How Assassin's Creed Origins Is Rethinking Open World Design

Creative Director Jean Guesdon and Art Director Raphael Lacoste sat down with Game Informer to explain the philosophy behind the world they're crafting for Origins, the lessons learned from Black Flag, and the decision to eliminate the mini-map from the HUD.
Learn more about Assassin's Creed Origins in our exclusive content hub - www.gameinformer.com/p/origins...

[@theuniform8696]

As a long time AC fan, let's be clear, Black Flag as a "Assassin's Creed" game was terrible, but as a open world pirate game, it was great.

[@sito3539]

The Uniform I expect Origins to be good at both :)

[@swagkelly5867]

Sito Origins isn't a pirate game lol

[@paulvhs]

Black flag was the best assassins creed in my opinion.

[@stephentrail7066]

The Uniform I thought I was the only one who thought that 😂, Black Flag's climbing and missions were crap.

[@swagkelly5867]

The Uniform Also I wasn't commenting to you I commented to the Sito guy

[@theinstantnoodle9628]

Im actually hyped for this Assassins Creed. Its looking pretty badass so far. AC Syndicate was pretty fun.

[@SirNoobWulf]

This is the internet m8,they can and will hate whatever they damn well please.Just ignore them. Also Syndicate Sucked. Lets discuss about that.

[@shamoney5846]

Wulfrix haha syndicate was horrible . had no idea what the story was about and the batman grapple thing was wayy too much

[@augustharris8572]

Syndicate was fun as hell what the shit you talking about

[@SirNoobWulf]

They had a grappling hook which meant you had to put in zero effort to keep yourself on the rooftops. Story was non existant Modern Day was a ten minute cutscene Most of the combat looked like someone had fast forwarded the animations. So i disagree with your notion of "fun"

[@MahoganyBlack]

I like what they had to say about the compass vs a mini map. With a map you spend most of the time looking at that instead of looking at the game and the compass' minimalist design helps us to focus on the environment. This worked really well for Horizon: Zero Dawn so I'm sure it'll work well here.

[@MassMissery]

Where are all of these comparisons to Zelda coming from? If anything I've heard Ubisoft themselves say they want Assassin's Creed Origins to be like The Witcher 3. In fact I've heard a lot of big studios say that and make that sort of comparison.

[@jacobbrowning1000]

Im wondering the same thing. Zelda came out and now everyones holding it up as suddenly being the best and only open world game....like yeah it was good but side quests having good and engaging narrative? thats a witcher thing the zelda main quest is kinda flimsy but thats not really the strength of the game....compass rather then mini map? witcher not zelda. a bunch of shit to explore ...elder scrolls witcher....like most major open world games...yet its suddenly "doing what zelda did apparently in like 6 months" People also are freaking out over zelda "no map clutter" ...i mean yeah cool... but if you put an icon on every shrine,tower or seed like ubisoft does to make them easy to find ...itd be just as bad if not worse so...

[@girishshyamsundargolatkar2690]

Andrew Valentin witcher has .....is .......and will always be lame and absolutely boring game.....which makes assassins creed origins even worse.....so stop praising ubishit

[@jacobbrowning1000]

*looks at witcher's accolades, massive following and its universal praise by critics and fans alike* ......uh huh.....totally ....

[@SirNoobWulf]

The 97% steam rating disagrees with you.Also the trolls called and they want their family back.

[@girishshyamsundargolatkar2690]

jacob browning dude gta 5 is what takes a piss on your beloved witcher series....plus the combat is age-old like the game itself .... some old man swinging his idiotic sword in the same boring fashion.... unlike the prince of persia combat or god of war......that's how real men fight...that even gods start doubting themselves...

[@farisanwari777]

Not going to lie, I'm quite intrigued at ancient Egypt as a setting for games. It has pyramids, exotic waters, the greeneries' contrast with what otherwise is a desert... oasises and sphinxes make for a splendid open-world! If done correctly, that is. I wanna see how a Witcher 3-esque style could be implemented in such settings, incorporating Egyptian mythologies along the way.

[@MADIJARU]

0:54 ... guys please can someone tell me me the name of the background music?

[@TalkingBook72]

"Florence Tarantella" from Assassin's Creed 2 Soundtrack

[@MADIJARU]

DrValentinovich Thanks to you.. I was searching for this track since I finished AC2

[@chocobosROK]

Even if the story disappoints, I'm sure I won't be disappointed by the beautiful environments. Still can't wait to visit Alexandria. Reminds me of how I felt when seeing videos of Altissia from FFXV. So purty.

[@Symbiote-Man]

That's the one thing I am ready to accept. I cannot wait to travel through the world, not following anything, expect what I see. Wherever I end up, I will enjoy...

[@pexpix]

I don't get all the hate, I just can't wait to follow & mess with random NPC's and seeing things happening unexpectedly, or exploring different ways of killing a target according to the day-night cycle. Super excited about ACO!

[@Menace_sti]

pexpix sounds like watchdogs 2

[@echad6259]

I just realized how big it is yesterday...just when I thought I was at the end.

[@richtea615]

Can't wait to be walkin' in Memphis :)

[@alih15]

music name?

[@Kncperseus]

It would be awesome if they did the tropics next

[@Kodesai]

I can't wait...

[@SqueebPlays]

They changed to a compass for Far Cry 5 as well, glad to see their cleaning up their UI in a nice way

[@trinikeston]

can't wait to play

[@yashkaushik6116]

most of the AC videos I see, they use AC2's music... newer games I liked a track or two, generally the main theme... but AC2 had me hypnotised with it's entire soundtrack list.. here Its making me nostalgic to listen to the carnival 1:35 ... good ol days

[@soloinaeternumodium7841]

I literally can not wait

[@dimviewer100]

Hey guys! When are you going to do a God of War cover? All your covers are excellent!!!

[@queensinthesky]

Why do they keep referring to AC4 like it's the most recent? Did a different dev team do Unity/Rogue and Syndicate?

[@Gregoses]

yes this team did AC4 last

[@nodspruductionss3812]

did you basicly turn ac into dark souls?

[@raynerabbitadventures6081]

Seamless open world confirmed, cool.

[@GreenSlugg]

This sounds like a game I would enjoy!

[@jackgould5332]

game looks sick can't wait to get back into the world of ac

[@virtualbot5580]

Really its gonna be a great game

[@terrygooding2759]

Can be the most massive beautiful world - but it needs a really good story and things to do in that world if it is to succeed...

[@oasisbeyond]

Put pyramids where we go in them and it's a big puzzle area level, kinda like the old pop games, then that big Snake is a boss. I hope that's what that was in the trailer, but, I'm sure I'm wrong. Gotta change this old open world formula.

[@sergiokaminotanjo]

3:47 did he had hes ass glued to the horse? My fucking god...

[@joshuaminke6629]

one of the first AC games, I'm actually hyped for, but PLEASE, make a decent pc version

[@jlall4467]

Love that music from ac 2

[@TheHaloGamer]

By rethinking they mean doing something that's been done for a long time.

[@kirby4164]

SH4D0WXR33CONt1 But they are changing the stuff that have been in the games for way too long.

[@harshlens]

Seing how beautiful Ghost Recon Wildlands is, I have high hopes for the vistas in this one.

[@arby456]

Harrison Ford: "So it's bigger!"

[@garrettpeters9342]

This game looks amazing

[@ccjh0806]

Garrett Peters Sure.... hahaha

[@tony.2902]

ccjh0806 hahahaha stop complaining and stfu

[@EthanHall7276.]

Read 10 comments, 2 were positive. Why click on the video if you're just going to shit on it no matter what you're shown? That's like buying a candy bar you know you hate, just so you can't hate on it a little more to people you don't know. Besides, most of these people I think are just "like" hors. They just type shit they know will get likes.

[@ejs3589]

Best version on Xbox X, looking and running best on Xbox x, Cant wait!

[@shamoney5846]

Recent open world games has been too repetitive and somehow felt limited to me idk.. feel like ac origins can reset the bar

[@TheIrishGamerGuy]

Guys they are doing open world without loading screens???? Nice to see we made it to 2008

[@alfie6129]

Everything is at the center of the world with you people

[@dootboye]

what do you want then? an eskimo assassin in Antarctica?

[@paulthorn6437]

So the big new innovation is seamlessly moving from the open exterior world to detailed cities. So kind of like GTA:V had 4 years ago?

[@TXSballistics]

In AC brotherhood they made the colosseum round instead of oval, so yeah, they know their stuff.

[@Elchapochinglong69]

Altiair was buff asf

[@vincye5605]

I doubt they can top Horizon ZD sense of immersion en world design

[@yvesgomes]

Why are they making such a big deal of switching the minimap for the compass? It makes almost zero difference in how much you pay attention to the world.

[@lejet-_-40]

You would expect they would add coop play, *they didnt*

[@kirby4164]

LeJet Want co-op one of the main problems people had because it was buggy and people couldn't get into game lobbies? And whenever I try to play co-op on Unity, it would always lag out, even if everyone had a fine connection.

[@GameyGamer75]

this game does not have that assassin creed feeling that we all love.

[@lukasdahl6195]

Imagine if naughty dog did this game it would be one of the best games ever.

[@sean7332]

you an idiot? naughty dog can only make condensed scripted missions in a tight environment they wouldn't have a clue how to do a game like this. lol

[@lukasdahl6195]

well i mean Naughty dog as a company not their developers. Its about their mentality which almost no other game company have. If they could hire their own people and they make a open world game it would most likely be the best open world game we have seen. And btw they would never make a game like "this", they would make it have a intresting story. lol

[@memecliparchives2254]

Correction :Rockstar

[@Kojimalosophy]

unfortunately, in this time period of the gaming industry , after games like no man's sky, Mass effect: Andromeda, For Honor, and so many others that created a lot of hype and whose developers dazzled us with words and promises, but failed miserably , we can't derive ANY excitement from ANYTHING a dev says anymore.

[@kirby4164]

Javier Bustamante Bioware hardly promised anything with Mass Effect Andromeda.

[@bobmcbobbob2391]

The game is about exploration...you mean walking to the gigantic ? on you compass? The one that screams 'hey look here'? Yeah, that's exploration alright.

[@Agherosh]

bob mcbobbob Can't you explore in Skyrim?

[@bobmcbobbob2391]

If everything is marked on you compass/minimap you're not really exploring. You're sight seeing, not really the same thing. Skyrim isn't much better, Morrowind did it better at least, these game are more like theme parks.

[@Randomized_tv]

bob mcbobbob the game is near perfect

[@rohithkumarsp]

bob mcbobbob wanna take that back?

[@ToasterTacoXD]

He's saying all of the right things, but will the game deliver on those things?

[@vulcangauze6263]

No

[@rxxdlb]

Vulcan Gauze lel

[@EDGEOFTHISWORLD]

ToasterTaco From what I've seen, YES.

[@niktodt1]

Without good soundtrack during free roaming, all of this work can go to waste. We need Jesper Kyd back!!! The music you hear in the background of this video is made by him.

[@Vector3Gaming]

So by doing everything Zelda just did :) I'm not saying they copied, it could all be coincidence, but it's a good sign that AC is going down the same path, its proven to work (though a realistic setting will never work as well as pure fantasy because of the limitations that realism brings)

[@MalonzeProductionsGaming]

CrackKat. technically speaking if they had to be inspired, witcher 3 is the best bet (not saying it 100% was) since video games are in development for half a decade. they didnt see zelda and suddenly go "lets make that" plus with newer hardware openworld games are trying to be more "vast" and realistic

[@MrCrazyduck22]

CrackKat I think Skyrim since the Witcher 3 and Breath of the wild both have Mini Maps and this game is getting rid of the Mini Map.

[@jacobbrowning1000]

i think they've said witcher before E3 and people at E3 were all saying witcher so...

[@Stormcrownn]

CrackKat yeah if you told me I can get an assassin's Creed with BOTW game design I'd say I'm fucking sold.

[@Vector3Gaming]

MrCrazyduck22 you can actually turn off the mini map in Zelda which i did as soon as the game started so i forgot it even existed.

[@bar0nv0nstrubel57]

I don't understand why people complain so much about a game being even slightly similar to a game that just came out right before it. This game isn't copying Breath of the Wild or the Witcher. They are all entirely different games with different feels. If we keep doing this whole "But (insert video game here) did it first!" crap then Pong is the only legitimate video game to ever exist.

[@kirby4164]

Mike Smithmyer And the games that are being compared to this one were being worked on at different times, some of them took longer to make.

[@bar0nv0nstrubel57]

Kurtis Findling Exactly. I think it's so stupid

[@stephentrail7066]

Assassins Creed is the most formulaic game series I've ever played. Once you've played AC2, you've played them all. Black Flag is the only exception because of its focus on pirating.

[@ditto476]

"For the first time ever" luckly they aren't Infinity Ward

[@kaimarusteri2905]

I don't give a shit what people say. Give the game a chance and be happy that we actually see a new AC coming because it could be the last...

[@alonsoavalos598]

How can you be immersed with all that fucking HUD?!

[@CesarIsaacPerez]

I'm really looking forward to running around in ancient Egypt! Just get rid of the textures and stuff popping up all over the place, please!

[@Symbiote-Man]

Well, to be fair. The gameplay we've seen thus far has all been Alpha material.

[@VezixHaikal]

.3. basically learning from witcher and zelda.

[@anaximander66]

They better have an information embargo in place for this because if this game is like the others there will be very few pre-orders. Myself, I'll be waiting for reviews before I buy because it looks like the same old shtick to me.

[@mileswittig8744]

Why does this game remind me of Horizon Zero Dawn?

[@Symbiote-Man]

More "Witcher 3", but probably because HZD just came out. Therefore it's still fresh, in thy mind.

[@basslightyeah]

Jamy McTaylor thy mind... lovely, is this still a current phrase?

[@bap2218]

I'm still bothered by the running animations

[@XxBeastWTFxX]

Bro... How abbout you fucking tell me why in the fuck, is the collectors edition of this game as expensive as two motherfuckin new pristine ps4s?

[@jordanwylie8249]

Doesn't matter how game look when went away from Mini map steers people away from playing the game!

[@jamallmaxwell5906]

This looks like The Witcher 3!!!

[@ShowlidSnake]

"Rethink" "Reimagine" "Reskin"

[@OctoberHourglass]

I love the compass instead of the mini-map. I like the eagle better than eagle vision. Can't wait to get my hands-on the combat system.

[@GodsAssassin]

ezio brotherhood soundtrack

[@NotaToast]

Oh come on, they try and do something cool and improve upon the game and all you do is just complain. They change nothing, everyone complains, they change something you all still complain 😂

[@kirby4164]

Adrian Salata That's the "fanbase" for you. Seriously, they know all of the lore, and they complained about the movie.

[@NotaToast]

Kurtis Findling literally, personally I'm Very excited for this one. Reminds me so much of the witcher 3 which I loved

[@georgioschasiotis3390]

why dont they rethink the fighting system

[@Agherosh]

The Assassin They did

[@CSSuser]

show some guided arrows again so i could laugh some more

[@TheMatt141]

The AC franchise will not be saved by adding more of an open world lol. It will be saved once the franchise restores its story and mysticism it had between AC1-AC3. It is said a lot but it is absolutely true. Oh and if you dont add a playable modern day character we're through

[@s2heavy]

I hear a lot of comments dissing Assassins Creed Origins while trying to compare it to Breath of the Wild and Witcher 3. Personally I like where Assassins Creed Origins is going. Breath of the Wild ain't perfect and neither is Witcher 3. Witcher 3 has a lot of faults and glitches. The only good for it was story and narrative as far as side quests. I think Assassins Creed Origins is making improvements that will make it a step above other AC games in the franchise. Kudos to Ubisoft

[@SirNoobWulf]

First of all BOTW comparison doesnt make any sense.This game has been in development since 2014 even before Unity came out.And BOTW only came out this year.

[@s2heavy]

They are comparing the the combat of AC origins with the combat of Breath of the Wild.

[@basslightyeah]

Steven Moultrie Witcher 3 had nothing to offer without it's quests, I hope AC Origins has a great free roam like Unity. Love it or hate it, just exploring the world and fighting guards was fun as hell

[@SirNoobWulf]

Yeah i agree with you on that,Thats one of the only things about Unity that clicked.

[@snkhuong]

this guy definitely works for Ubisoft

[@mtavares5653]

dull and flat mini quests that dont impact you or the universe from NPCs that don't mean anything, and a shit load of collectibles, are not what i want. I'd rather feel like what I do matters in a linear game, than having a shit load of repetitive, tedious things to do in a huge world. This AC will have good numbers at release but the interest will die out after a month.

[@jaygadekar1479]

Am I the only one who cares about the fact that nobody ever can slide on the pyramids like that because they are not flat?! They are stepped!!

[@Mrfailstandstil]

эх, как обычно, на словах то всё круто а вот в реальности...

[@WestfaelischerJung]

yeeyy another open world games. thank god we have wolfenstein tnc.

[@RadArgie]

this is gonna be awesome

[@tacticalscouser2766]

I smell glitches

[@dianuevo8925]

i mean they needed to change shit.

[@peacefulrage750]

Far cry witcher creed: wildland hunt origins

[@jaccopeek]

Please avoid 'the Dark Souls between the AC-games'.

[@girishshyamsundargolatkar2690]

Jack-O10 please avoid the release of this game and save your self the embarrassment....ubishit

[@brooke8757]

Can you get people who speak English for your next video or at least subtitles? Way to hard to understand what they are saying.

[@Elintasokas]

HAHAHA, this is exactly the same. This doesn't change anything. It's equally brainless to follow the compass as it is to follow the minimap. The only solution is to get rid of all compasses and minimaps and make the player utilize actual verbal directions and journal, etc. Of course, they'd never do this. The compass even shows your distance to the objective in meters! Unbelievable.

[@redgreen3b143]

When we learn other languages. Do Americans sound like 4 year olds to the people that speak that language?

[@kwalk626]

Please make a Black Flag 2, I know you wont, but please do..

[@koba188]

I can already see the heavy amount of pop ins

[@mahmooda256]

lmao joke of the century I saw the game at e3 it looks bad very bad and clunky not to mention that dead ai and the stealth is a fuckin illusion

[@zackfair_og]

rethinking open world design by being a Witcher clone haha

[@ccjh0806]

RETHINKING? RETHINK WHAT? NOTHING NEW

[@jollyroger2068]

ubisoft open world are always boring

[@snkhuong]

Rethinking ? Haha it's an AC. It will copy 99.9% of the previous ACs and will just be another generic AC

[@kirby4164]

snkhuong How much of an AC fan are you if you're this toxic to the game?

[@JoJo-qc8yj]

From Assassin's Creed 1 to tooday this same game-engine ... :(

[@someonekenobi]

?? They have changed engine mulitple times

[@kirby4164]

Jo Jo This game wouldn't even be able to function if it ran on the same engine as AC1.

[@Excalibur5k]

How Ubisoft looked at zelda and saw how they had to step up their game.

[@rakshithb728]

I think rather than zelda, it was the witcher 3 that inspired them to step up their game because botw was announced when this game was already being developed

[@jacobbrowning1000]

zelda? no witcher? yes

[@Excalibur5k]

Rakshith B that's probably true. Tho there are a lot of stuff that were done by zelda, like ubi towers that don't scatter icons all over the map so the player can find them theirselves.

[@jacobbrowning1000]

i mean thats most games.... ubisoft games were like that open world games in general? no The only difference zelda had was it didnt through the icons up but if it did it be pretty much the same.

[@Excalibur5k]

no? what zelda did was it didnt hold the players hand and let them explore by themselves instead of the game telling them where everything is and where to go. i did hear that the AC devs were in fact inspired by witcher 3 (the quality of it, not any revolutionary design choices tho)but that game is also guilty of the icons telling you what to do. in that game, when you dont know what to do you just look for icons on your map, place marker, and go, if you didnt have any markers or icons you wouldnt know where to go at all but in zelda, the world is designed to guide you through without putting icons on the map, similar to morrowind as opposed to skyrim, one without a bunch of quest markers, and one thats impossible without them because of the lack of information. its not at all as simple as "oh the only difference is that one shows icons and the other doesnt."

[@theselfrighteous8307]

It still looks like shit. .. 😭

[@simonrockstream]

they arent "rethinking" shit.

[@waiskuxx]

lmao tbh

[@jakewolf079]

''How Assassin's Creed Origins Is Rethinking UBISOFT Open World Design.'' There, fixed it. Don't act like you are doing anything groundbreaking Ubisoft. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is still league ahead of your open world checkbox gamedesign.

[@S.A.O.D.A]

This.

[@DanielAnderson-ce8in]

Yep, and BOTW can do that because of its very fictional setting. This can give you true freedom unlike this historical crap

[@daeric7572]

dodo2208 My guess is that you've never played Breath of the Wild, right?

[@Get_Juju]

Outsider Now that's clearly a hyperbole no?? Witcher 3 is by far my absolute favourite game ever. But BotW is nowhere near a terrible game. and like Beast of the Far East said.. It's leagues ahead of anything Ubisoft have ever done.

[@jacobbrowning1000]

BOTW isnt a terrible game no. Its also not a 10 out of 10 hallmarks of open world games either. That game as a lot of faults that while small there's a shit ton of them in. Witcher 3 blows it out of the water with shit to do while not being redundant, giving you good narrative even separate from the main quest and just having fun exploring and being fun to play. Elder Scrolls does so much better then zelda as well. Is it a good game? sure.. is it revolutionary? hell no. Its funny every time i saw a review give it a 10 they were either A obviously just a huge zelda fan and this is easily the better zelda recently so its auto 10 or B they're only open world games were ubisoft ones and they were freaking out over the "no map clutter". If you added icons to the map of zelda it'd be eerily similar to a ubisoft game. Still just a bunch of small stuff that get redundant and boring but prolong the game way longer and im saying this as a huge fan of assassins creed and someone who enjoyed zelda.

[@phreakinpher]

Producers: "What was the last AC game people liked? Black Flag? OK. Talk about that a lot. Don't talk about Unity or Syndicate. Also, make another pirate game we can sell to people. Oh, we did and its called Skull and Bones?"

[@v4tv]

The main team that is working on Origins was the team that last worked on Black flag.

[@jrrambo2097]

I played The first Assassin Creed and Black Flag. Cant wait for Origins.

[@J1Jordy]

If they took all the right elements from Black Flag, put it in next-gen and work on from there to improve and add to it even further, then I don't see how we can complain. And people have been begging for a pirates game for years, so they were very much right to make one of those, based on Black Flag (since that's where they got most of their experience in that subject from).

[@Symbiote-Man]

Phreakinpher: "Let's claim shit about shit I have no clue about"

[@SirNoobWulf]

The team that developed this game developed Black Flag.SO its easy for them to compare them both.Read before you start typing.But i guess that isnt possible for you and after all we are in a youtube comment section so type away!

[@Gregoses]

Trying too hard to be the witcher

[@kirby4164]

Gregoses They've been working on this game before The Witcher 3 came out.

[@koba188]

"for the first time"

[@Get_Juju]

I wish they would just do away with the modern world section.

[@DavidCobbie]

i wish they improve it, you can like it or not, but this is a very foundation and a pilar of the game since ac1, without that, there will be no purpose betwen de war of assassins and templars

[@jakewolf079]

it already has no purpose, most people barely give a shit.

[@Excalibur5k]

Get Juju the modern world was fine when Desmond was alive

[@dootboye]

good joke, when was on the last time you were on the AC reddit?

[@yayatistudios]

you r not true AC fan if u don't like modern world