“We’ve spent four years building the best game we could imagine. Why would we ever do anything to hold it back?” Pontbriand goes on to say that he understands why someone might think that’s the case based on a recent interview, adding “I simply chose the wrong words when talking about the game’s resolution, and for that I’m sorry.”
“This is something that the new hardware allows us to do,” Pontbriand says about the number of characters on screen. Of course, massive crowds are also part of the story of the French Revolution, so it was essential to the game’s setting. “We want you to feel that density, the chaos that was happening back then. Paris was a huge city, with almost a million people. So we cranked up our number of NPCs.” Keep in mind that previous Assassin’s Creed games could support around 100 to 150 NPCs; Assassin’s Creed Unity has crowds of thousands of NPCs on screen, and you can interact with each and every one them.
And then there’s Paris itself. It’s almost a cliché to talk about the beauty of Paris – but it’s also undeniable. And the Paris of Assassin’s Creed Unity? It’s no different.
And yet, the Paris of AC Unity is also unique: It’s the first in the franchise to feature an almost 1:1 scale. (In previous games the buildings were roughly three-quarter size.) That’s significant because “everything is bigger, larger, closer to real life,” says Pontbriand.
The beauty of the setting, along with the volume of NPCs, the size of the city and the number of overlapping systems combine to make this a truly next-gen game – and one that takes full advantage of what the newest consoles offer. Which, of course, had some gamers wondering: If this is a truly new-gen game, why not deliver it in full 1080p on both consoles?
The answer is both simple and complex. Assassin’s Creed Unity is pushing the new-gen systems more than any other Ubisoft game has ever done. A quick look at the visuals – the city itself, the crowds, Arno in motion – will show how beautiful and how “next-gen” the game truly is.
“We know a lot of gamers consider 1080p with 60 frames per second to be the gold standard, especially on the new generation of consoles,” Pontbriand says. “We realize we had also pushed for 1080p in some of our previous games, including AC4. But we made the right decision to focus our resources on delivering the best gameplay experience, and resolution is just one factor. There is a real cost to all those NPCs, to all the details in the city, to all the systems working together, and to the seamless co-op gameplay. We wanted to be absolutely uncompromising when it comes to the overall gameplay experience. Those additional pixels could only come at a cost to the gameplay.”
“This is something that the new hardware allows us to do,” Pontbriand says about the number of characters on screen. Of course, massive crowds are also part of the story of the French Revolution, so it was essential to the game’s setting. “We want you to feel that density, the chaos that was happening back then. Paris was a huge city, with almost a million people. So we cranked up our number of NPCs.” Keep in mind that previous Assassin’s Creed games could support around 100 to 150 NPCs; Assassin’s Creed Unity has crowds of thousands of NPCs on screen, and you can interact with each and every one them.
And then there’s Paris itself. It’s almost a cliché to talk about the beauty of Paris – but it’s also undeniable. And the Paris of Assassin’s Creed Unity? It’s no different.
And yet, the Paris of AC Unity is also unique: It’s the first in the franchise to feature an almost 1:1 scale. (In previous games the buildings were roughly three-quarter size.) That’s significant because “everything is bigger, larger, closer to real life,” says Pontbriand.
The beauty of the setting, along with the volume of NPCs, the size of the city and the number of overlapping systems combine to make this a truly next-gen game – and one that takes full advantage of what the newest consoles offer. Which, of course, had some gamers wondering: If this is a truly new-gen game, why not deliver it in full 1080p on both consoles?
The answer is both simple and complex. Assassin’s Creed Unity is pushing the new-gen systems more than any other Ubisoft game has ever done. A quick look at the visuals – the city itself, the crowds, Arno in motion – will show how beautiful and how “next-gen” the game truly is.
“We know a lot of gamers consider 1080p with 60 frames per second to be the gold standard, especially on the new generation of consoles,” Pontbriand says. “We realize we had also pushed for 1080p in some of our previous games, including AC4. But we made the right decision to focus our resources on delivering the best gameplay experience, and resolution is just one factor. There is a real cost to all those NPCs, to all the details in the city, to all the systems working together, and to the seamless co-op gameplay. We wanted to be absolutely uncompromising when it comes to the overall gameplay experience. Those additional pixels could only come at a cost to the gameplay.”
They previously said that they made both console versions locked to the same specifications to "avoid all the debates and stuff." Then they turn around and said that "Ubisoft does not constrain its games." Interesting.
So, if you are still interested in Unity, you have a few choices here. You can either deal with 900p and the super cinematic 30 frames per second on the consoles thanks to parity or you can get the PC version and deal with Uplay. Which is the lesser of two evils here?
(via Ubisoft)
