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

SPOnG: Working for a European publisher, do you lament the fact that a lot of attention is going to these first-person shooter frag games in the West? Do you feel that game design has taken a hit with the popularity of these kinds of games?

Jean-Francois Boivin: No, I mean there's lots of different games being made in lots of different places. There's certainly something to be said about North American culture and guns – there's definitely a connection to be made there.

But you see, Canada's not really got a gun culture, but Modern Warfare 2 is hugely popular there. I don't think there's a direct correlation with that one, considering our studio is North American. Sure, we're a French publisher, but the game has been created, imagined, developed and coded in Montreal. You could of course say that Montreal is very much a European city in its culture, and that's true...

I think we have to be very shy in making these types of comparisons, though. We shouldn't really be saying things like 'all Japanese games are really long, with cute little characters' for example, because that's not the case and we all know that. I don't know man, I just don't see a correlation there at all.


SPOnG: Assassin's Creed has become one of the main pillars in stealth gaming – some other high-profile titles being Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell. But it could be argued that those games have been watered down somewhat with a heavier focus on action rather than stealth. Assassin's Creed hasn't really diverted from that – do you feel that is true?

Jean-Francois Boivin: No, I think the stealth genre - like any genre - needs to evolve, or else it dies. I think that's the impression that some might have with the original stealth game being slow-paced gameplay where you hide in the shadows.

Assassin's Creed also does a bit of that – we're evolving in what you can do, and to a degree we broke out of that slow-paced stealth by giving you a social stealth to take advantage of. But you don't have to use it. You can play the game Rambo-style if you wanted. It's personally not as satisfying to do it, and you're certainly not going to be rewarded for doing it in the multiplayer campaign, but the freedom to do so is there.

I think Splinter Cell Conviction did a really good twist on the stealth genre, where it's more action-stealth. Max Beland, the creative director for Splinter Cell, always likes to use the 'sexy panther' analogy – in that you don't want stealth to be a grandmother walking into a room. You want it to be a panther pouncing on its victim. That changed the entire pace of Splinter Cell from a philosophical standpoint.

A lot of people thought that was refreshing, and in general it's always healthy to try and put a new twist on something that works well, for the sake of giving the franchise new life. Sometimes it fails miserably, but I think that every so often we can find something really interesting.


SPOnG: Can we expect any more surprises and cultural references in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, such as Uncle Mario's “It's-a me, Mario!”?

Jean-Francois Boivin: One of the things I love about this license, as well as Ezio and Assassin's Creed 2, is the humorous aspect of it all, and we try to put a lot of humour and witty comments in there from time to time. That's not going to change. We want to keep the smart players involved, and have some very subtle cultural references for some people to get. And some won't get it, but that doesn't matter.

There's not going to be another “It's-a me, Mario!” moment – that was done, we've gone past that now. That was meant as a nice homage to Nintendo and a little quirk. There will definitely be some 'WTF' moments in there though, like at the end of AC2. But mostly, we'll be closing some of those doors that we've been opening since the beginning of the game and offering some closure on it all.


SPOnG: Thanks a lot for your time.

Jean-Francois Boivin: Cheers, thank you very much.

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood is heading for an 18th November 2010 release on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC platforms.