When we talk about budget bloat I used to think that Electronic Arts and Capcom kind of took the cake, with games like Resident Evil 6 having nearly 600 people work on the game and in the words of Hideki Kamiya, more people didn't make for a better game. Well, Ubisoft is putting that to the test with seven game studios working from around the world on Assassin's Creed IV.
Edge Online managed to get in a few words with the lead content manager Carsten Myhill, who mentioned that...
“Montreal is the lead studio – as it always is with Assassin’s Creed – so the core development started there in 2011,” .... “Singapore are quite closely involved too so they would have started around the same time. Singapore did a great job on the naval parts of Assassin’s Creed III so we’ve built on that, they’re actually now going to be working on some specific missions as well – it’s kind of mission-based.”“The present day is being worked on in Sofia and then we’re sharing out the missions. It’s a cohesive world. Whereas before we had a land game and a sea experience joined together, because we’ve created this cohesive universe we can’t really split things up as simply as we have in the past, so we’re going for more of a mission-based split this time.”
And to top all this off, with seven studios working on the game from around the world it's been noted by PopCap Game's executive producer Giordano Contestabile that there is nearly 1,000 people working on the game, or so he hears.
I'm just not excited about this at all. The common excuse is that “gamers demand” bigger experiences but last I checked one of the best selling and most awarded games of 2012 was the budget-conscious, zen-like game from thatgamecompany...Journey. I think some gamers like big experiences while some gamers like moderate experiences. It's treading dangerous ground when you start dumping the kind of resources Ubisoft is dumping into the Assassin's Creed brand to chase that almighty dollar.
Assassin's Creed IV will star a new protagonist and feature a new storyline. I'm hoping they can make the game as cohesive as they claim in the quotes because if not, they could be looking at another Resident Evil 6 scenario on their hand.
Assassin's Creed IV's release date is set for this October for current and next-gen consoles and PC.
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