The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

How many studios worked on AC4 again? I vaguely remember seeing a video about the production, where the studios worked on different aspects of the game and a lot relied on communication and cooperation between all of the studios. I don't have anything against it, actually, as I was very satisfied with the way AC4 turned out. They might by pushing it a little too far with 10 different studios working together, though. They just put a lot of weight on internal communication, which I DO oppose. I'm afraid they'll spend too much time and effort on communication and less on actually making a great game.

ACIV was developed by 9 studios, altogether more than 4000 people. Who knows how big the 10 studios for this game are.

I would imagine the communication aspect would be difficult, but the good thing is they've had at least three AC games with many studios working on them, and I'd imagine they've gotten pretty good at coordinating them by now. not to mention this game has been in development since Brotherhood, so it's not like they've had to overly rush while putting it together.

Still, development costs must be completely insane for this series at this point, considering Comet and another AC game is in development at the same time. And then there's the obvious problems of parallel development: the games aren't building directly on the work done for each previous game, they're trying to be a worthy sequel to a game that's being built alongside them, without the direct guidance of all the people working on it.

It's why Call of Duty games often introduce a good feature, then the next years' game doesn't have it, then the next game moves on from that original good feature with something better, then the next game only has the original feature which is now out of date.

it's not an ideal way to develop games. Which is why focusing on getting a single game out, and only then beginning work on another often produces sequels that feel like bigger steps forward.

That approach cannot be easily substituted by throwing more people at a project.

I think we'd feel more confident if all of these studios worked on 1-2 games at a time rather than 3 or 4 (or however many there are at the moment). They need to be more focused on things. It's too risky trying to keep a cohesive series of games with a complex narrative with so many people working on half a dozen games at once. Knowing this makes consumers worry about sloppiness and poor quality overall with future installments, especially with the franchise's not-so-good history since it started "planning ahead".

I love these games, this unique story, and the ability to look back into history, but I'd rather it be these studios take 2 or 3 years at a time to make each game and focus JUST on that game. It's okay to plan ahead with a strategy for future games, but the world isn't going to end next year; there's no need to develop them so rapidly.

They should have compacted Brotherhood into several DLC packs (like King Washington for AC3 or Freedom Cry) for AC2 and made Revelations an hour and 30 minute animated movie while 90% of the focus could be on making AC3 the best AC game to date. But no, they decided they wanted to push a game down our throats every year so the dedicated fandom can throw their $60 each at them every single time.

Wow, that became a rant, didn't it?

they kept putting them out because gamers at large kept buying them. I don't think the people in charge feel they have any obligation to stop until they start selling less. And from a business perspective it makes sense, you've got a franchise that sells millions more copies each year, of course you'd want that moneymaker to keep going.

From a long-term perspective, they must know they can't keep doing this. I only hope that the massively balooning development costs convince them that they need to start playing it safer and release only every other year or something, because I doubt any significant dropoff in sales is coming this year. They still don't make Call of Duty numbers, and I hope they don't think they can muscle their way into doing so without first focusing on behaving in a way that will please their existing audience, giving new players time to get into their stuff, and focusing on doing what's actually best for improving their game. There are still issues with AC's gameplay that have been there from the beginning. still systems that haven't really been seriously developed or overhauled

And I also selfishly hope that they release less trailers due to the huge budget for the game... but I doubt that. I bet that means they get an even bigger ad budget, to be honest.