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

Q: So just how acrobatic is he?

JR: Very acrobatic! Everyone on the team thinks free-running is awesome, and we were like: “We can probably do that, now that it’s next-gen.” That was the inspiration for the way he moves. It’s a pretty realistic game – it’s historically based – but probably the free-running is something we pushed a little bit beyond what is exactly humanly possible.

Q: Why have you been quiet for so long?

JR: We did show some stuff at X06, and we’ve been releasing screenshots. Now, our next big time when we show the game, we want to be really different to what we did at E3, and we want to give hands-on experience to journalists. A year later, we want to say: “Now everyone gets to play, on both consoles.” So, we’re going to do that in July.

Q: What, for you, makes Assassin’s Creed so great?

JR: I think it’s really that people can see we really tried to push the limits of the way we’re defining gameplay, the way the AI feels, the way the controls feel. It’s weird that attention to detail really all comes together. There are a ton of things that I’m super-excited about, but they’re all things you’re going to have to experience during the first hands-on. Recently, we did the rag-doll modelling of grabbing people and throwing them off buildings. As soon as we got that feature in, I spent three hours getting guards to chase after me in different buildings and throwing them off.

Q: Assassin’s Creed has already inspired three books and a movie – that’s pretty unique, isn’t it?

JR: Yeah. We’re really lucky that we got a lot of attention – people just get the concept. After last year’s E3, we were approached by five different movie studios and directors who wanted to be involved, and Ubisoft decided they wanted to keep the short as a project we’re doing internally. And then there’s the book – I’ve already read the first one, which is based on Altair’s life before the game takes place, and there are two others after. Then there’s also a layer which we’ve not really talked about but have been hinting about, that makes a franchise, really.

Q: Is this the layer which says: “Nothing is true, everything is permitted”?

JR: It all comes down to that saying: “Nothing is true, everything is permitted” is the assassins’ motto. Marco Polo came across the assassins on his travels and that was something he reported on in his book.

Q: When does the game ship?

JR: The game is coming out this year – the end of 2007.


Q: Thanks for your time, Jade.