"Teacher Takayuki is so detailed! Why divide things up this finely? Aren't there so jobs that could be handled together?"
In every hall, the attendees—now divided into even more specific roles—wore labels on their chests indicating their assigned job. So of the job titles were ones they had never even heard of before.
For example, in the first hall, so writers originally assigned to be lead scriptwriters were further broken down into roles like "background character narrative designer."
What kind of job was that?
According to Takayuki's description, it involved designing the day-to-day behaviors of background NPCs—work typically deed unnecessary and often cut altogether by other ga companies to save on resources and manpower.
After all, for companies obsessed with profit, wouldn't it be better to use that ti to make more gas and earn more money?
But here, they didn't have to worry about a company boss breathing down their necks. They only had to follow Takayuki's guidance and unleash their creativity to the fullest.
...
As for those repetitive tasks—like redundant coding—they didn't need to worry about that either. Everyone was only responsible for their part of the process, and all they needed to do was focus on their section and offer ideas for improvent. Soone else would handle the rest.
In the first hall, Takayuki focused on explaining the narrative structure. On the main screen behind him, a single line was prominently displayed: "History is our playground."
Writers were tasked with drawing inspiration from the events of the Third Crusade, using real history as a foundation to create an imrsive player-driven story.
In the third hall, dedicated to programming, Takayuki unveiled the still-in-developnt Unreal Engine 4.
Originally, this was ant to debut at a major developers' conference, but to help everyone grasp the concept of industrialized ga developnt, he brought it out early.
This could be considered an "Unreal 3.5."
This version of the engine included a much more intuitive ga editor—many gaplay elents were pre-built, allowing developers to simply call up modules and slot them into their gas.
The third hall was the most crowded of them all, packed with programrs.
After all, code is the true core of ga developnt.
Other halls sent their gaplay needs to Hall Three, where programrs worked in teams based on specialty. However, they didn't need to write every line of code from scratch. Much of their work involved retrieving, tweaking, and validating existing modules—turning them into refined, bug-free systems.
At that mont, each person truly beca a cog in the machine. It might have seed chanical, but it was also bursting with energy.
Everyone gradually ca to understand the benefits of such detailed task separation.
But then they did a headcount—there were over two thousand people working on a single ga.
That kind of workforce was unimaginable in a traditional ga company.
In most studios, minimizing staff is the top priority. Fewer people ans higher profits. One person doing the work of three? Even better.
But that approach leaves developers buried under work, with no ti or energy to think creatively.
Here, even with twice the normal load, everyone could still keep up—and even co up with new ideas on the fly.
And so, Assassin's Creed slowly began to take shape.
The artists quickly produced hundreds of sketches—from environnts to characters, weapons, clothing, and more. They, too, discovered the benefit of specialization.
Just focus on doing one thing really well.
It might sound dull, but it prevented ntal burnout.
While everyone was imrsed in their roles, Oda Atsushi finally mustered the courage to approach Takayuki.
"Teacher Takayuki, I noticed you listed this ga's genre as 'open-world.' I think this is the first ti I've heard that term. Is it a new kind of ga?"
Takayuki, reviewing a side quest design at the ti, didn't look up. He nodded as he continued monitoring the project.
"It can be considered a new genre, yes. But similar gas have existed before. My old title, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Ti, could be considered an early form of open-world. You've played that one, right?"
Atsushi nodded eagerly. "Of course! That's one of my favorite gas! Riding across that wide-open land on horseback... is that what you an by an open-world ga? That sounds amazing!"
Takayuki replied, "No. Ocarina of Ti wasn't a full open-world ga yet—the detail wasn't quite there."
"Huh? Not even that counted as full open-world? Then what is a true open-world ga like?"
"In simple terms, it's about building an actual world. That's the goal of open-world design—giving players the freedom to do anything they want. As long as the developers can imagine it, and the programrs can make it work, the possibilities are endless."
"Think about what you can do in real life—play gas, work, fall in love, get married. In an open-world ga, you could turn all of that into gaplay. So of it might be tedious, sure—but it's still gaplay. Have you ever thought about what kinds of systems you would add?"
Atsushi replied instantly, "I'd want all kinds of adventure stories, like the classic RPGs I used to play! That can be included, right?"
"Of course," Takayuki said. "That's just the starting point. Open-world gas aim to create deeply imrsive worlds with internal logic and insane attention to detail. Even an unremarkable corner of the map might hide sothing special. That's the beauty of open-world gas. Oh—and by the way, my upcoming ga Monster Hunter: World will also explore open-world design. You'll see what I an when it's released."
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