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"A lone eagle soars over the recently conquiered medievil port city of Acre, where below a Christian knight paces the gallows, preaching to a crowd the sins of the men that hang behind them. As teh brid lifts up and over the nearby church bell tower, a figure appears, intent on the scene below - stark and white against teh drity, rubble-strewn city. The bell begins to toll noon as the man drops down the square below. He stalks quietly and steadily through the jeering throng, gently pushing aside those in his path. At the fourth bell, he begins a slow run, now shoving down those that aren't wise enough to step aside. From atop the raised gallows, he is spotted. The knight's guards draw their weapons, and the white-cloaked figure drops into a sprint. In a flash, a spinning blade takes down the first soldier. The second swings once beforethe attacker has dropped him as well. At the sixth bell, teh assassin leaps. Time seems to slow. A hidden blade emerges from his arm, and his victim falls as the knife finds his neck. In the stunned silence, the assassin reaches down and reverently closes the dead man's eyes, and then the chase is on. Guards surge forward and rush after the murderer as he launches into a nearby alley, jumps off a street-side stoop, and pulls himself to the roof. Along the tops of buildings he runs,  circling back to the church entrance. He drops to the ground and rushes to the cathedral door. As he calmly turns, he is totally surrounded by his foes. The twelfth bell tolls. The doors open and a sea of white-robed monks emerge from afternoon prayer. Standing completely still, in the bright light of day, the assassin completely disappears."

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This first remarkable glimpse of Assassin's Creed has us reeling. We've been invited to spend two days touring the massive, maze-like corridors of Ubisoft Montreal. Within, a team of developers has been anxious to share their secret with the gaming community. For some of them, it's a secret they've kept silent for over two years, ever since several of the team leads completed the first Prince of Persia game. As we enter the huge area devoted to Assassin's Creed, we meet producer Jade Raymond, the first in a string of introductinos to smiling faces that each seem intensely excited to finally tell someone from the outside about their projects. "I just loved the huge ambition of the game, and the fact that Ubisoft was letting people think about the concept for so long and then develop new technology," Raymond enthusiastically tells us. "It's completely set apart from anything that's been on the market before. Hopefully gamers will appreciate it, but it's definetly going to be something totally different."
    One of the most profound ways that Assassin's Creed sets itself apart is the starting mix of historical fact juxtaposed against this team's sweeping narrative style. Anyne who has played any of the Prince of Persia games is familiar with the flair for drama and intrigue that fills that series. However, unlike that largely fantasy-based project, Assassin's Creed is a game firmly entrenched in the details of medievil history. Specifically, the game is set in the summer of 1191, only weeks after the Christian conquest of Acre. While it's not a well-known fact, it is from this era that the word "assassin" comes. Historically, an offshoot group of Muslim warriors became widely known and feared due to their policy of murdering opposing political leaders who went counter to their founder Hassan or from the common legend that they used the drug hashish in their rituals, that name has passed into modern usage in several languages as "Assassin." Because this strange society was incredibly secretive, the team at Ubisoft knew almost immediately that there was tremendous potential to expand the mythology into a game. "What is written in the history books is what people from outside the Assassins said about them," creative director Patrice Desilets tells us of the project he helped jumpstart. "But we wanted to take players inside the Assassins, and then we took some liberty." Amid the scattered accounts of the Assassins, once iece of information emerged as particularly evocative, a motto that was said to have been the guiding principle of the order - "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted." "As soon as I read that phrase, I thought, there's a game there," Patrice relays. "It's every close to Taoism or Buddhism - everything is an illusion, and you can do whatever you want. We approached it more like they were ninjas from the Middle East." Beyond its potential for interactive gaming, the creed itself also served to pinpoint the forces that the Assassins would find themselves aligned against. In the organized religion of hte time, regardless of faith, the people were encouraged to believe that eveything they were told was true, and almost nothing they wanted was permitted. In the mythology of hte game, this is the idea that the Asassins struggle against.
Every conflict needs a hero, and for this one players will adopt the role of Altair, (pronounced al-tie-ear), an apprentice Assassin at the historic castle of Masyaf, a mountain hideaway in what is now modern day Syria. Altair literally translates as "eagle" from Arabic, and the choice of moniker is entirely purposeful. "He's like a bird of prey. We took that as a reference ofr all his moves, looks, and attitudes," art director Nicolas Cantin points out to us. Against a wall, the shadow of his cowl appears as a sharp beak. Crouched upon high roof ledges, his cloak falls about him like folded wings. When he strikes his victim, his ritualistic dagger appears like a talon as it emerges into his left hand, where his ring finger has been ceremonially severed upon his entry into the order. His practiced movements are a combination of incredible strength and versed grace, thanks to the bank of over 4,000 animations that will govern his interaction with the world. The remarkably fluid agility of hte Prince of Persia had approximately 800 animations in comparison. Many things about Altair are designed to defy expectation. He is not a black-garbed thug sneaking through shadows. even the way he kills is strange - each of his victims he treats with the upmost respect. A far cry from the heartless mercenary hitmal that video games have painted in the past, the developers will only be satisfied if players come away from the game with an entirely new perception of the word "assassin."
The world that Altair finds himself in is embroiled in the chaos of the Third Crusade. Christian soldiers, under the leadership of Richard the Lionhearted, have swept into the Holy Land on another quest to retake it from Saladin and the largely Muslim populace. Decades of religious war have left whole cities as melting pots of different peoples and faiths. Under the tutelage of the Assassin chief Sinan, Altair is tasked with helping to bring an end to the Crusade with as little loss of innocent life as possible. Every one of Altair's precision strikes is designed to hold back the tide of corruption and violence that threatens the people. "You'll come to understand that there are other things going on in the Holy Land that most everyone else is unaware of," scriptwriter Corey May reveals. "Your not just out killing people. You're solving a mystery." To complete this task, the players will guide Altair through dozens of planned murders. While every assassinatino will be unique in place, style, and challenge, there are three steps to each mission that will remain the same. First, players must locate the target in one of the sprawling cities or wilderness areas of the open game world. Getting close to the target will often necessitate carefully navigating through hordes of city populace, or alternately scaling buildings and slipping from roof to roof to reach the enemy. The second step is the lethal attack - players wil reconnoiter the area around a target and discover any numbers of paths to get close, neutralize any protection, and finally kill the enemy in person. The moment of the kill, as the center point of an Assassin's job, is being meticulously designed to offer a wealth of emotional experiences for players in the brief seconds that it lasts. Time will slow, and the action will zoom close. Excitement mixes with teh gravity and horror of taking a human life, as you'll often bear witnes to the fear and pain etched on the victim's face. Finally, every major assassination will have the dying man relay a piece of information to Altair about teh larger conspiracy that is at the true heart of the game, pushing the story forward with the last words of a fallen foe. As teh target dies, and even once he is gone, Altair will always try to make a point of offering respect and horror to him. "Our reerence for the scene of the assassination is from Saving Private Ryan, when the German kills the American with the knife, and he says: 'Shhh...Shhh'," Desilets explains about that all-important instant. "There's a moment between two hmans beings And that's important to me." The developers want the moment of death to carry emotional weight, and for players to lose themselves in the moral dilemma of killing for a greater good. When the deed is done, the third act of a mission is the escape, which can involve any combination of combat with guards, acrobatic roof running or finding a way to hide or blend in with the surroundings and slip away, depending on player preference. All told, the full arc of one assassination can take anywhere from 10 minutes to a full hour, entirely based on player choice and decisions.
Whether completing a mission or not, it is the incredible innovations that fill the cities of the game that will bring the world to life. The most exciting feature that manages this feat is the crowd. "The Scimitar game engine allowed us to have over 60 NPCs onscreen, each with individual AI and behaviors," Desilets tells us. Even in some of the most exciting open world games on the market, onscreen characters are all playing out their parts along a higly scritpted path that takes them from one place to another. Furthermore, if you interrupt that path with something like a violent action, a given NPC usually triggers into a single response, usually either fight or flight. Not so in Assassin's Creed. Every NPC has a wealth of needs, each with a relative value. High social need might send a person to find someone to tlak with. NPCs can develop thirst or hunger, and be drawn to a market fruit stand or fountain. Those that desir rest might look for a bench. Those who want entertainment might seek out a streetside piper, a juggler, or even an afternoon hanging in the town square. Finally, some NPC's will be driven by a certain duty like a patrol, the protection of another NPC, or other set tasks.
As you move among the tightly packed clusters of people, a pushing and balancing feature dictates both physics and the need for civil conduct with other. In other words, every NPC carries weight and force. Just as you wouldn't be able to run to the front of hte stage at a musical concert, in the game the crowd will block your way. Run full tilt into a very large fellow, and you might knock him off his balance, but you will almost certainly be thrown to the ground as well. Beyond the physical reaction, you'll also get the same personal reaction from such a man as you might in real life - he may very well be angry or even violent. Meanwhile, other passersby will sto and react -- some will point and stare at your socially abnormal behavior. Others may join in the fight. Beyond their needs, every characters in the world will have multiple layers of tolerance for the actions of a player. Climb up onto a roof in board daylight on a main street, and just like in real life, people will pause and stare. Guards will often react more forcefully, and climb up after you in pursuit. Break a merchant stand and you're sure to attract the attention of the entire surrounding area. NPC tolerance acts as a totally organic solution to the "wanted stars" dilemma of open world games. The only way to return tolerance to normal is to find a place to hide, enter a place of worship like a Jewish temple, Islamic mosque, or Christian church, or find your way back to the Assassin hideout of the area. Beyond the random NPC's that follow their own personal desires through the world, every environment wil also be filled with what the designers have dubbed NPC traps. These groups of like-minded individuals act as a force to either impede you or your enemies, depending on their opinion on you. Beggars, prostitutes, monks, and gossiping women - groups like these will all start out generally hostile to a person like the player who disrupts the natural order of the city. However, beyond the dozens of assassination missions that players will undertake, they can also choose to attempt helping missions for the struggling populace. Aid the monks, and the next time you're being pursued they will help hide you amid their white robes, rather than breaking apart and pinpointing your location. Burly men on the street might block your entry into a side street if they don't know you, but split open if you've aided them. Beggars crouched in side alleys may accost you for your money, or if they like you, instead trip pursuing guards. A friendly mass of citizens may even throw rocks at your foes instead of you, presuming you've completed the sidequest in their city for them. Unlike in the world of Prince of Persia, there are no spinning blades or spouting flames to hinder progress in a realistic setting like this. That role is now reserved for the crowd, even as it doubles as your camoflage. "Our light and shadow is the crowd," Jade Raymong relates. "It's faster paced. It's about whether you're doing thigs that are within the social norms of what's acceptable." Where another game might have you managing your ability to stay hidden in the darkness, stealth and secrecy in Assassin's Creed are often only accomplished in the middle of a busy city square. The crowd dynamic, while intensely rewarding, is not enough to offer the exploration and freedom that the team desires for basic gameplay. With a character that possesses the acrobatic skill and strength of a circus performer, the idea of an open world that lies only along the street is totally inappropriate. And while ascending and platforming along a scripted line may give the illusion of freedom in a game like Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed seeks to offer the actuality of freedom, and environmental geometry has been set up as part of a massive action-based grid. On this grid, any object that sticks out more has been made interactive. This means that any ledge, rock, pole, box, window, or countless other objects can all be leaped over, climbed onto, or in many cases knocked over. Level designers for teh game are working tirelessly to crat exciting movement and action opportunities in any direction you step, with the rough plan that every 10 meters should offer at least one chance to interact meaningfully with the environment. The ground may demand quick dodges and blind turns into dark alleys. Players might have to jump between interconnected rooftops along a patchwork of thick planks. And every wall becomes like a tiny mountain climing challenge, where you're constantly looking for the next foothold or hand grab that can offer some leverage. Countless paths are open to you at any step. "This is really what sets Assassins apart from many other action games, where you always feel like you're a mouse in a maze. You're just trying to figure out how to get to the cheese. Assassins completely does away with that philosophy," lead programmer Matt Mazerolle tells us. In a way, the creativity that developers get to feel when they design a level path has been passed on to the player, offering a higher degree of freedom of movement than has ever been an option before.
Unwilling to settle for a mundane control solution to this anything but mundane game world, the development team has crafted a remarkable new approach to action controls that further broadens the options a player has in front of him. Most modern action games include particular buttons for specific actions like jumping and attacking, as well as the common context sensitive "do" button that interacts with the world. Instead of this, Assassin's Creed will employ an intuitive new idea that can best be compared to playing marionette or puppeteer to Altair's actions. "What I really liked about this concept was that once you understand the concept of the controls, you know how to play the game," Raymond asserts. "You don't eer have to look at what the button combos are. You can invent them as you go." On the PS3 controller, the left analog will still control movement, and the right analog will handle the camera. However, the actual buttons are quite different than normal. X will correspond to the feet, Square will dictate arm movement with your weapons, Circle will use your arms without the weapon, and Triangle uses your head. Finally, one of the right shoulder buttons will serve as shift key between high and low intensity. Run with the left analog, or hold down the shift button to walk. If a person is in front of you, press the non-weapon arm button to shove them violently against the wall, or shift and press the same button to gently move them aside. High atop a roof, you can nagivate a tricky set of overhanging building struts by holding down jump to lithely hop from one to another, or switch to your arms to leap forward and grab one and swing along below them. Like the approach to level design, the aim is to offer increased freedom. Even a simple low wall offers at least two options - run forward and press the legs button and you'll hurdle it like an Olympic athlete. Press for your arms, and Altair will throw down his hands on the wall and vault over. Every player can determine not only where they go, but how they move to get there. Finally, the head button has altair use his mind. In some cases, it will simply let you see out of his eyes in a first person perspective, or give you a special view of where your target is. Other times, a press of the head button gives you a cinematic angle on an unfolding scene in front of you. The head button can even translate languages. For autenticity's sake, you'll often be hearing passerby speaking in their native language, like Arabic. However, press the head button and you'll hear the words translated, since Altair is multilingual and can listen for secrets and enemy locations in any number of tongues. The incredible array of movement options will certainly give players plenty of ways to avoid a scrape, but it's inevitable that Altair will still find himself in open combat on a regular basis. The experienced killer has plenty of training to fall back on in these instances, but will frequently be tremendously outnumbered. Fights themselves are heavy into enemy observation and timing, with counter moves as the primary tool for victory. Timed guarding against attacks will usually leave an enemy momentarily open, giving you enough time to slip in and finish him off. The continued focus on realism means that neither you nore your opponentcan take massive damage before collapsing. An auto block feature for Altair helps to simulate the idea that when the player fails to halt an attack, he is still able to ward off the blade, but will be exhausted by the dumsy maneuver. Only those final fatal blows against Altair will actually register as full-on wounds leading to a game over.
Just like the wider NPC crowd, you can expect that enemy fighters have the wherewithal to try multiple approaches and tactics. Most enemies will fall into one of three categories. Straight-up fighters will face off head to head with you. Flankers, meanwhile, attempt to encircle you, or even surprise you by leaping from a building interior at your back. Finally, ranged foes will often climb to a rooftop for a clear vantage on you. This impressive AI extends beyond the traditional trigger mechanism we so often see in action game enemies. In most games, once a foe sees you, their combat AI is triggered and doesn't end until either they or the player have died. While some opponents in Assassin's Creed may adopt this attitude, others most certainly not, reinforcing the conept that not every conflict must end in death. "If you start a fight and you kill the toughest guy in the fight and two of his friends, the others will not just stand there as if they don't know what's going on," AI lead Mark Besner explains. One may drop to his knees and beg for mercy. Another may run for help around the corner and bring back reinforcements. Still another may make a break for it, scaling a nearby ladder and platforming away across the roof. Yes, while most NPCs aren't as acrobatic or capable as Altair, they can still use the environmental grid just like you. This means you'll encounter instances where you'll be chasing enemies across the rooftops, or guards will be doing the same to you, leaping after you from building to building. At the end of our final day at the studio, we sit down on the couch with Patrice Desilets to tackle the latest build of the game, freshly mintedonly minutes before and made ready for our perusal. The level we experience begins on the ruined outskirts of Acre, a waiting horse nearby at hand. Altair bounds up onto it's back, and begins to gallop toward the city walls. A damaged bridge lies in his path, apparently shreeded by some siege machine from the taking of the city only weeks before. A quick press of the legs button sends the horse hurtling over the gap and on towards the gates. Immediately within, the gathered crowd exclaims loudly and scatters as the horse bears down on them. Standing and then leaping from the horse's back, Altair grabs a support strut of a nearby building and pulls himself up to the low hanging roof. Kicking off a corner wall, he gains enough height to grasp a higher ledge and clamber up, where he can crouch and survery the crowd below. While the target lies deeper in the city, on the busy streets the assassin spies a tired women being harassed by two bullying soldiers. Dropping down among them, Altair draws his sword and faces off with the two corrupt foes. The closest one comes at him with an easily-blocked attack, at which point Altair slips forward underneath the soldier's arm to cut him down. Recognizing sure defeat, the second soldiers bolts for a nearby ladder and sets off across the roofs. The assassin pursues for a time, but the frightened soldier eventually drops back down into the crowd and is lost. Returning to the task at hand, Altair begins to scale a nearby high building, pulling himself up along window grates and out around roof ledges to gain a vantage over the city block. From here, a press of the head button drops Altair into eagle vision, where everything other than the target is blurred out. Sure enough, emerging into the market below comes his victim. Opting for the direct approach, the assassin leaps down the ground and charges, and the knight is unable to react fast enough before the ritual blade comes out and he is dead. Unfortunately, this leaves several living guards to corner the killer, and they capitalize by grabbing either arm or pin Altair down. A quick shove in either direction dislodges his opponent, and he runs off into the city, the stunned crowd splitting before him. Finally, a long line of white robed monks is parading not far down the street, and Altair merges in with them to escape. It is the continuous flow or open-ended missions like this that will move Altair forward through the story of the game. In gameplay terms, this progression plays out as a mild degree of leveling, which finds him ranking up through the many tiers of the Assassins clan, a process which will change both his physical appearance and his weapons. From a narrative perspective, progression through the missions begins to reveal a deep and complicated conspiracy. A profound divide exists between the Assassins, who wish to expand their self-knowledge and spread this wisdom to the people, and the Templars, an enemy that will emerge with the same high opinion of human potentiality, but who wish to keep the knowledge to themselves. As the intrigue unfolds, it begins to reach it's fingers back into human history, and, remarkably, forward into the future beyond the Crusades.
For, as we learnt during our time at the Ubisoft studio, Assassin's Creed had one final incredible secret to reveal - an aspect of the gameso under wraps that everyone would seem to lean conspiratorially in to speak of it. While the great wealth of gameplay and innovations remains focused entirely around Altair and his journey to halt the Third Crusade, that entire story will be framed by a character far in the future who will be looking back on his ancestor's exploits and experiencing them through Altair's eyes. In fact, this strange process of genetic memory will play out in an important way withing gameplay. As the player moves through the world of the game, new situations and places are a mystery. Confidence in the memory will be low, and thus Altair's ability to survive injuries and death will be lower. As understanding dawns through exploration, discovery, and the unfolding of the conspiracy, confidence in the memory of Altair's exploits will grow, and so will the plausibility of him surviving the challenges he faces. This exciting approach to health management is just one aspect of how the game will craft this strange connection between the distant past and the future. To share more would be like revealingLuke Skywalker's parentage to someone who had never seen Star Wars. However, it's enough to say that behind the remarkable attention to historical realism that will fill Assassin's Creed, a deep and involing fiction has been crafted - an epic story that stretches from before human history to our present day in a way that has us spinning with anticipation. Can such a dramatic tale be told in the space of one game, even one as expensive as Assassin's Creed appears to be? Despite cajoling, it was difficult to get anyone to officially confirm the game as the beginning to a larger story. However, it's not hard to examine the tendencies of a developer, nd Prince of Persia certainly seemed to set a standard for telling a wider interconnected story as a trilogy. We also can certainly look at the patterns of a publisher like Ubisoft, a company that is rapidly building a reputation for franchises instead of single games. All that is to say, we'd be amazed if Assassin's Creed isn't the beginning of something big for a company that is eager to establish itself in the next generation of gaming.
For it's part, Assassin's Creed certainly apears on track to succeed in it's mandate to redefine entire coneptions of what is possible in a game world. The ambition of this veteran squad of game makers is frightening, raising questions as to whether such a titanic interactive experience can be successfully implemented. However, as we watched the team at work, feverishly preparing the game, there was definetly a vibe that boded well for the game's future. A shared enthusiasm and commitment to breaking new ground was universal in everyone we spoke with. For over two years, they've built this adventure from the ground up. Now, they're ready to find out whether the world is as excited by their brainchild as they are.

-Labor from Amado Meza-