Assassin’s Creed Creative Director Says Modern Games Can Morph into Cancerous Growth

Assassin’s Creed III is one of the big titles set to be launched this year, but one of the leading developers working on the title seems to believe that its very existence is a sign of big problems with the gaming industry.

Speaking at a Game Developers Conference panel called Designing Games to Sell, Alex Hutchinson, the creative director working on the Assassin’s Creed franchise, said, “We think about as kind of cancerous growth. I think that will leave the AAA blockbusters as nothing more than the last of the dinosaurs.”

The two scenarios that the developer is most afraid of involve either creating video games based only on analytics, with the only aim of making money for publishers, or creating something akin to the Cold War arms race when it comes to the development of better graphics and bigger game worlds.

Hutchinson added, “In my mind video games need to have the goal of educating people, entertaining people, or at least being artistic. If you’re not pushing any of these things… then I think we’re in for a rough patch.”

Some of the problems the Ubisoft developer sees in modern video games are also affecting his own current project, Assassin’s Creed III, which is described as pushing the limits of current platforms both when it comes to graphics and to the size of the game world.

Players will take a leap through time to the period of the American Revolution and the titular Assassin will now be part Indian and part British.

Ubisoft has said the game is the most ambitious it has ever developed.

Assassin’s Creed III is being prepared for a late October launch in both North America and in Europe and the game will arrive on the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360, the PC and the new Nintendo Wii U.