Gaming News It will be a big surprise for fans, the first Assassin’s Creed could have been completely different!
We often make fun of the very busy interface of Assassin’s Creed or even Ubisoft games. And yet the initial plans called for exactly the opposite!
Ubisoft’s HUD mocked
Developing a large open world game is a real headache for many reasons. For example, how can you maintain the player’s immersion while preventing them from getting lost in the immensity of your world? This is where managing the HUD (also called heads-up display in good French) is crucial. Basically, you have to put enough information on the screen (minimap, indicators, etc.) so that the player can find his way around without overwhelming him, otherwise it distorts the immersion. And if there’s one company that’s regularly mocked for its cluttered HUD, it’s Ubisoft.
So be careful, it should be noted that Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a very different offering at this level. And yet it is a Ubisoft game. Another point: when the HUD is busy in Ubisoft games, it is almost always possible to reduce the amount of information displayed on the screen. This is particularly the case with the Assassin’s Creed games, a license that has been particularly highlighted on this topic. And it’s quite ironic, because the first Assassin’s Creed could have chosen a radically opposite path. We’ll explain it to you.
Assass in’s Creed without HUD?
It all started in 2004 when Patrick Désilets was commissioned to develop one “Prince of Persia next generation.” He meets with the team from the previous game, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and the ideas begin to flow. Yes, but of course they quickly encounter technical constraints, but above all a creative obstacle: the Prince of Persia license itself. Désilets wants to turn to more realism and history with a capital H. He will be particularly inspired by a book by Vladimir Bartol, Alamut
But as mentioned, for proper immersion, it’s better to have as little information on the screen as possible. And Désilets quickly understood this. That’s why he made a radical suggestion to Ubisoft: make Assassin’s Creed a game without a HUD. Basically, the game was originally designed to give players the ability to analyze their surroundings, listen to conversations, observe characters’ behavior, etc. Basically, it’s about doing research to determine for yourself where to go. And furthermore, we will find some scraps of this original idea in various works of the License. But for Ubisoft it’s a clear no. No other choice, the team must therefore integrate information on the screen, information that they justify thanks to the animus in the game. Here’s the funny origin of the Assassin’s Creed games’ oft-mocked HUD, which may never have existed.
Note: If you like anecdotes and other information about the development of Ubisoft’s flagship license, there is a book that looks back at the beginnings of Assassin’s Creed. It is also thanks to the latter that we remembered this rather ironic information. Your name? Secrets of Assassin’s Creed. From 2007 to 2014: Flightand it is signed by Thomas Méreur, who has long been dissecting the license on behalf of iGamesNews under the pseudonym amaebi. “What about the other Assassin’s Creed games?” Well, this is a first volume, so the rest will come out a little later.
