Can’t wait for Assassin’s Creed II? Check this out.
Gamers who played through Ubisoft Montreal’s groundbreaking “Assassin’s Creed,” which has sold more than 8 million copies since 2007, don’t have to wait until the sequel, out Nov. 17, to get their AC fix. Check out the first of three “Assassin’s Creed Lineage” films.
Assassin’s Creed: Lineage is a series of short films that expand the fiction even further, and reveal the characters and events that lead up to Assassin’s Creed II – primarily involving the father of the game’s protagonist, Ezio, during the Italian Renaissance.
The first of the three 12- to 14-minute episodes debuted today on YouTube’s home page (see below) in eight countries, including Canada. Plus, the first episode will also ship on the Assassin’s Creed II game disc.
The game, by the way, had more than 250 developers working on it in Quebec. Wow!
For a closer look at the film series, I took a trip to Hybride Technologies, the Ubisoft-owned facility best known for creating special effects in movies, television and advertising. Nestled in the Laurentians town of Piedmont, Que., this unassuming studio (which looks like a house from the outside) is responsible for visual effects in such Hollywood blockbuster films as 300, Sin City, Journey to the Center of the Earth and Snakes on a Plane.
Sitting in a cozy theatre room, we watched an uncut version of the first Lineage episode, which introduces Ezio’s father, Giovanni Auditore da Firenze, as well as other family members and key characters (such as Lorenzo de’ Medici, the Italian statesman and de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic during this period). The acting, story and pacing were all quite impressive, and certainly help you get a sense of the backdrop to the anticipated game sequel.
To create a complementary look between the games and films, the visual effects studio combined live action and CGI, including motion-capture (“mo-cap”) technology performed at Ubisoft’s Montreal studio, where actors are suited up with body sensors and special cameras that import their fluid movements into a computer.
“The Lineage film series is for both Assassin’s Creed fans as well as non-gamers – if not more for the latter group because we already have Assassin’s Creed II for gamers,” said Yves Guillemot, chief executive officer of Ubisoft, in a one-on-one interview at Ubisoft Montreal’s studios.
“Just as Apple sees iPods or iPhones as a gateway to Mac computers, we hope Lineage will wow non-gamers and get them interested in Assassin’s Creed games,” he says. “We’re confident the Lineage films will serve as a window to a universe non-gamers might not consider otherwise.”
Here’s the first of three Assassin’s Creed Lineage short films: