Ubisoft announced that ships won’t be included in the multiplayer. First present day screens.
Lead multiplayer game designer Tim Browne from Ubisoft Annecy said: “You have to take into consideration that it took a very big dedicated team in Singapore about two-and-a-half years to do it for the solo [play]. In Black Flag it’s even better, but for solo. We’ve looked at it and we’ve considered it. We seriously considered it. We think it would be cool, but at the same time we tried it, and for technical reasons it’s impossible.”
Director Damien Kieken added: “One of the big added values of the naval battles in single-player is how they simulate the ocean. The ocean is really a toy. You have big waves, waves that stop your cannon balls: you have to play with the ocean. If you want that to be good in multiplayer, it means we have to perfectly replicate the ocean.”
“Over seven other consoles,” Browne said and Kieken added: “It was one of the big hurdles. We didn’t want to go into that. It definitely wasn’t feasible in the time [we had].”
Browne said that the concept of naval battles also sat in contradiction to Assassin Creed’s online play in general. “We looked at the DNA of multiplayer, and we thought that ship battles aren’t really being the cool assassin. With multiplayer it’s all about you working either as a team of four players or in free-for-all, where you want to be the best player. It’s not so much about piloting a ship and using cannons to destroy the opponent’s ship.”
