We talk to Ubisoft's Sebastien Puel on the sequel to one of the most successful IPs of the decade

The Italian Renaissance might just be the most appropriate setting that Ubisoft could have selected for its upcoming Assassin’s Creed sequel. A crucial point in European history, the period represents a major time of change, which is exactly what many would argue was needed for the franchise as a whole.

The first Assassin’s Creed game was undoubtedly a commercial success, the most popular new IP for five years, in fact, but it was also heavily criticised by the specialist press, this very website included… A fact not lost on Assassin’s Creed 2 producer Sébastien Puel. “It’s always a difficult process, for every videogame developer, to get their ‘baby’ reviewed by the press,” he says, but ultimately acknowledges that, “videogame critics are indispensable tools for us to perfect our future games. The comments we received from the first game had lots of impact on the conception of the second game and we are definitely aiming to enhance the Assassin’s Creed experience.”

So, while a new protagonist, setting and story were all crucial elements of the sequel’s design, each had to be chosen with one eye on how that decision would address the fundamental problems at the core of Assassin’s Creed 2’s otherwise solid predecessor.

Top of the team’s list of elements to improve was the game structure and mission system, which were generally felt to be too repetitive in the original game. The variety of missions will be much greater, of course, but the way in which those missions are tackled will be quite different. New protagonist Ezio will no longer report to one master but will take orders from multiple personalities of the Renaissance period, including Leonardo Da Vinci, Niccolò Machiavelli, Sandro Botticelli and Caterina Sforza.

“We are now telling a story in a way that is intended to be very unpredictable,” says Puel. “There are no more ‘x assassinations’ to perform but a story that develops through a great amount of mission givers. Some will give you an assassination mission, others an intimidation or information-gathering mission. There is no limit now to the types of challenges we can give to players. We are very careful to create a lot of variation in the types of gameplay and pace we are proposing. But we also want the player to have a real freedom and opportunity to explore and ‘use’ the world we have created, at his own pace."

"Cities are now filled with a great amount of missions that the player can do if he chooses so, for instance, you can now decide to get rid of witnesses if you feel you are getting too famous after a not-so-stealthy assassination, or help thieves pursued by guards. Each of these tasks are optional, but will bring you interesting rewards if you accept to fulfil them.”

Where those missions once followed a very predictable cycle of eavesdropping, stalking and, finally, confrontation, Assassin’s Creed 2 offers a much broader series of ways to carry out an assassination by improving on the limited crowd interaction and onenote combat of the first game.

… continued