"I really shouldn't have bought this thing, let alone actually gone ho and played it."
A developer in Surei Electronics' ga developnt departnt muttered with so regret.
Originally, he had planned to go out and enjoy himself. But before leaving work, his departnt head had emphasized that everyone had to write a gaplay report on Assassin's Creed. Most people didn't take it seriously—he was just the one who obediently followed the order.
Only later did he realize that almost no one else had actually intended to take the ga seriously.
To them, as developers, this kind of ga no longer held much appeal. Once you've played one type of ga, the rest is just dissecting its chanics—no need to keep imrsing yourself in virtual worlds.
After all, ga developnt is still work. Not everyone can enjoy it the way people at Gastar Electronic Entertainnt do.
"...Well, guess there's not much point going out now. I might as well give it a try."
...
Earlier, he'd already watched the trailer and read the synopsis of Assassin's Creed: Revelations, so he had a general idea of the story. In short, a legendary assassin master travels to a new region to expand the Brotherhood, continues to clash with the Templars, and in the end... surprise, the Templars lose. Another big Templar boss gets taken down by Ezio.
The story was simple and predictable. Gars might still enjoy this kind of narrative, but he didn't. This was exactly the kind of content he dealt with daily—and he was sick of it.
As for the gaplay, Assassin's Creed was the poster child of formulaic design.
The previous three gas had already perfected the chanics. Breaking new ground was difficult. If they were going to innovate, they wouldn't wait until the fourth ga.
Even the trailer, to avoid spoilers, focused more on generic gaplay features—just old wine in a new bottle.
Like territory capture, tower defense, crafting explosives... all pretty standard stuff.
Surei Electronics could easily make a ga like this today.
He sighed and launched the ga.It began with a recap of past events in the Assassin's Creed series, and then transitioned into Ezio's story.
In Revelations, Ezio is over fifty, but still agile as ever.
In the opening cinematic, he's ambushed and captured by Templars, who try to hang him—but he escapes in classic, flashy Ezio style. Then the ga transitioned into player control.
"This cinematic is still top-tier," the developer muttered in admiration.
Gastar Electronic Entertainnt had the best engine in the world—Unreal Engine. Other companies could use it too, but no one used it like Gastar.
In fact, rumor had it that their internal version of Unreal was vastly different from the comrcial one—more powerful, more advanced.
Gastar's cinematics were now considered first-class.
In the early days, Unreal's strength lay in delivering 90% of blockbuster VFX quality at a fraction of the cost. Now, after years of iteration, it could deliver full-quality visuals without breaking the bank.
All the developer could do was admire from afar. He wasn't skilled enough to work for Gastar, so he had to settle for a job at Surei. But even so, the difference in developnt environnt and tools was clear.
After the cinematic, Ezio was ready to explore.
The ga began with a tutorial sequence tied into the story. Ezio needed to find a secret library and uncover hidden knowledge. But to access it, he needed keys scattered around the world—so the various regions would be Ezio's destinations.
"Yep. Just as I thought," the developer said calmly.
He already had the whole structure figured out. Ezio would arrive in a new city, take over a base, help so NPC assassins, defeat a local boss, and move on to the next area.
That was the standard formula for these gas.
To be fair, it was still the safest and most widely accepted model in ga developnt.
Takayuki had once said in a lecture that such templates weren't sustainable long-term—but they could yield short-term profits. Whether a company could evolve during this window depended on its own strength.
And so far, the window hadn't closed.
Sales of Revelations confird this.
On day one, it sold over 500,000 copies.Given its developnt budget of about $30 million—plus marketing, maybe $50 million total—breaking even would take about 1.5 million copies sold (considering physical distribution and retail cuts).
With the Assassin's Creed brand and Gastar's na behind it, it was sure to hit that mark.
After all, it was a solidly average ga—nothing less.
But for this developer, it was already getting dull.
After finishing the tutorial and defeating an early Templar boss, Ezio arrived in the Ottoman capital of Istanbul.
From there, the ga introduced important characters, explained the social environnt, and the local Brotherhood's growth goals.
Ezio also found ti to flirt—still a charr in his fifties.
The story wasn't anything surprising.It was clear this was all the ga had to offer.
The developer kept playing, bored but determined to finish.
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