Ubisoft gives TW first look at Assassin's Creed 2

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By David Bates

Ubisoft was kind enough to invite myself and six other writers to their development studio to play Assassin's Creed II straight from the development kit. Benoit Lambert, the game director for the project, hosted the session. This near final version of the game kicked off with Desmond, the series protagonist, escaping from Abstergo with the help of the mysterious Lucy. There was a brief intermission when I stumbled upon a developer cheat code that made Desmond fly. Playing a game still in development isn't the same as playing it at home.

The game's opening hour laid down some basic game play mechanics and introduced Desmond's ancestor, Ezio. This game eases players into the game bit by bit.

"We want to make sure the player is learning properly," said Lambert.

The Assassin's Creed II development team paid attention to historical detail. At the same time, they attempted to address criticisms of the previous game. One frequent complaint about Assassin's Creed I was the repetitiveness of its missions. "Real life Florence has 72 towers - which doesn't make sense. It's too many. We don't have 72 towers," Lambert said.

That's not to say the 14th century Italian architecture comprising AC 2's backgrounds aren't impressive to look at. The team gathered over 30,000 pictures of Florence in their painstaking rendition of the city. There is a plethora of structures for Ezio to jump, climb, and swim though. That's right, Ezio can swim, enabling to take advantage of Italy's famous canals. Beyond the environments, famous historical figures from the Italian Renaissance figure prominently in Assassin's Creed II, from Machiavelli to Caterina Sforza. Ubisoft is making little secret of the fact that Leonardo da Vinci is Ezio's "go-to-guy" for weapons and missions. Leonardo even creates AC II's version of the Assassin's signature hidden blade.

Assassin's Creed II's 240 person development team is practically a community in its own right. There was a separate team assigned to the game's secret locations, which are essentially side-missions set in interior environments. These locations are more centered on free running and are isolated from the large population of NPC's present in the game's overworld.

There are 20 marks hidden throughout the game, and each mark is linked to a mini-game. The one we saw was a riddle requiring players to pick out five paintings that shared a common element. It's not clear how similar these minigames will be, but they seem to unlock audio recordings left behind by other animus users.

Lambert personally demonstrated the Villa, a hub to Assassin's Creed II.

"The Villa is a kind of trophy room," he explained.

Implementing a few hidden cheat codes, the game director was able to show off what the Villa looks like fully stocked, complete with portraits of Ezio's assassination victims, statuaries of famous real life assassins, and other goodies decked out the hub level. It's not clear how long it will take to unlock all these rewards in the final game, but chances are that completing missions will earn a fair amount of cash to finance decadent players.

Assassin's Creed II is set to release Nov. 17th. We'll have full review coverage of the game when it's available.

Originally Published: Issue 823 - November 11, 2009

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