Producer Project Manager Team Leader Consultant
Interview with Hugues Ricour on the development of Assassin's Creed.
The History of Ubisoft Singapore Studio
Tell us a bit about the history of Singapore regarding the Ubisoft game studio there and its evolution.
Hugues Ricour: The studio is four and a half years old. We started with the TMT title for Xbox Live. And then very quickly, we moved on to everything related to intellectual property, by creating linear game sequences. This consists of integrating passages from Uncharted or Prince of Persia into this open world on screen. We are also working on "ghostery come online", a free shooting game that is very, very promising.
Studio Growth
What is the size of a studio now?
Hugues Ricour: We are now more than 250 people.
Developer Specialties
What are the specialties of the developers who are based in Singapore?
Hugues Ricour: It all started with the arts, we have a very, very good community in this field - a very detailed approach. Their standards are excellent. And then, little by little, we do more and more gameplay, more engineering. And of course, Glossary Khan explores an online service. So we are developing an online team. And so far, everything is going well, we have had several successes. A key moment for us was the naval battles we worked on for our speed three system. And that's what we call gameplay through breakthrough. So an innovation within the brand. And that will be extended today with Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag.
The Development of Naval Warfare
How did naval warfare come about in your studio?
Hugues Ricour: Alexandre Atchison wanted to revisit this historical period of the American Revolution, and a large part of the stakes, you know, the political and economic stakes, were taking place at sea, we have for example everything concerning trade and everything that comes from the old continent. So there was, from the very beginning, this idea from the design phase, to explore naval combat and ships and how could this play a role through the prism of history and in the imagination? So we started prototyping. And we had good results at every stage of production. And we did it. It developed, it really had its own little story in the game and the imagination was very well received. So we are very happy with what came out of it.
Collaboration with Other Studios
How did you collaborate with other Ubisoft studios?
Hugues Ricour: Collaboration happens daily. It's a routine. It's a process that we have put in place, we work with the same code, the same engine and the same pillars. We exchange daily. We have common processes, common dates in our milestones and development plans. Now, what really worked well is that the direction dedicated to creation and production in Montreal gave us this very precise mission. Try to design the most beautiful ocean, on console, offer a new breakthrough and new gameplay with naval battles. This gave us a framework. And then they gave us a lot of autonomy to keep these two promises. And we had regular checks and this freedom, but also this close relationship made us stronger. The Montreal team was very, very ambitious about the sequel, it created an incredible buzz around the match. And that really helped motivate the troops in Singapore. And we really felt like we were forming a team - trying to achieve a common goal.
Technology Evolution
How do you think the technology you are developing for these naval sequences leads to the technology that is used on the new Assassin's Creed IV?
Hugues Ricour: The way we designed and developed it was so that it would be scalable. And so we told ourselves that it's a logical continuation, it's not a redesign, and we didn't start from scratch for Black Flag, it's actually a logical continuation and I think that's part of the basic idea of how we created the black flag and this new setting.
Technical Challenges
What were the challenges related to introducing this in Assassin's Creed III in dealing with the ocean, physics and everything that water adds to the equation?
Hugues Ricour: So, part of the gameplay goes hand in hand with the aspect of the ocean. The weather also comes into play, with tons of new things and the physics as well as the cannon shots. We pushed the limits, regarding memory, budgets, and of course performance, because trying to design a beautiful ocean is in conflict with more gameplay, adding beautiful ships and details in these ships and the ability to climb on these ships to have what we call "life on board", which is this crew that is animated and moves around. Having the feeling that things are happening. This is a real challenge, because there were a lot of people on these ships, so everyone is fighting to have, you know, more processor, power and memory. And in the end, it's a beautiful exercise, it's a team effort to try to find the best solutions and Ubisoft's philosophy is really to put gameplay and user experience first. So we can try to work with that, you know, play with the game and that's really the determining factor which is the pleasure you receive while you play in immersion.