Alex Amancio, creative director of Assassin's Creed: Unity, dropped in on the Major Nelson podcast this week, and revealed some incredibly juicy details about the difference that the new consoles have made to the series.
We really harnessed every ounce of power from both these consoles as much as we could, Amancio said, and proceeded to detail some of the improvements that players will benefit from.
For example, while the series has always been famous for its crowded city streets, in Unity that tech has been boosted by a factor of 25. So where the old games were limited to just 200 non-player characters on-screen at a time, Unity can handle 5,000 people. In one scene in particular, it even features 10,000 NPCs at once. And that doesn't mean thousands of figures going through looped animations, but real AI NPCs that you can interact with, and have them react to you.
Another benefit is that the game features no loading screens. You're able to go from a crowded city square in Paris, to the interior of a building, or down into the underground catacombs, entirely seamlessly.
And talking of buildings, a quarter of the buildings in the game's virtual Paris will have fully realised interiors, populated by characters who will give you bonus missions and other objectives. The level of detail is so high that they'll even have tables set for dinner, with individual knives and forks.
The list goes on and on, said Amancio. We could not have made this game [for] previous-generation consoles.
Assassin's Creed: Unity is out on 14 November for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. Owners of the PS3 or Xbox 360 shouldn't feel too left out though you get Assassin's Creed: Rogue on the same day, a title exclusive to those consoles.
