Assassin's Creed III: Ubisoft faces "uncomfortable" truths

The Assassin's Creed series has never shied away from touchy topics, with the very first game having players killing a variety of historical figures in the middle of a Christian-Muslim Holy War, and the second one using the Pope as its villain. However, with the third installment of the series set during the American Revolution, the development team has had to consider issues of slavery and treatment of Native Americans. And with the Assassin's Creed: Liberation spin-off for PlayStation Vita featuring a woman in the protagonist's role for the first time, gender issues are stepping to the forefront as well.
At the Assassin's Creed III launch party in Toronto last night, creative director Alex Hutchinson and Liberation scriptwriter Jill Murray talked with GamesIndustry International about the way they approached the thorny issues in their games. The first step, Hutchinson said, wasn't so much about being inoffensive or trying to make a point as it was about having their facts straight.
"We like it--I should say we don't mind it--if the truth is uncomfortable, if we can back it up with facts."
Alex Hutchinson

"Usually we're trying to be truthful," Hutchinson said. "And we like it--I should say we don't mind it--if the truth is uncomfortable, if we can back it up with facts. When we were dealing with the Borgias [in Assassin's Creed II], we were saying the Pope is a really bad guy. But if you do any amount of research, it's pretty clear we didn't make this up and it's pretty well documented. And it's the same with the Founding Fathers. These are real people; they have their ups and downs, their opinions. And when we can find documented evidence of an opinion they had or something they asked for and it was just true, then we were happy to put that in the game. But we tried not to have our subjective layer come into it; we saved that for the fictional storyline and the fictional characters."

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