“Assassin’s Creed: Unity” Art Director Mohamed Gambouz gives fans a sneak peak into the extensive resources used to create the visuals for the next-gen exclusive title.
Gambouz spoke to the title’s official DevBlog about the process of creating the art for “Assassin’s Creed: Untiy”, which had up to 150 artists working to perfect the visual at any moment during production.
“Well, we start by reading and understanding what the game is about, usually via a pitch from the Narrative or Creative Director. In this case, the key themes were French Revolution and Paris. From there, we move on to doing a lot of research. This helps us both enrich the original vision, and provides inspiration for the art and designs,” Gambouz explained.
He added, “At this point, we start to develop a solid idea of what fits with the vision and what needs to be filtered out; usually referred to as the Concept stage. This could be anywhere from 6 months to the first year of development. Once we are all aligned on the art direction, then we dispatch that to the artists.”
The French Revolution historical period had a major impact in the visual used to create the backdrop for the title. The artists heavily researched the architecture of the time period to make sure they nailed down the Parisian style.
It was also important to the developers that each district in “Assassin’s Creed: Unity” had its own distinct identity.
“The overall direction for the game, and specifically Paris at the time was about the interplay between light, smoke, color and decay,” Gambouz told the DevBlog. “Those four themes can be seen in varying combinations throughout the different districts of Paris, and those combinations are what help to give each district its own identity.”
Read more about the art inspiration for Ubisoft’s upcoming title here. “Assassin’s Creed: Unity” will be released to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox one on Nov. 11.