Assassin's Creed II dev team triples in size

NowGamer: Assassin's Creed II's development team is around three times bigger than the team that worked on the original game according to Ubisoft.

Producer Sebastien Puel told NowGamer that around 450 people are working on Assassin's Creed II, and that 75 per cent of the original Assassin's Creed team is working on the sequel.

[Xandet]

still no Jade..? :`(

[zoneofenders]

will the fun be tripled....?

[PistolPumptMonk]

Oh cool now we can have 27 of the same mission instead of 9!!

Haha just a joke, I think they have learned their lesson and hopefully Assassin's Creed II won't be repetitive at all. And even though the first one was pretty repetitive I still absolutely loved it. The climbing just really set it apart from other games and made me really enjoy it.

The real thing I'm wondering is how this game will stack up to Infamous since both of them are open world and involved climbing instead of cars for transportation. I think Infamous will be better but we'll have to wait and see.

Oh yeah come to think of it, Far Cry 2 was really repetitive as well and that was also made by Ubisoft. I wonder if its just how they make games now... Haha hopefully we will see an end to that trend. (By the way I also enjoyed Far Cry 2 as well but it was REALLY repetitive and a little disappointing in some respects)

[ThanatosDMC]

Hopefully that means more varied missions and things to do after the main storyline.

[fire23]

Holy moly, 450 people on one game! That's gargantuan.

[SuperM]

yea ive never heard of a dev team this big before, definately excited to see what they have acomplished. I expect big things from AC2.

[PotNoodle]

They said just under 1000 people contributed or worked on GTA4 :p

[dgroundwater]

Hopefully with this many people they will come up with three times the amount of stuff to do. If they have variety, they are sure to nail the rest.

[kingOVsticks]

With that many people,maybe they'll actually make the the game "Different" on both consoles by building a engine for both systems. Naaaww who wants that? Lets just all have the same game with the same graphics shall we :)

[LinuxGuru]

Gone are the days of console-specific optimization like you saw for PS2 / GCube / Xbox.

[mastiffchild]

Yes, sadly they are. People still like to think the multi platforms we get are made as well as they can be for either platform but it's probably more true that they're a compromise for 360 AND PS3.

Exclusives are your best guage of what your console can really do and, anyway, with two fairly close(in terms of potential buyers of games)platforms third party devs won't wish to alienate fans/owners of either-not to metion Sony or MS by making one look better than the other.

[SpoonyRedMage]

What you talking about with PS2/Gamecube/Xbox. I don't think I've played any multiplatform game that was superior. They were all dragged down to PS2 standard.

Care to name an example. I may be totally wrong.

[LinuxGuru]

1 perfect example is the Splinter Cell series. They looked FAR better on Xbox.

[LinuxGuru]

Here's another:

[Socomer 1979]

i want built in browser support like MGO, Burnout paradise,farcry 2 and killzone 2 thank you.

hee hee !

[poopface1]

It was sorta repetitive and WAY to easy, but I still think it was a true Next gen game. I see alot of potential for AC2 and it seems that they will really be able to build on the original this time. Im really looking foward to what they can do with the extra help and all the imput they recieved about the first. I really wouldnt mind playing AC1 again if there was a harder difficulty.

[Sony Rep]

That's a lot of money lost if this flops. ...

[PrimordialSoupBase]

Sequel to one of the fastest selling new IPs of all time? Chances are pretty slim on that.

[Mindboggle]

Dont forget there was alot of dissapointed people after the first one. Simply due to the repetitiveness of it. So i think its gunna be hard for them to sale as many as the first one.

[II Necroplasm II]

I enjoyed the first one pretty good, it had a good story. But I must say...it was a let down from all that hype.

[SuperM]

7 million + in sales on the first game. Ubisoft is really trying to make this a major franchise ala CoD/Gears/Halo

[Fishy Fingers]

Wow, coordinating that many people to work efficiently will be a huge challenge.

[DavidMacDougall]

That is why hiring Jade back should be number 1 on their list of things to do. I'd do anything she told me

[lord negative]

triple the size and it still sucks

[Perjoss]

I'll have to borrow your time machine some day.

[SuperM]

I think your time machine is broken, because i checked the game with my time machine and the game was f'ckin awesome.

[Traveler]

The first game, despite its faults was still one of the best games I have played this generation, and it is obvious that Ubisoft Montreal are well aware of the first game's negatives and are on course to make a much improved sequel in all areas.

Assassin's Creed was awesome and Assassin's Creed 2 is going to be a whole new level of awesome.

[lord negative]

i think the quantum sensor module was loose on your machine altering the traveling pattern of youre mahcine thus leading to you going into a parallel universe not into the future

[kaveti6616]

The first one didn't inhale forcefully, as you say, but it needed reworking. By the way, I used my time machine today and it told me Lord Negative's mother is... goddamn thing is acting up again. I need to go check on it. Toodle-oo

[lunaticpanda101]

that the law of diminishing returns doesn't occur lol

[Strelnikov]

you can't escape it, but if they have any idea what they're doing, I'm sure they evaluated the marginal utility of that 450th employee ;)

[kaveti6616]

My real worry is that the game has possibly been in development for a while and basically the team decided that everything sucked really bad so they drastically increased the size of the dev team to fix it as fast as they can. But this is just a worry, not a fact. It really depends on how long they have already been working on it. If they have been working on it for a year or so then my worry has some credit to it, but if they just started development then I think they're just trying to make it as complex as possible.

[ultimolu]

That's madness!

[LinuxGuru]

Madness...?

THIS

IS

SPARTAAAA!!!!

[ultimolu]

I just knew someone was gonna do something like that, lmfao.

[Gambit07]

Madness... This is Repetition!
Madness... This is Repetition!
Madness... This is Repetition!
Madness... This is Repetition!
Madness... This is Repetition!

[Traveler]

Yet even with its repetition it is still better than 90% of the games that have come out this generation.

Besides, people exaggerate its repetitiveness. The truth is, games like Gears of War or Resistance are essentially just as repetitive. I think some people simply don't understand what a game like Assassin's Creed is about.

Assassin's Creed had more variety than similar games like Tenchu, which also happens to be one of my favorite games, and I had an absolute blast playing it.

I know lots of people that loved the first Assassin's Creed and the second one is going to be even better.

[neogeo]

what do they mean 450 people working? that could be 300 extras they hired to walk around the city using camra capture then fire the next day. are they also counting the pizza deliver guy? there is no way 400 programmers are working on this game. most are just temps, like people that come in for a day to build some plastic stage prop, give them $50 and be gone!

[SuperM]

eh no there isnt 400 programmers working on the game. There are designers, artists, 3d animators, audio dudes and management just to name to name a few of the different people working on the game. Programmers are only 1 group out of many working on games.

Also how do you know that its not this many people working on the game? This is Ubisofts biggest franchise. Ofcourse they are gonna give the team all the resources they need to make this game great. They dont have any problem shipping in more people to help with the development process

[LinuxGuru]

450 people???? Wow.

[SonySoldierEternaL]

i was expecting more

[mastiffchild]

But if the games more complex than the last AND they want to release on practically every platform at the same time(BTW why a DS version of AC1 and no Wii?)then perhaps they have a localisation/port team for each. You never know they may also have a vast online MP mode and co-op missions on the cards.

Still though 450? There can't be a need for them all can there? I've tried but can't think they need that many(and I can't see them doing MP or a Wii/DS version this time).

[fire23]

To put that into perspective GOW3 has a team of 80, and KZ2 had a team of 130.

[SuperM]

Yea and Naughty Dog used to have around 90. Though i think they have hired a few more people since they are adding multiplayer in Uncharted 2. So im guessing Naughty Dog is just north of a 100 people.

Sucker Punch i think has just north of 60 people. So as you can see alot of the Sony dev teams are quite small in comparison. Sony's biggest studio is London Studios and they have about 270 people working there.

[El_Colombiano]

Whoa! Gurilla only had 130 on Killzone?! 450 people is INSANE. There simply is no way.

[Traveler]

Actually, Naughty Dog had around 70 people on their team towards the end of the production of Uncharted. The Naughty Dog team has got much bigger for Uncharted 2, but still, 450 people working on Assassin's Creed 2...that's just massive.

I can't wait for Assassin's Creed 2. The first one is in my top 5 favorite games this generation.

[Neurotoxin]

Hopefully half of which will be bug testing the game.

[The_Kills]

This game better be at least 3 times better than the original.

[Surfman]

450 doesnt mean the game will be triple better than the first one, it could just mean.. that the game will be made faster. Thats all.

[heyheyhey]

to everyone going "woah! no way!"

GTA4 had 1000 people working on it

[II Necroplasm II]

Seemed like 10.

[JayX666]

Too many cooks spoil the broth! But i do like AC so this is day one for me

[Traveler]

Assassin's Creed was an awesome game. The narrative, the atmosphere, the enormous and gorgeous cities, the fluid animations, the climbing and free-running mechanics, the combat system, the stealth kills and the freedom of gameplay in general made Assassin's Creed one of my favorite games of all time.

Sure it would have been even better if it would have had a little more variety in the mission types. But in all truthfulness it wasn't really any more repetitive than many types of games (shooters, racing, etc.)

I for one enjoyed every last minute of it. Any good addition to the game will only make it that much better.

Assassin's Creed 2 is one of my most anticipated games, along with such games as Uncharted 2, Mass Effect 2, God of War 3, Bioshock 2, inFamous, etc.
I can't wait. It is so nice to see that Ubisoft is sparing no resources in creating AC2. I think it will turn out to be one of the best games to come out this generation.

[dogmeat eater]

Are trying to figure out how to make AC2 less repetitive then the first.

[Traveler]

A new hero for a new era - Ezio Auditore de Firenze.

[Rhezin]

PUT IN SOME VARIETY! Anyways, from what I've seen in gameINFORMER, this game looks to be 10x sweeter than the first. Like the whole new setting also.

[maxcer]

the first AC was repetitive but the way they recreated some of the most important cities in history is why i came back to finish the game. i can see AC2 doing more of the same

[Persistantthug]

Hopefully they fix the second one. And to be honest, it wouldn't take that much fixing. All they had to do really was make decent missions.

Anyways...hope they fix it as the first 1 was about a 7.

[spirited]

if killzone had less than 150 people working on it then AC2 should be a AAA game or a big improvement over first one

if it does not i wish somebody shoot all of them in the nuts or send them to Afghanistan war to serve their country

[kaveti6616]

you.........fail.

450 people working on an open world game makes a lot of sense. In the first game I kept hearing the same fricking lines over and over again.

"He's going to hurt himself. And when he does, I'm not going to help him."

"I've never seen anyone do that before."

"Watch where you're going."

"You're not supposed to be here. Leave now."

"You. Yes, you. Come here and see my stock. I'm having a special sale just for today."

I haven't played the game in months and I remember those off the top of my head. Those 450 guys might be working on creating more unique lines of dialogue.

[xg-ei8ht]

DeathroW22 - 9 hours ago

They said just under 1000 people contributed or worked on GTA4 :p

Trouble is, 900 of them were working on the 360 version.

[kaveti6616]

Funny, still. Very funny, Mr. Sackboy

[xg-ei8ht]

I meant the PS3 version wasn't optimized enough:)