It’s that duality between the two within the story that really makes those characters stand out.”
Aside from Ezio and Kenway the protagonists in Assassin’s Creed have largely been bland, vacant stand-ins for the player. By deciding early that both the narrative and gameplay would benefit from well defined characters with distinct personalities, Syndicate has the potential to differentiate itself from those titles that have come before.
Differentiating itself from its brethren is a core tenet for Syndicate as the move into the modern world means much of what players consider fundamental to Assassin’s Creed has had to be changed or removed. Pelland explains, “I remember two years ago we started to think about how we could tell a modern story in a modern era, But how has the relatively more modern setting affected how you approached the combat? One thing that we realised right at the start was that we’re past the medieval period, so there could be no more swords.”
Many players may feel as though the lack of swords is anathema for the franchise, but as Pelland explains, “We’ve moved into an age where if there was any kind of brawl on the streets, it was making the headlines. So that’s certainly very different from what we saw only 75 years before this period, with the French Revolution. So we wanted to give the combat a more brutal and visceral feel to it, hence the emphasis on concealed weapons.” One benefit that comes with the emphasis on concealed weapons is the return of the multi-kill combo not seen since ACIII.
Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate will be available for PS4 and Xbox One on 23 October and PC 19 November.
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