14 DAY TRIAL // Ubisoft’s decision to have a main character who is half Native American for its upcoming Assassin’s Creed III is a risky one and the company has brought in outside help to make sure that no stereotypes are used in the creation of Connor.
Alex Hutchinson, the creative director working on the game, has told the PS Blog that, “We took it very seriously when we decided to have a Native American assassin, we wanted someone who was one step removed — we didn’t want a Redcoat or a Patriot.
“We also really liked the idea of having a minority as the lead character, especially one that isn’t really represented in popular culture.”
The company went as far as to select a Native American voice actor to read the lines for the character in order to imbue him with more authenticity and make sure that accent never becomes a problem for players who might be of Native American origin.
Hutchinson also talked about the dual wielding system that will transform the fight sequences, saying, “We wanted him to feel more like a predator, so all of his combat is two-handed whether it’s tomahawk and knife, or hidden blade and knife.
“There’s a lot of new gear, and if you’ve watched movies like The Last of the Mohicans you can probably figure out some of them.”
The fact that Connor can dual wield means that the development team needed to make a lot of changes to the make-up of enemies and to the way they approach a fight in order to keep the difficulty level up.
Ubisoft has also made changes to the control scheme, which is still not final, in an effort to allow players easier control over the main characters and a more intuitive way of interacting with the game world.
Assassin’s Creed III will be launched during October on home console and on the PC.