Sailing the treacherous seas was the best part of Assassin’s Creed III, so we all jumped for joy a little bit when it was announced that Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag would place us in the shoes of pirate Edward Kenway and allow us to plunder and pillage our way through the Caribbean.
Prior to the game’s release later this month, I had a chat with Lead Scriptwriter Darby McDevitt and Lead Game Designer Jean-Sébastien Décant to discuss bringing stealth to the game’s Caribbean setting, its dangerous wildlife and even cheekily suggesting what the setting should be for Assassin’s Creed V. Well, you’ve got to make the most of these opportunities, haven’t you?
CraveOnline: The Assassin’s Creed series has always rooted itself in history, albeit with a few notable twists and turns here and there. How grounded in reality is ACIV’s story?
JEAN-SEBASTIEN DECANT: As grounded as any other Assassin’s Creed title, I think. We take great pride in bringing history to life in a credible manner. So while this means we often have to tweak events and facts for gameplay reasons, we do not alter timelines in drastic ways. And then of course there is always the sci-fi thread that runs through the series… and here we have more fun with that than ever before.
What inspired you to take the series down the swashbuckling route?
DARBY McDEVITT: Two intersecting ideas came together to lead us to the pirates of the West Indies. For one, we were happy with the way the naval battles were coming together in Assassin’s Creed III and by the summer of 2011 many of us wanted to attempt an Assassin’s Creed game with an open naval world. At the same time we had the idea of doing a game about another character in the Kenway family, to create a family “saga”, and the grandfather Edward was our favorite idea. Combining those ideas sets us up nicely for a pirate game, since Edward’s life would have unfolded right around the end of the Golden Age of Piracy. A perfect fit.
In what ways should players expect to be able to embrace the pirates’ life?
JS: Beyond engaging into bar brawls with drunken pirates, looking for hidden treasures on remote islands and stealing cargo on slavers plantations, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is all about pirating on the high seas at the helm of the Jackdaw, the ship Edward manages to secure early in the game. We consider the Jackdaw as one of the main characters of the game with which you will be able to engage, board and plunder the whole Spanish and British navies stationing in the Caribbean. You will then be able to invest the loot in ship upgrades: improving its hull, number of cannons, expanding the crew quarters and so on. And the more you become famous as a devil of the sea, the more the authorities will send mercenary ships with blood red sails to hunt you to the end of the world. Dozens hours of fun to be had here solely on the naval loop.
How impactful is the tropical setting on the gameplay?
JS: The Caribbean impacts both the visuals and the navigation. With its lush tropical settings and moods, Assassin’s Creed has never been so colorful and inviting. While in terms of navigation the biggest improvement resides in the combination of buildings and vegetation. Basically we brought the forest from the frontier of Assassin’s Creed III and fused it with more traditional AC cities, creating more opportunities for fluid parkour navigation: from ground to tree, from tree to roof, from roof to branch, from branch to wall and so on. It helps to stay above the action which is great fun as Assassin’s Creed is always better when you play from a position above the action, like a predator.
The other significant novelty is the underwater gameplay: the diving sites you access with a diving bell, a tool used at the time by sailors to reach the bottom of the sea. There are around ten diving sites in the game, each one showcasing a unique setting, like a beautiful coral location or a sunken Mayan temple. These sites are filled with nasty sharks and if above the sea Edward is the predator, underwater he is the prey. If you manage to stay out of sight and hide in the seaweeds though, you will uncover lots of treasures, some of them containing forgotten ship blueprints that are key into fully upgrading the Jackdaw.
Pirates aren’t thought of as being particularly stealthy. Does this mean that sneakiness is taking a backseat for more action-oriented gameplay?
DARBY: On the contrary, there are a number of stories of pirates being sneaky in actual history – Henry Morgan’s attack on Panama and Charles Vane’s attack on a French encampment to name a few – but people aren’t aware of these fantastic stories because the image of pirates has been so neutered and watered down by 100 years or more of pop culture. The fact is, real pirates attacked ground targets almost as often as they attacked naval targets, and this necessarily required a reliance on stealth. So you can expect quite a lot of stealth in Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag – more so than in some previous titles, in fact.
<< On the next page we talk about the Caribbean environment, pirate violence, and more! >>
