14 DAY TRIAL // Ubisoft confirms that, unfortunately for owners of Nintendo's Wii U, the upcoming Assassin's Creed Unity title just isn't possible on the small console, as it's not capable of running the game as intended, in all its glory.
Assassin's Creed Unity is set to be one of the most ambitious iterations in the long-running series published by Ubisoft, bringing forth overhauled versions of core mechanics like combat, stealth, or exploration, while delivering a great virtual recreation of Paris during the French revolution period.
The new game is so ambitious that Ubisoft decided to bring it only to capable platforms, in the form of the PC, PS4, and Xbox One, while another title, Assassin's Creed Rogue, is set to appear on PS3 and Xbox 360.
Wii U owners won't get Unity
This leaves Wii U owners disappointed, but according to Ubisoft's Alex Amancio, the lead designer on Unity, the new game just can't run in all its glory on the Nintendo home console.
"It couldn’t, it really couldn’t," Amancio tells RedBull about Unity running on Wii U. "I mean this is why we from the beginning, this was going to be a new-gen-only title, because the crowds aren’t aesthetic, they actually have impact. If we did anything to hinder that or to reduce that it would have a detrimental impact, it wouldn’t be the same experience."
A possible Wii U version would cheat fans
If Ubisoft were to try and get the game on the platform, it would just end up disappointing fans because it couldn't match up to the PC, PS4, or Xbox One versions, according to Amancio, who explains that the company doesn't want fans to feel cheated by getting a downgraded edition of the upcoming game.
"I don’t think that would be fair to fans, to sell the same game but with different levels of experience. Even the seamless nature of the series and the scale of the game right, we couldn't do that. We never load Paris. It wouldn't be possible, in our minds we’d be cheating fans by providing a lesser version of the same game."
While Ubisoft's statements sound good enough, the recent reveal that Unity runs at 900p and 30fps on both the PS4 and Xbox One due to CPU constraints shows that Ubisoft is willing to deliver less than optimal experiences on the new platforms. This is as opposed to, for example, the PC, where Unity, depending on the configuration, can reach 1080p and 60fps or even higher.
Unity launches in November, alongside Rogue. Amancio offers no reasoning about Rogue's missing status on the Wii U, despite the fact that it runs on the same engine as past entries in the series, which all appeared on the device.
