He mentions that a pirate might go into battle armed with multiple single-shot pistols stuffed into various pockets.ĭoes this seem far-fetched, given that pirates were likely to have been poor and desperate men, rather than owners of extremely expensive weapons? Historian Mike Loades is an expert on the era. The historical elements are merely there to add a sense of authenticity.
That would not be very interesting.Ĭaribbean pirates existed, they murdered, raped and thieved, but they are also fantasies, like cowboys and gangsters. Ubisoft is not about to make a game in which the player staves off scurvy aboard a creaking boat for months at a time. It's not historically accurate, but this is a video game, not a history lesson.
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Ubisoft played a demo to us, of just such a scene, in which a lone attacker, ghosts onto a plantation, slaying or disabling about a dozen armed, professional soldiers along the way, none of whom are ever more than a few feet from an ally. We have, in our game, quite a number of plantations where you can sneak ashore and steal all the stuff from their warehouses." "They would use stealth, intimidation, raid on land, and hoof it back to their boat. Pirates, as often as they attacked naval targets, would go against land targets as well. "That informed a game design decision to dot our entire world with plantations. "I read about the sugar trade and plantations and how sugar was making British people in particular very wealthy," said McDevitt. Throughout the process they consulted tomes like The Republic of Pirates and The Sugar Barons. In the lanterns-swaying, biscuit-tapping dining-room of that estimable ship, we spoke at length about the clothes, weapons, politics, culture and language of the age, how the team had debated, researched and argued about minute details in order to get as close as possible to the authentic thing. Undoubtedly, McDevitt is both well-read in piracy lore and interested in his subject.
This was after I had done about four or five months of my own research with the team." "We sent people down to the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica. "We went on research trips," said Darby McDevitt, the game's writer.
Compared to most 'historical' games, Assassin's Creed is a Gibbon-esque monument to curiosity and research. During our visit, it was dressed up by Ubisoft as a pirate ship, for the purposes of throwing a Comic-Con party. Polygon sat down with the writer of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, as well as an actor who researched and played central character Edward Kenway, and an historian seconded to the project.Īppropriately, the interview took place around an old table in a 19th Century wooden sailing ship, a museum-piece. N o-one seriously expects genuine history in a franchise that has managed to tether itself to a daffy plot device about the Animus, and pseudo t ime-traveling tech-wizards.Įven so, the game's makers are at pains to point out the noble verisimilitude of their endeavor. Vaguely-approximately, sorta-kinda, the old days. This is historical fiction, video game style. He moves in time from the Renaissance to the War of Independence to the Age of Piracy, always in search of that wrong to right, that swash to buckle. Using a variety of dashing weapons, he sneaks around, dispatching those unfortunate goons born on the wrong side of history to shameful eternity. It demands a flinty central character who clambers across architecture and arching boughs. History is doomed to repeat itself, especially if you're the sort of person who likes to play Assassin's Creed games.