Assassin’s Creed Unity Delayed

Ubisoft has delayed their upcoming historical action-adventure open world game, Assassin’s Creed Unity into November 2014.

The game was originally set to release on October 28, 2014. The publisher delayed the game to ensure that the “game’s quality meets fans’ and the team’s lofty expectations.”

Ubisoft explains the delay: “It’s the little things. A tiny gesture that Arno makes as he’s racing across the Parisian rooftops. A barely noticeable reaction from a solitary NPC in a crowd 3,000 deep.

The subtle swaying motion of an opulent chandelier in a lavish ballroom. It’s these little things, multiplied by the thousands, that a development team focuses on during the final push to ship a game.

And with a massive open-world title like Assassin’s Creed Unity, all those little things add up fast. Toss in the fact that Unity has been built from the ground up as a new-gen Assassin’s Creed – and that final straight-line sprint to the finish suddenly feels like an obstacle course laden with curves, hurdles and pitfalls.”

“This being a fully next-gen game, it requires a lot of work, a lot of production, and a lot of learning, says Senior Producer Vincent Pontbriand.

It’s always hard to be precise and to quantify exactly how much work is involved. So as we get close to the finish we often realize we’re near the target but we’re not quite there yet.”

Pontbriand adds, “We rebuilt most of the systems. Sometimes to improve the experience. Sometimes to improve the gameplay itself. Sometimes to reskin it, to make it look fresh all over again. Or sometimes because we had to make everything online-compatible.

And AC is a huge open-world game. We have thousands of NPCs on screen. We have more depth in the types of AI we’ve built. The graphics are spectacular. The processes are way more complex. Which makes it exponentially harder to grasp everything than it was in the previous generation. We’re very confident in the game we’re making.

Making games is not a precise science. It’s a leap of faith. There’s a good level of subjectivity and creativity. We have a bunch of us who have spent two, three years or more on this project. It’s a huge personal investment. People have been truly dedicated to this game.

For them it’s also important to make a game that they can be proud of. We honestly appreciate their commitment to the game and their patience. It’s just a couple more weeks. And it’s going to be worth it,” Pontbriand concluded.

Assassin’s Creed Unity will release on November 11 in North America and November 13, 2014 in Europe for Xbox One, PS4 and PC.

Source: Ubisoft.