Q&As// Assassin's Creed Producer: Jade Raymond

Q: Can you tell us more about the crowd mechanism?

JR: The crowd is, I think, one of the hottest features for next-gen. Everyone doing next-gen has tons of AI on-screen. The idea with Assassin’s Creed is that the crowd isn’t just window-dressing. They have a second-to-second impact in the sense that we’ve modelled real physics in how you interact with them.

So, just physically, if you’re running through the city in escape mode, they’ll create dynamic obstacles that are moving around. So, if you’re running full-speed into a big group of people, they’ll create a blockade, and you’re not going to be able to get rid of them. There are also elements of crowd behaviour that are a bit like traditional level-design traps.

So, for example, there are drunk guys and beggars, and certain elements that will start to recognise you. And they all have particular gameplay functions – the drunk guy will stumble around and, if you get too close, he’ll push you over. If you’re trying to get in somewhere sneakily without attracting attention and you see a drunk guy in the way, you might want to take a different route, because if you get pushed over, that will attract attention.

The other thing that’s really important is the state of the military. The interaction between the crowd and the state of the military. The military, at first, are unaware – they don’t know there’s an assassin in the town. The next state is when they have a suspicion – they don’t actually know there’s an assassin in town, but if they sense something weird, they’ll pay attention.

Then there’s a state called Informed – that’s when the military knows there’s an assassin in town, dressed in white, who climbs buildings – there’s basically a 'Wanted' poster out. If you’ve done assassinations in a city, the state of the military will evolve. So, at the beginning of the game, you can climb up a building and the crowd will go: “Hey, what’s he doing – is he crazy?” The military will look and be suspicious, but they won't attack you because, you know, there are a lot of crazy people, and it’s the Third Crusade and they have much worse things to worry about.

Q: What were inspirations for the character Altair?

JR: well, there’s obviously the Clan of Assassins. But when you’re creating a main character for a game, you also want him to be bigger than life and have substance – he has to have a back-story and a personality. If you think about what he’s doing, it made us think about a bird of prey – he’s always circling around, looking for his target, taking the key moment, swooping down and then getting out. So, all of the development for Altair was based on a bird of prey, an eagle. If you look at his outfit, he has little points on his hood and, if you look at his shadow, it looks a bit like a beak. And the flaps flip up, so if he’s doing free-running, the flaps will flip up, giving the impression of wings. And even the name Altair means “The flier” in Arabic.