Volgende Assassin's Creed "veel meer nextgen"

De volgende Assassin's Creed-games zullen veel groter verschillen ten opzichte van hun voorganger, dan Black Flag nu, zo laat ontwikkelaar Ubisoft weten. De nextgen-versies van Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag is alleen grafisch iets beter dan de versies die draaien op de huidige generatie consoles.

"I think 'next' next-gen is going to be for the next games," zo vertelt lead game designer Jean-Sebastien Decant. "The next games are going to be much more on the next-gen side. This one is really on the edge."

Volgens Ubisoft zijn de PlayStation 4- en Xbox One-versies vrijwel gelijk aan de 'current-gen'-versies, omdat de technische specificaties van de nieuwe consoles nog niet bekend waren toen men begon met ontwikkelen. "When you start and you don't even know the specs or what they are going to do you don't think about that [next-gen consoles] or you're going to be sick," legt Decant uit. "We thought about next-gen graphics and in order to explore that we used the high-end PCs on the side, and then we continued just what we started with the previous games and built upon that."

Ubisoft is al met al niet helemaal tevreden met hoe de nieuwe Assassin's Creed is uitgepakt: "We cannot tell you that we're happy and this is how we want the game to be and we're going to do ten more games with exactly that same gameplay. No, we are unhappy. We want to do more. There are lots of things we want to refine on the combat side, on the parkour, on the stealth."

Naast verfijning van de bestaande gameplay hint Decant duidelijk naar grotere veranderingen die de serie kan ondergaan op de nieuwe generatie, vooral op het gebied van 'social gaming.'

"I think we're going toward a gaming place where the open world will be shared with other players. More and more. Socially speaking, but also maybe multiplayer stuff. And we will have to consider the open world much more like a platform that we could sustain for years," aldus Decant.