Assassin’s Creed 3 is one of the most controversial entries in Ubisoft’s long-running series, but it still remains a beloved and ambitious adventure that pushed the franchise forward. Alongside the decision to kill Desmond Miles, the game was heavily criticised for its controversial intro.
See, Assassin’s Creed 3 essentially has two intros, one of which being a bait and switch. While the game was heavily advertised to be a story about its half-Mohawk cover star Connor, the game actually starts with an hours-long section where you play as the character’s dad Haytham Kenway.
Creative Director Alex Hutchinson—who recently released the brilliant co-op adventure game Revenge of the Savage Planet—told FRVR that there was never a point where the game wouldn’t start with players jumping into the shoes of Haytham Kenway.
As the twist villain of the game, the team behind Assassin’s Creed 3 wanted to do something unique with the Animus bloodline and place players in the shoes of their eventual enemy.
“It’s hard in franchise [development] especially with lots of marketing to have any surprise and any freshness and we wanted that, or at least I did,” Hutchinson explained. “So the idea [was] that Haytham would be Connor’s dad and, spoiler, that he would be a Templar and then, spoiler, he would be the villain.”
“If we were doing it again, you know, we [would’ve] trimmed down the start probably a bit”
Alex Hutchinson on AC3’s long intro
Hutchinson explained that this decision came from the fact that “in video games, you’re always taught you have to conquer this villain, but you really don’t care about the villain because you’ve never met the villain, and this villain’s never done anything to you.” Instead of simply being told they’re the villain, the team wanted players to get to know and “play as the ultimate villain” and see how he shapes the world your character is eventually born into.
Unfortunately, this came with some issues: Assassin’s Creed 3 essentially has three intros and three tutorials: the modern day Desmond intro, the Haytham Kenway into, and then the Connor intro. All together, the game’s trilogy of tutorials feels extraordinarily long, something Hutchinson admits wasn’t caught during development.
“I think it’s too long,” he explained. “But you don’t see that until, you know, the last two months [of development]. So, the exact timing of things—because you’re waiting for things to work or things to come on—then it gets longer because that becomes the tutorial section where we’re also teaching you [the mechanics].”
Hutchinson explained that it didn’t help that Assassin’s Creed 3’s modern day sections were almost optional. While at some point you had to do them, it was up to the player to decide when, and that meant the team wasn’t in full control of pacing out the different characters. If the developer had the chance to go back in, he would’ve taken that choice away.
“If we were doing it again, you know, we [would’ve] trimmed down the start probably a bit… and then we’d probably force you to do the present day stuff as it appeared.”
Assassin’s Creed 3 certainly takes some missteps, but to this day it’s remembered as a fantastic entry in the long-running series. There are still fans upset about the death of Desmond Miles—although that’s also largely to do with how Ubisoft has handled the modern day story ever since—but it’s mostly still beloved.
