Ubisoft: "less space to create a narrative history" with the French Revolution

We sat down with Maxime Durand who's the resident historian working on the Assassin's Creed franchise and more specifically on Assassin's Creed: Unity. Durand, who joined Ubisoft four years ago revealed that a game based on the French Revolution was already being planned at that point.

"For the American Revolution we had to go deep into the details to understand everything and then bring something interesting for the players," said Durand. "For the French Revolution it's very different, cause everything is well known, it's well documented and it's interesting but there's maybe less space for us to create a narrative history for our assassins through that. So we have to choose very wisely. And to understand very well the period and tell that to the player, but in the meantime tell something that's new and interesting while using all this historical period's landmarks that are just crazy and everyone expects."

Durand also explained how the character of Arno married with these well known historical events and how they chose to incorporate them into the game.

"The whole idea narratively and also for the gameplay is we wanted to go back to a stealthier approach. So basically we changed our narrative approach to that. So we stay a bit further away from history than we were for instance with AC III. So our goal is not to have Arno in every set, and like have him play the main role for everything. History is really the background, the backdrop for AC:U. It's really his history and his story with Elise also that matters and history with the assassins, but in the meantime we still want to give a good historical background to the players."

Assassin's Creed: Unity is set for release on PC, PS4, Xbox One this November.