Interview with Charles Benoit: Assassin's Creed Shadows Game Director

Welcome to the first article in a new series of interviews covering all things Assassin's Creed Shadows. Today we are joined by Game Director Charles Benoit from Ubisoft Quebec!

Col: Hi Charles, thank you for joining us for this interview.

Please can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your role on Assassin's Creed Shadows.

Charles: Hi! I’ve been working on the AC Brand for over 10 years now, starting on AC Freedom Cry and now Game Director on AC Shadows.

Col: When did you first begin working on the project, and why did Ubisoft ultimately decide that the time was right to create an Assassin's Creed game set in Feudal Japan?

Charles: I started working on Shadows a little more than 4 years ago. Honestly, it’s hard to know why, but I always wanted since I started on the brand to do an AC in Japan. It’s pretty much a mix of timing on which game we did before, what fans want, which team is available, etc.

Col: Did the development team visit Japan at any point during production for inspiration?

Charles: Yes we did! It was the best trip of my life. It was intense but we visited a big part of what we have in Shadows in term of landscape and historical locations, so for sure it was very inspirational.

Col: What would you say were some of the main inspirations behind Assassin's Creed Shadows, perhaps movies, other games or comic books?

Charles: I cannot talk for the whole team, we all of different inspirations, but for me, of course past AC games, but also a lot of Stealth games such as Metal Gear or even the good old Tenchu series.

Col: What can you tell us about the lead motion-capture and performance actors for Assassin's Creed Shadows, Masumi Tsunoda and Tongayi Chirisa. How did they find the overall experience?

Charles: I wasn’t involved with MOCAP. I know the team really felt in love with those actors, I especially like Tongayi as Yasuke and it’s probably one of the reason why I always have hard time to pick between Immersive mode where language is Japanese and the English version.

Col: Have you visited any other locations from the Assassin's Creed series?

Charles: I didn’t have the chance to visit other locations. It’s always a small group of directors and art-oriented discipline that goes in those inspirational trips and on past AC projects I was directly in the production as Game Designer.

Col: What would you say makes Assassin's Creed Shadows different to other games in the AC franchise?

Charles: Clearly the Dual Protagonist gives a unique vibe on how you play it and how you discover the story from different points of view. I would say the seasons are also a great game changer on how you perceive the world and the time passing.

Col: Can we expect encounters with wildlife whilst exploring the world of Assassin's Creed Shadows?

Charles: You will encounter animals while exploring the world, but you know, there is not a lot of dangerous animals in Japan except the cute bear with round ears. So, we

decided to keep wildlife peaceful; you cannot hurt them, they won’t hurt you and you can hunt them to paint them.

Col: It's been mentioned previously that the game features 'Seasons' and dynamic weather cycles. How long does a season last roughly, and can players change it manually?

Charles: We split the seasons in 8 chunks, so the start and the end of the 4 seasons. Each chunk is a bit more than 1h of gameplay time where winter is a bit longer since it’s

so unique and it will switch automatically when you fast travel.

You can decide to switch it manually when the time is up if you don’t want to fast travel, but not at any moment since we have multiple systems tied to season switch and it would break the economy.

Col: Looking at the gameplay released during the marketing campaign, it looks like a lot of effort went into creating new animations for Naoe and Yasuke, from parkour to combat. Are there any new animations in particular that will excite players?

Charles: There are a ton of new animations that are fantastic. It’s really hard to pick just a few examples. Personally, I feel the Assassinations are worth mentioning; they are fast and efficient to really work well with the small stature of Naoe. I also love the flips in the parkour, but also the beam walk of Yasuke. There are some funny ones like the “Leap of fail” of Yasuke when he destroys the haystack and some really intense like all those over-the-top Abilities and Finishers. You see, I have a hard time to stop!

Col: Compared to other games in the Assassin's Creed series, how big would you estimate the map to be?

Charles: We compare it to Origins. The map is really large, but it’s surrounded by the sea and mountains, so we can compare the playable space to Origins.

Col: As Naoe is noticeably quicker than previous protagonists, can we expect mounts such as horses to also be faster when exploring the world?

Charles: Yes the horses speed has been increased so Naoe is not faster than a horse and the horses are still relevant to navigate long distance.

Col: Will a photo mode tool be available at launch?

Charles: Yes of course!

Col: What sort of collectibles will players be able to find in the world?

Charles: We have a couple of them, linked to your progression or your quests. For example, you’ll find Hideout cosmetic in chests that you can then use to decorate. We also have few quests that ask you to find Clan’s Crests, food from different regions, Kano painting, Tea set for Sen no Rikyu and Valuables inside some Tenshu.

Col: Are you pleased with the response to the game from fans so far, and how excited are the team for launch?

Charles: Since the last few months, we’re very hyped by the feedbacks we received from our deep dive articles, the Preview event reception and our internal playtests.

We’re working hard to keep pushing the quality of Shadows and we feel it’s paying off.

Col: What would be your dream setting for a future Assassin's

Creed game?

Charles: It’s a hard question because my dream setting was Japan. I would love to continue exploring Japan, there is so much we can do in this period or even after. We’ll see what fans want, there is always something great to discover and learn in any setting and time period.

Col: Describe Assassin's Creed Shadows in three words.

Charles: “Shinobi-Samurai-Fantasy"

We would like to say a huge thank you to Charles for joining us for this interview, and to Ubisoft for making it happen. In particular, we acknowledge the efforts of Dan St Germain from the AC Community Team!

Look out for more interviews in the series, coming soon!