Assassin's Creed creator offers candid take on blockbuster game development

It'll strike most as the most redundant of truisms, but making blockbuster video games involves a fair bit of compromise. If you're the 'creator' of the game, you need to not only collaborate with hundreds of people on its creation, but you also need to please the businessfolk upstairs. And that holds especially true when it comes to a series as massive as Assassin's Creed. Recent comments by its creator Patrice Desilets are exemplary.

Speaking to Gameology, via Gamespot, Desilets laid out some of the reasons he left Ubisoft shortly after the release of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood in 2010. "My biggest struggle with being in an organization is that I was the guy at the end or in the middle also… I was the guy doing interviews like what we're doing right now and I had to come up with political lying and I would receive comments and decisions made by other people and not me because it's all about compromising when you're in a big organization somehow," he said. 

"And as my role, the creative director, it's tough to live by the decisions of others when being in front of the camera or Skype and I said I'm not a really good liar so I can't do it anymore. And then I also realized that when you do a really big franchise, you also make money for other people and they don't really care about you. So I said, enough! if I do another Assassin's Creed at least it would be for me and my guys and also for Quebec and for my people in Montreal."

Desilets inevitably worked for Ubisoft again, when the publisher bought THQ Montreal. He didn't stick around though, and amid a confusing flurry of legal squabbles he left and joined Panache Studios, which is currently developing Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey. It looks like we'll be hearing more about that during 2017.

Shaun Prescott
Australian Editor

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.

Latest in Assassin's Creed
Assassin's Creed Shadows promo image
Ubisoft scores a legendary ratio against Elon Musk on his own platform—which hopefully marks a final end to all the Assassin's Creed Shadows' culture war nonsense
Assassin's Creed Shadows immersive mode - Naoe holding a tanto in her hand as two guards fall to the ground behind her.
Assassin's Creed Shadows' first hotfix addresses stability issues and a photo mode crash
Naoe looking at the wrist blade in Assassin's Creed Shadows
Ubisoft says don't compare Assassin's Creed Shadows' success to Valhalla: The latter launched in Covid's 'perfect storm' and feedback on platforms 'less affected by review bombing' is stellar
Assassin's Creed Shadows change seasons - An upper-body shot of Yasuke looking cheerfully up into the distance.
Assassin's Creed Shadows is a hit and Steam played a 'significant role' in that: 27% of activations were on PC and it's the 2nd-biggest AC launch of all time
assassin's creed shadows review
Assassin's Creed Shadows streamer goes viral after confronting whining commenters: 'Normal people don't get upset about this sh***'
Assassin's Creed Shadows change seasons - An upper-body shot of Yasuke looking cheerfully up into the distance.
'This is just the beginning': Assassin's Creed Shadows dev team thanks fans for their support and promises more to come in the future
Latest in News
An Enshrouded player in a recreation of Erebor from The Lord of the Rings
Kings under the Mountain! 33 Enshrouded players spent 10,000 hours to recreate this iconic location from The Lord of the Rings
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened