0:01

I'm not pulling up my driveway. We all know

0:03

what that means. It's time for the drive to

0:05

work at Home Edition. So

0:07

today we're talking Assassin's Creed, and I had

0:09

the lead designer, Corey Owen with us to

0:11

talk all about it. Hey, Corey. Hey,

0:14

Mark. How's it going? Okay. So let's

0:16

go back to the very beginning. You

0:19

were told you were going to leave

0:21

the design for Assassin's Creed. What is the

0:23

first thing you did? Oh,

0:26

man. Assassin's Creed. The first thing I

0:29

did was look up how

0:31

many games came out since I

0:34

had last played in my childhood,

0:36

essentially. I last played around Assassin's

0:38

Creed Brotherhood, which I believe

0:40

was near the original trilogy.

0:43

And then since then, so many games have came out. And

0:46

there was so much more content to devour

0:48

and learn Absorb. So

0:51

did you play a lot of Assassin's Creed in preparation?

0:54

I did. I got like four

0:56

to six. I got a bunch

0:59

of different titles from

1:01

different eras to play a little bit

1:03

of. I think the games are

1:06

so expansive and so big that I didn't

1:08

finish all of them. I'm more like

1:10

I started each of them to explore

1:12

what was felt new, what was

1:14

fresh. The core of the mechanics were essentially played

1:18

them for a few hours each, and then started

1:20

doing other research as well after I felt like

1:22

I could take away what I thought the main

1:24

feel of the games were. Okay,

1:27

so when you and I have talked about

1:29

this and you broke down

1:32

the design into three qualities that you

1:34

thought were the essential qualities of Assassin's

1:36

Creed. So the three things you said that

1:38

Assassin's Creed are about assassins, about

1:41

history, and about movement or a parkour.

1:44

So we're gonna talk about each of the three of them today. So

1:46

let's start with the assassins because other

1:49

than Creed, what is Assassin's Creed about? Yeah,

1:52

I mean, Assassin's Creed at its

1:54

core is you play as assassins

1:56

throughout moments in time, and

1:58

you're doing a lot of stealth action. gameplay, you're

2:01

taking people out in a stealthy way or in

2:03

a front way, whatever

2:05

style you want. But in every game,

2:07

you're playing as a different character who

2:09

is part of this secret order of

2:11

assassins against a different secret order often.

2:14

So hey, the game's

2:17

about assassinations. We have assassins in magic,

2:19

so we know what we think they

2:22

do in magic, typically destroying creatures. Yeah,

2:26

I guess that's where we're headed. Okay,

2:29

so you knew you wanted to capture assassins. So

2:31

right, the first thing you looked at was assassin

2:33

typals. So how did you approach

2:35

assassin typal? Yeah, I

2:37

mean, it's tricky. So when I got the file

2:40

handed to me, there was a little

2:42

bit of like a provision work where

2:45

there was a small team that

2:47

worked on a small sprint to

2:49

explore what colors things could

2:51

be and if it could match up

2:53

to a set well, and it was

2:56

so interesting. They said, Okay, this is

2:58

Assassin's Creed. The assassins are red, black

3:00

protagonists and the the antagonist

3:02

will be that the templars which are

3:04

like a blue, white antagonist. And so

3:06

the first thing that I sat down

3:09

with is looking at all these assassins

3:11

and thinking about assassin typal and thinking

3:13

about what colors they would go into

3:15

and trying to figure out where the

3:17

different spread of protagonists and main characters

3:19

would go towards and would they funnel

3:21

in red, black or not? I think

3:23

I ended up mostly like

3:26

some of your like assassins assassins

3:28

your assassins that really care about

3:30

assassins will will be

3:32

in the Mardu colors. I do

3:34

have a red, black card that

3:36

does very straightforward like give

3:38

your assassins plus two plus so. So there

3:41

is a you know, yes, red, black,

3:43

that's the assassin assassin. There's also blue, black

3:45

cards that care for assassins matter. There's

3:47

a whole mechanic that cares a little bit

3:49

about assassins. There's a Mardu legend that

3:51

cares about assassins matter. But more than that,

3:54

there are legends in all colors and

3:56

a bunch of multi color legends that are

3:58

assassins. So not Not everything is Assassin's

4:00

Matter, but certainly the red-black stuff leans that

4:02

way a lot. Okay,

4:05

so, I mean,

4:08

the one thing historically, whenever you're playing in type 1, you

4:10

have to look historically at what it is, and Assassins

4:12

are pretty heavy black, right? There's not a

4:14

lot of Assassins historically that are outside of

4:16

black. Oh, no,

4:19

there's very, very few Assassins in Magic

4:21

the Gathering that aren't black, and the

4:23

ones, like, there's some red ones, there

4:25

really are, but they're like, memes, almost,

4:28

or they're just very goofy cards

4:31

with loose mechanical relevance. Even

4:33

that, the black Assassins are like Royal

4:36

Assassins, which is a card that taps

4:38

to destroy a tapped creature. There's

4:41

just a bunch of Assassins that are disconnected,

4:43

destroying stuff. They don't have synergy with each

4:45

other in current Magic. So

4:48

this is more fabricating an

4:50

Assassin's strategy for

4:53

a larger format, like Commander Omos for the

4:55

cards, and we do have to care about

4:57

Assassins. And there was

4:59

also a point where I was quite

5:01

happy to see Outlaws of Thunder Junction,

5:03

one of the sets in the same

5:06

year, create their mechanic, the Outlaw mechanic,

5:08

which is a batching of several types,

5:10

including Assassins. So they would generate some

5:13

Assassin's Matter cards as

5:15

a collateral and make some Assassins along

5:17

the way. And in

5:19

addition to that, Murders

5:21

of Markov Manor, hold

5:25

on, is it Karloff? Sorry. Murders

5:27

of Karlov Manor. Murders of Karlov

5:29

Manor was set on a Ravnica, and

5:31

there was a bunch of detectives and

5:33

killings going on. So I

5:35

knew they would have a little of Assassin,

5:37

and actually towards the end of that design

5:40

team, towards the end of that design

5:45

sprint, I had put

5:47

in some notes to try to get some

5:49

of their cards turned into Assassins because

5:52

I wanted a little bit more back support for

5:55

Assassin's Creed. Another thing

5:58

that happened is that Kind

8:00

of the conceit of the game is

8:02

that you're using some sort of mod

8:04

like you are actually playing as a

8:07

character in the modern day Who is

8:09

using a piece of technology to revisit

8:11

the memories of assassins? So when you're

8:13

playing as assassin You're actually playing as

8:15

a character who is reliving the memories

8:18

of assassin and kind of touring that

8:20

old historical world and every game Has

8:22

a different historical setting whether it be

8:24

Renaissance Italy or colonial America or? Like

8:28

a Greco-Roman and Greece kind of

8:30

adventure or an Egyptian adventure They

8:33

all kind of tour these different historical areas and

8:35

what you'll find is a lot of the sausage

8:38

green fan base Even

8:40

if you don't like the assassins or

8:42

you don't like the through-line narrative throughout

8:45

the games there's so much love

8:47

and focus on this like enjoyment

8:49

of playing in these

8:52

Historically recreated areas it's like I'm using

8:54

Greece as a playground Renaissance. It is

8:57

my prey playground. I'm running around it

8:59

I'm hiding among it. I'm within the

9:01

people This is the

9:03

architecture. I want to see that that reminds me of

9:06

that kind of historical era So

9:08

history is such a huge theme in the narrative

9:10

But also if you if you don't care about

9:12

the narrative at all, it is such a draw

9:14

to so many players I believe

9:16

there are some games that even have certain

9:18

modes or a DLC That's just

9:21

lets you explore the area. There's no combat. No

9:23

fights or whatever. It's almost like a museum mode

9:26

I believe that is true. I could be wrong. So

9:28

please don't hurt me internet But

9:30

regardless history is huge history is a huge

9:32

huge factor in this game for so many

9:34

reasons and they Ubisoft really tries far

9:37

to Make

9:39

sure they approach history respectfully from their

9:41

end and Get it

9:43

corrects even though that you know, they're gonna interpret

9:46

stuff differently. It's not like these assassins really existed

9:49

But I'm talking to them they do try Yeah,

9:55

the interesting thing to me is that uh

9:58

trying to solve the problem you hit about with

16:00

their execution. Yeah, Doctor Who

16:02

shows historical figures on cards, but doesn't

16:04

make historical figures creature. There's no legendary

16:06

creatures that are historical figures. And

16:10

yeah, I was a fan

16:12

of it. I mean, I think we drew some

16:14

lines. I think all these characters are

16:16

in the ancient past

16:18

and mostly characters that

16:20

people generally like. So

16:23

anyway, okay, that is history. Now

16:26

let's get to the third component that

16:28

we just don't talk about enough in magic, parkour

16:30

or flash movement. So why is

16:32

that important? Yeah, I

16:34

mean, and this goes towards why I

16:36

think playing, refreshing, at least

16:39

refreshing my memory on playing these games was

16:41

so important. Like I can read a million

16:43

Wiki pages on the lore of these characters,

16:46

but when you sit down and you play a

16:48

lot of these games, especially in the earlier games,

16:51

you'll notice how much of the core

16:53

experience of this sell batch in adventure

16:55

RPG is moving

16:58

around, parkouring off of

17:00

walls, up ceilings, pass throughs,

17:03

between alleys, evading guards, just

17:06

hiring mercenaries to distract. There's

17:08

so much movement and evasion

17:10

and exploration, especially within these

17:13

games, that

17:16

I believe is like a huge reason why

17:18

the franchise took off to begin

17:20

with. And

17:23

I knew it was really important to capture that. And

17:25

it's such a difference in making a video

17:27

game-based universe with the beyond set, where you

17:29

really have to step back and think about

17:32

what is the core gameplay of the game

17:34

and how are we expressing that? So I

17:36

knew I needed something that felt like you

17:39

were moving or kind of represented movement in

17:41

a sense that was apart

17:43

from just like, oh, hey, every card in

17:45

the set has an evasive ability. Like, is

17:47

that gonna cut it or should

17:49

we try something else?

17:52

And I also really needed a

17:54

good, flavorful kind of, thing

17:58

to do on instance and source trees. What were the... Obviously

28:00

we took notes. A lot of the card

28:02

names for free running cards will reference stuff that

28:04

happens in many of the games. And there are

28:07

some cards throughout

28:09

the set that might also reference certain

28:11

mechanics or narrative conceits. Okay,

28:14

well, we're almost out of time today. So any

28:17

final thoughts on the making of Assassin's

28:19

Creed, now that your

28:21

baby's finally gonna come out? My

28:23

baby's finally gonna come out. I'll

28:26

say that something we didn't reference.

28:28

This is our first set that, maybe

28:30

not the first. This is a set that

28:33

has no draftable game experience or no draft.

28:35

It's kind of a standalone set. We

28:38

approach the set with a big thought

28:41

of, let's experiment with this. If we have

28:43

a set that's not optimized for draft, how

28:45

can we optimize it for opening a booster

28:47

and having a lot of fun and telling

28:49

a story, being very evocative? So I hope

28:53

that really translates well. It's

28:55

a very interesting product. I'm really proud of a lot of the cards. So

28:58

I hope people enjoy it. Okay, well, thank

29:00

you so much for being with us today, Carter, and talking with

29:02

us. Thank you so much,

29:04

Mark, appreciate it. But to everybody else, I'm at my

29:06

desk, so we don't know what that means. It means

29:08

it's the end of my drive to work. So instead

29:10

of talking magic, it's time for me to be making

29:12

magic. I'll see you all next time. Bye-bye.