Assassin's Creed

Well we've built in some things that are kind of like difficulty modulators, which the player can choose to do or not.

So for example, you can choose to go into some guy's fortress and be like, I'm a badass fighter, I like the adrenaline type of stuff, I'm just going to blast my way through these guards, try and mow through everyone and get out, and that's my style. If you want to have people helping you, that's always going to make the game easier and allow you to use some different tactics. So for example the monks, there's optional side-quests. If you come across, like, the military picking on someone - you know, it's the Third Crusade, the overriding thing is the population's suffering - you can choose to help people out. Like you may find a monk, then he'll tell his guys that the assassin's cool, he helped me, and then you'll be able to use the monk to get into places where you wouldn't normally be able to get into.

Some other examples are, if you see some women who are having trouble, you free them and the husbands will then stop guards from pursuing you, and that becomes kind of like, if you think Need For Speed - where you can make barricades fall dynamically and that'll block the police that are coming - these guys, these big vigilante dudes are kind of like that; you know where they are in the city, while you're being chased you could pass by that road and they'll stop the guards. So there's all kinds of things like that. There are elements of the crowd who will not be on your side, but there are other people who can help out later.

Well I do actually think of games as an artform and an entertainment form. I think the key is really going to be when we realise the potential of what's different of games - so, the interactive side and not always be trying to compare ourselves to movies and have the best cinematics and have the same kind of production values, or go after a star who's and put them in the game. I think it's going to be when we really figure out all the stuff that you can do with the interactivity that's different. So, yeah, I mean it's interesting that you see that about the Louvre - I hadn't thought of it - but I guess I do believe of it as a legitimate artform. Eventually.

I think the important thing for a game is to have really clear voice acting. You're not really seeing the star in the game. At best it's the likeness of the star, which may be cool, but it's not the same as getting an actor in a movie where it's actually them. So I think it can make sense if they're a great actor, if they're a great voice actor, but probably more often it makes sense to redistribute the budget in some way that increases the gameplay quality or the general sound quality or just get more talented voice actors instead of just this one expensive voice actor. There definitely is some trying-too-hard in there, but, it's cute, no? [laughs]

There is a gameplay reason to do that, besides it just being really cool. It's really cool because you can climb up - like, in the trailer, you see him climb up that really tall steeple - and you can jump off any high point in the city, with this crazy, free-falling kind of moment. But on the other end, you land in a bale of hay. It's quite fantastic, but the reason for doing that is that when you're being pursued and chased, what you're trying to do is, first, break the line of sight - so as long as guys see you they're going to follow you from everywhere, they're going to find a short way around - so what you want to do is speed up, do things where they can't follow you like climb up - your enemies don't know how to climb, they'll take ladders and find other ways - but you want to strategically go, they can't follow me, he's coming from there, he's coming from there, and one good way to lose your enemies is to climb up a high building, where it's going to take them a while, and then jump off into this bale of hay, and they're going to think, 'where did he go, he's vanished, he's dead,' and that will allow you to buy some time. It resets their awareness level back to the state that they don't know where you are, and that gives you to go back to the bureau and kind of finish your mission.