No Assassin's Creed demo

By Tom Bramwell Published 5 October, 2007

Too difficult!

Jade Raymond has said there won't be an Assassin's Creed demo ahead of the game's release in November.

Speaking in a roundtable interview at Tokyo Game Show posted by Gametrailers (if you listen carefully you'll hear our own Kristan Reed asking a few questions), Raymond answers a question about the prospect of a demo: "No, we're not making a demo."

Apparently that's because Assassin's Creed is too much of a sandbox game. "There was no way to really make a demo," Raymond said, "and I think that's the same reason that games like GTA don't have a demo - when you have a city it's hard to figure out exactly what you put on there."

They did try to come up with a solution, she says, but in the end they gave up.

Assassin's Creed, which sees players take on the role of an assassin during the Third Crusade or is it the Third Crusade etc, is due out on PS3, 360 and PC in November, and you can read more about it in our cunningly titled Assassin's Creed first impressions.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (50) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • kissthestick #1 4 years ago

    well fuck you then :)

  • zuljin #2 4 years ago

    Don't care, wouldn't download it anyway... Got my copy preordered!

    \0/

  • space_ace #3 4 years ago

    :(

    and what about h3lo demo?

  • penhalion #4 4 years ago

    It's the usual cop out. Even bloomin Crackdown had a demo. I think that maybe it's more to do with the reality of Assasins creed not living up to the hype. Maybe once you've done one assasination, they all feel the same or something like that. That is after all the danger of having a single angle for a game.

  • Twincoil #5 4 years ago

    Right. That's why there was no Crackdown demo too.

    Oh.

  • billythekid #6 4 years ago

    Saints Row managed a demo too.

  • Brogan #7 4 years ago

    what she should have said is "I'm so fit we don't need a demo. All the buzz for the game has come from the fact that i'm a little hottie, letting people actually play the game may kill some of that buzz so i'm just going to stand in front of some cameras and smile, each time i do we get more pre-orders."

  • LeD #8 4 years ago

    And it works too! She's so sexy watching her makes me uncomfortable.

  • J.C #9 4 years ago

    PS3 version delayed!

    Just kidding.

  • Wayne #10 4 years ago

    I'm perversly happy about this, because sometimes I get a bad impression of good games through their demos.

  • SteveB #11 4 years ago

    I hope the final game improves from the E3 demo which was a bit average at best.

  • bengray66 #12 4 years ago

    im glad they put a demo of crackdown out, because it was total wank and it saved me £40.

    I think theres enough video footage etc to not really warrant a demo.

  • Shabtai #13 4 years ago

    Wasn't the pc version pushed back to 2008?

  • bengray66 #14 4 years ago

    "Wasn't the pc version pushed back to 2008?"


    The 360 is the lead platform though isn't it?

  • Rirekon #15 4 years ago

    GTA:SA did have a demo though...

  • dsmx #16 4 years ago

    I don't care about a demo, I'd rather they spent the time finishing the game than making a demo.

  • superdelphinus #17 4 years ago

    it's probably coz it's shyte. That mad jumpy city crime game had a demo didn't it?

  • superdelphinus #18 4 years ago

    she has too much chin

  • afghan_jones #19 4 years ago

    worrying.

    in fact, as this game draws closer, everything i see of it becomes ever so slightly more flawed.

  • MrWonderstuff #20 4 years ago

    No biggie for me...as mentioned GTA never had a demo, all the Halos never had a demo. I'll just wait until I read the reviews which should give me some sort of barometer.

    I always grin when the internet gaming forum monkeys go ape when something like this happends. "I'm not buying it then" "must be shit" blah blah blah bitch bitch whine whine whine. Fucking children I tell ye.

  • Metalfish #21 4 years ago

    /\ Halo 1 had a demo.

    And this is going to have to get bloody good reviews if to warrent some of my hard earned.

  • beckyh #22 4 years ago

    Don't be too hard on them. Not even Oblivion had a demo. Some games are just too awkward to get a demo for.

  • skillian #23 4 years ago

    It's ashame, because I really have know idea if I'm gonna like this game or not.

    When I first heard about it, it sounds like the sort of thing that could be my game of the year, but it all depends on how it's implemented.

    Also I'll be getting the PC version, and with the current state of console to PC ports, plus EG's tendency to review the 360 version of multi-platform games, even the reviews might not be a decent guide on what to expect.

  • Wobble #24 4 years ago

    this comments thread is worthless without pics.

  • T4RG4 #25 4 years ago

    Couldn't do it? Ha.Ha. Whatever.

    Have a feeling (from a couple of movies seen thus far) that this will be a big let down. Same old scripted 'you have to fight in a contained area right now' moments would ruin it for me. However, bet it still gets an 8 from Eurogamer ))

  • DUFFMAN5 #26 4 years ago

    What odds that this game doesn't come out on time, just know it's going to slip.

  • oceanmotion #27 4 years ago

    More like they're desperately trying to finish it. It's going to come out buggy as hell or get delayed.

  • thedaveeyres #28 4 years ago

    It's gonna be shite, I can feel it in my bones.

  • DUFFMAN5 #29 4 years ago

    Just want it to come out. The time zone/style is enough for me. I liked Knights of the Temple on the GC, for that very reason. Theif 3 was another, I thought that was brilliant, I still do, so in short get the damn thing released.

  • kangarootoo #30 4 years ago

    Perhaps what they really wanted to say is,

    "We don't want to spent time making a demo as the open nature of the game means demo build would be a reasonable deviation from the proper title. This means pouring time into its production instead of focussing on making sure the proper game itself is of as high a quality as we can in the time we have left.

    We discovered recently that time and money are both finite, so it would be irresponsible to act as if that weren't the case.

    Can everyone just rent the game or something when it comes out and make their descision based on that? They can you say? Ace."

  • el_pollo_diablo #31 4 years ago

    I fear that the real reason they've not done a demo is because the game isn't quite as good as they'd have us believe.

  • Brogan #32 4 years ago

    kangarootoo I'm not bad mouthing the game, not played it. I'm just saying the seem to have a winning marketing formula in Ms Redmond, she gets a shitton of net pages about the game and everyone seems to be interested in it. When you have that why bother with a demo. the only two demos that have ever turned me on to a game i was luke warm about were crackdown and COD2

  • Triggerhappytel #33 4 years ago

    I think they probably aren't bothering with the demo because it's time that they need to spend getting them game finished in a matter of weeks.

    Somehow I get the feeling this is going to be delayed 'til after Christmas on all formats.

  • kangarootoo #34 4 years ago

    @Brogan

    Oh hey, I'm not really picking the comments here. I have just experienced the other side of the coin when it comes to demos.

    In some extreme cases producing frequent demos for private and publich show (publisher review or wstuff like E3) can fundamentally hit the quality of the final title, as hacks are shoehorned in for demos and then never properly removed from the core build.

    I understand from a player's point of view demos are very useful. With my player hat on I love them as much as anyone else. However, how they are produced by the development team is often not quite as oiled process as perhaps it should be.

    One thing you can sure of in the vast majority of cases is that demos don't appear in the schedule. And they bloody should, right? If every dev schedule included time and resources to produce a demo they wouldn't (theoretically) impact the core product, AND they would stand a better chance of representing the final product.

    This hardly ever happens though. Usually things just get rearranged on the fly to accomodate the work needed to produce the demo (it is almost always never as simple a process as it appears to the observing gamer), and either late nights take up the slack or quality drops.

    Most small devs just have to take the hit and produce the demo if their publisher demands it. In other cases they have enough weight to push back, or maybe even reject the idea. I guess Ubi internal have a mix of things going on. Not only are they in a position to negotiate these things from a stronger postion of trust, but also to quote your own post "and everyone seems to be interested in it. When you have that why bother with a demo".

    A demo is a sales tool at the end of the day. The cynical take on that which perhaps doesn't work in the favour of gamers is the "they will buy it anyway, so lets not bother". Perhaps another way of seeing it though is "we don't HAVE to soend time on this to make the game a sucess, so lets not do that. Lets invest in the quality of the final title and gamers will thanks us for it, just not perhaps in the short term".

    As for what this says about the quality of the final game... I don't think you can read anything at all into it. There are so many factors involved anything that is "concluded" is really just supposition.

  • smoison #35 4 years ago

    The torrent will be my demo....

  • skillian #36 4 years ago

    Can everyone just rent the game or something when it comes out and make their descision based on that? They can you say? Ace.

    You can't rent PC games.

  • kangarootoo #37 4 years ago

    @skillian

    And therein lies a lesson ;)

  • skillian #38 4 years ago

    Please don't say the lesson is buy a 360!

    Of course, it's pretty easy to try before you buy with PC games anyway, just not legally ;) That in itself should be a decent incentive to produce a demo.

  • kangarootoo #39 4 years ago

    I'm not sure releasing a demo will stop someone pirating the game if that was originally their plan. I personally have no issue with demoing a game using a non-legit copy. That is a subjective issue for the gamer in question though I guess.

  • Pachinko #40 4 years ago

    Actually, on the PC it's due in 2008.

  • skillian #41 4 years ago

    It won't stop them if they always intended to pirate it.

    But if someone downloads it just to see what it's like/how it runs, then their good intentions to buy it might just disappear when the whole game is sitting installed on their hard drive.

  • Twincoil #42 4 years ago

    Hmm. A few more hot meals, then she'd get it.

  • Brogan #43 4 years ago

    I'd put something hot inside her!!!

    that's right, it's an Innuendo. i'd innuendo her any time

    oh god, i can't stop.
    Edited by 1 at 05/10/07 @ 14:33

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #44 4 years ago

    Most of the demos on Xbox Live (except the likes of the months-ahead-of-release Lost Planet demo and the Halo Beta), and certainly all the demos of games I've worked on, are knocked up as a side project in the last month or so of development by people who don't have lastminute bugs to fix. The end of a game's development is a strange kind of limbo with flurries of activity broken by periods of not doing anything to prevent causing new bugs.

    In any case, the finishing off and certification of the demo has come after the main project has been finished. The time taken to produce and distribute mastered game discs can still leave weeks, or as much as a month between the demo coming out and the full game hitting the shops.

    They're not producing a demo because either
    A - they're just lazy or
    B - they've got something to hide (Assassin's Creed is quite short, perhaps?)

    Edit: finished, not released
    Edited by 1 at 05/10/07 @ 15:52

  • espibara #45 4 years ago

    Loosely translated its crap and we dont want too many to find out.

  • ZuluHero #46 4 years ago

    "And it works too! She's so sexy watching her makes me uncomfortable. "

    from the hide outside her house? :p

  • SleepyMagpie #47 4 years ago

    My spider senses tell me this is not gonna be as good as some of you are hoping.

  • AOFanboi #48 4 years ago

    Bah, I was sold on the gameplay video anyway - no demo necessary.

    Might wait for the reviews though, lesson learned from the quite impressive Lair videos and their - disjunction - with the actual game.

    Though demos can make people buy a game, e. g. the excellent Skate tutorial and demo.

  • UncleLou #49 4 years ago

    One for the fans of conspiracy theories, it seems. Doesn't say anything. Lots of crap games have demos, lots of great games don't have demos.

    Much more likely, as has been pointed out, that they just don't have the time if they want to finish it before Christmas.

  • thejeek #50 4 years ago

    Hmmm. I really want this to live up to the hype but I too am beginning to have an inkling of a Bad Feeling (TM) about it... For me, it's been bumped down from the 'buy immediately on release' bucket to the 'wait and see if it turns out to be pants first' bucket.