Assassin's Creed May Use Movie Animus in Future Games
By Derek Nichols 24 December 2016
In a recent interview, Assassin’s Creed director Justin Kurzel reveals that Ubisoft was impressed after seeing the new animus and may try to incorporate it in future games.
Even with the Assassin’s Creed franchise taking a break from video games this year, the series still manages to keep itself embedded in the consciousness of gamers by appearing in other mediums such as the recent major motion picture. The movie itself is an original tale, not reusing elements previously seen in any of the past games and provides a fresh take on certain familiar things such as the animus. While it’s still too early to tell how successful the movie will ultimately be, Ubisoft has recently made it clear that it may start to use some of these new elements presented in the movie for future games in the franchise.
Justin Kurzel, director on the Assassin’s Creed movie, recently admitted that Ubisoft was not only impressed with how the newly designed animus in the movie looked, but that the studio was even interested in using it for future games in the franchise. Ubisoft has apparently been looking for ways to make the animus process more interactive and seeing how the device comes across in the movie seems to fit perfectly with what the studio was looking to do.
For longtime Assassin’s Creed video game fans, the animus has always been a sort of lounge style chair or VR headset, where the user would simply strap in and be teleported into the virtual simulation of their ancestor. The movie mixes things up a bit by making the process more interactive. Instead of laying down, the user is strapped into a large mechanical arm which is capable of letting the user move around. With the use of holographic lights, the user is able to experience the genetic memories of their ancestor.
Actually, Ubisoft were really interested in it. They thought that the potential of it to actually interact as gameplay was really interesting. So they were talking about maybe evolving it even further for possible games for the future.
Interestingly enough, it seems that Kurzel was never really a fan of the sit down version of the animus. The biggest problem for the production team was figuring out how to make scenes the scenes exciting when actor Michael Fassbender was in the animus. For an action movie, Kurzel found that showing someone sitting in a chair multiple times came off as passive and not very exciting.
While fans expect to see a new Assassin’s Creed game in the spotlight later in 2017, Ubisoft isn’t confirming anything. The company is committed to making the next game great and has recently confirmed that it won’t hesitate to delay the title in order to deliver a complete and polished experience. Surprisingly, the next game in the long running franchise has been kept under wraps extremely well as the only details to have emerged recently have come from Ubisoft directly. Where ever the next game takes place, it’s clear that Ubisoft plans for it to be different, becoming less scripted than past entries, placing a greater focus on the world and freedom of choice.
Would you like to see a more interactive animus in future games or is that side of things just not that important? Feel free to share your thoughts on the next game in the franchise below.
The next Assassin’s Creed game is expected sometime in 2017, though the movie is now in theaters everywhere.
