Assassin's Creed 3 was a collaborative process that spanned four different studios, Ubisoft developers revealed today during a GDC panel.
Ubisoft Quebec game director Marc-Alexis Cote, Ubisoft creative director Alex Hutchinson, Ubisoft game director Damien Kieken, Ubisoft Montreal senior producer Francois Pelland and Ubisoft Singapore senior producer Hugues Ricour outlined their strategy at "Three Years of Collaboration on Assassin's Creed 3." The game was divvied up between the Montreal, Singapore, Annecy and Quebec studios. While Montreal was responsible for the game's core design and main missions, Singapore worked on the game's naval battles. Annecy was tasked with multiplayer, while Quebec "tried to create the sense of the American Dream," Hutchinson said.
Breaking the game's development up had several advantages. According to Marc-Alexis Cote, it allowed each developer to polish their part of the game with more focus.
"When you are a co-dev partner, you will focus on a limited amount of features," Cote said. "Those features, you will be able to polish them."
Other advantages include a game that "never sleeps," Hugues said. Problems that would arise before developers headed out for the night in one location would be solved by morning, thanks to another studio.
"It's not easy," Cote said. "It's not rainbow land. It's something that you need to work hard at to make it work. But if you do that, I really think it holds the keys to next generation development."