14 DAY TRIAL // Alex Hutchinson, the director working on Assassin’s Creed 3 at Ubisoft, explains that his team has refused to include child killing in their new open-world game because they believe there are certain lines that video games should not cross.
During an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit, the developer stated that, “There are lines we don't want to cross: there's only so much publicity bonus you get from being on Fox news, and it doesn't add anything to the experience.”
It would also not make much sense for an elite assassin like Connor, and the other protagonist of the Assassin’s Creed series, to target the defenseless, especially given the range of other targets that are available and are linked to his ultimate goals.
Steve Masters, the lead game designer, offered more information on how his team approached the stealth system for Assassin’s Creed 3, one of the areas that gamers criticized after launch.
He said, “our stealth is primarily 'social stealth,' and we've been debating having a crouch button since pretty much day 1. It was always the vision that crouching in public spaces is not 'hiding in plain sight' - if anything you're calling attention to yourself.”
The game offers stalking zones in order to simulate areas where a character might crouch down in order to gain a stealth advantage.
Ubisoft has included a number of new ideas in this Assassin’s Creed title, from naval battles to the missions linked to the Homestead, and some players feel that the game has strayed from its stealth roots.
Assassin’s Creed 3 can be played on the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 at the moment and a PC version should be out before the end of the month.
Ubisoft is also preparing a Wii U version of the game that will be available when the Nintendo console is out.