Interviews// Assassin's Creed Brotherhood: Jean-Francois Boivin, Associate Producer

SPOnG: Speaking of the brotherhood, that's one of the key new things added to this AC experience. Could you tell us a little bit more about how that works? Is it menu-based, does it work via a map screen?

Jean-Francois Boivin: It is a sort of map system, yeah – it's sort of menu based at the very beginning, during the assassin's training period. So you recruit assassins by saving them in your own little way, and they ask to join your cause. You get to train them, send them on a few easy errands and build their experience up. The missions start to become progressively more important and risky, and you need to not be too eager in sending the wrong guys in to the wrong jobs.

As they get experience points, you can buy weapons and customise your brotherhood how you want. So you can have two guys that are proficient in blunt weaponry, a couple of long-range women who are great at free-running, and a few more that are good with the sword. Eventually these assassins will graduate and you can call on them to help you in specific environments.


SPOnG: So does it get to a point where you might be able to control one of these assassins yourself?

Jean-Francois Boivin: You can't play as any of them, and the reason for that is that you're playing as Desmond Miles' ancestor through an Animus. You can't play as another character as they wouldn't be an ancestor of Desmond – you do get to decide how they act and order them around though. That's the fantasy we want to give to the player.


SPOnG: Sounds like an interesting new twist to the stealth gameplay there. You'll probably say 'no' to this question, but was there ever a concern that, with this strategy-type gameplay, that you might be in danger of diluting that core stealth experience that Assassin's Creed is known for?

Jean-Francois Boivin: The answer to that is actually 'yes' – we were concerned about that. It ended up really being a question of balancing your things well. What you have to realise is that the brotherhood is not a critical path to the game's completion. You don't have to use them, these guys are just a tool in your arsenal, just like a throwing knife would be. You don't have to use the knife, but you do because you choose to and it's cool.

We did want to make sure that the whole thing didn't become exploitative though – where if you started using fellow assassins to help you out, you become this super powerful team that lets you ease your way through the game. It can't be like that, so we built missions specifically so that if you do decide to use your assassins, there's a high probability of you losing them in battle.

One you lose an assassin, you're not getting them back. He or she, is gone forever. So all that time you spent training them, buying them weapons and moulding them into your own image would have all been for naught, if you get too eager to use them in a combat situation.


SPOnG: One of the biggest additions to Brotherhood is in the multiplayer Wanted mode. If you want my opinion, it's a fantastically 'Assassin's Creed' way of approaching things, and I really quite love it. How did you guys manage to think of a mode like that – did it take years to develop?

Jean-Francois Boivin: Yes. Years. We've been dabbling with a multiplayer mode for a long time, and for us the number one thing we had to get right was that it shouldn't feel like a slapped on mode, or that it was cheap. It had to be respectful of the core values of Assassin's Creed, which is social stealth, navigation and fighting. So it had to consider those three pillars, be of high quality and reward those who played AC like a blade in the crowd. We went to the drawing board many times over, with many different playtest sessions and got loads of feedback, and we finally nailed it here. We're really proud of how it turned out.


SPOnG: Was there a specific moment during development where you figured something out and realised 'that's it – we have a legitimate multiplayer mode,' or was it a combination of events that led to you finally feeling like you've cracked it?

Jean-Francois Boivin: I don't think it was one particular event. It's like... how can I say it... we're in a beautiful park here, and can't help but use the analogy of nature, and how anything that you create and grow... how you would nurture it to make it strong, worthwhile and solid for years to come. Like that oak tree over there. It takes a lot of time, love, patience and care to eventually build the roots and foundations for something that solid, and it becomes really unique in its own way.

We didn't want to change what the core of Assassin's Creed was all about. It's like what we were talking about earlier, before this interview – it would have been super easy to just do a frag game. But that would have been a disservice to our core fans, which are predominantly single-player people. And for us it was important to have those guys say 'I'm mastering this single-player mode, know how to use all the skills – maybe the multiplayer is something I'd be interested in doing.'

The idea is for those who don't usually delve into multiplayer might feel encouraged to give it a try here. And it works the other way around too – people who are totally into their multiplayer games wouldn't normally buy Assassin's Creed because of the single-player nature of it, might try Brotherhood online and think it's pretty cool, and then explore the single-player story. It's win-win for us, really.