No female leads in Assassin's Creed Unity 'unfortunate but a reality of game development' - Ubi

Female lead was planned, but canned as it would have doubled development efforts.

Update - June 12: Ubisoft has issued a statement regarding the issue.

Original report: Ubisoft chose not to include playable female characters in Assassin's Creed Unity because it would have "doubled the work", Ubisoft technical director James Therien has told VideoGamer.com.

"It was on our feature list until not too long ago, but it's a question of focus and production," Therien explained. "So we wanted to make sure we had the best experience for the character. A female character means that you have to redo a lot of animation, a lot of costumes [inaudible]. It would have doubled the work on those things. And I mean it's something the team really wanted, but we had to make a decision... It's unfortunate, but it's a reality of game development."

When pressed on the issue, specifically that we didn't think his excuse would wash with the community given the amount of resources at the studio's disposal, Therien continued:

"Again, it's not a question of philosophy or choice in this case at all I don't really [inaudible] it was a question of focus and a question of production. Yes, we have tonnes of resources, but we're putting them into this game, and we have huge teams, nine studios working on this game and we need all of these people to make what we are doing here."

Assassin's Creed Unity launches on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC on October 28.

21 Comments

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ZhaeyneLGBT @ brookie94

The most famous assassin in the French Revolution War was a woman who goes by the name of Charlotte Corday, and they couldn't maker her playable. It's her story and yet me aren't allowed to play it (is she even mentioned in the game?). For a game like this , it is very reasonable to have female assassins. They played a vital role.

Posted 14:29 on 30 June 2014

PATRON

Syme

Everyone, this trade publication has been linked to by the BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27824701 quick let's clean up and make everything look nice.

Posted 01:03 on 15 June 2014

Nxs

Dear Lord! Can't anyone play a game and just have fun without turning into some big politically correct bs argument anymore?

:D

Posted 19:50 on 12 June 2014

brookie94 @ RangerKimmy

You can't expect every game to have that option, it's just unreasonable. In an rpg you are more or less playing yourself in a fantasy, the clue is in the genre's name. Games like the last of us, assassin's creed, uncharted, tomb raider, etc... are not the same. You are experiencing a character's story, not creating your own. So it is important for these character's to be well defined, and gender helps define character.

Posted 19:10 on 11 June 2014

yellowsapphire @ meggielee22

Everything (and not just in the gaming world) has a cost attached to it. The cost is not the problem so much as the importance given to that cost. In other words, if including something is expensive, but is important, something like water physics (wild guess), it'll go in. If it's important, the right people will make sure it happens.

The sad thing is is that, in this case, having a playable female character is not seen as important. Because if it was, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

ETA: As a general thought, I've always thought as well that if devs (as a whole, mind) decided to invest less money on 'boob physics'/"COR, JUST LOOK AT THEM JIGGLE LOL!" kind of stuff, female characters would be less expensive.

Posted 19:07 on 11 June 2014

brookie94

Wait, the title says female lead, but the text doesn't seem to define that they are actually talking about the lead or simply a playable female character for one of the extra 3 characters in coop play. What Therien is saying would make a little more sense if it were the latter, anyway.

Posted 18:57 on 11 June 2014

meggielee22 @ Woodfella

they really really do need to do all different animations. a woman's center of gravity is lower than a mans. however, they have done a female lead, they also had female options on multiplayer for black flag so I really don't buy into it. They could easily just take their female frame from before and slap a different skin on it. bam. of course then they have to do two of everything, cut scenes, conversations, etc

Posted 18:53 on 11 June 2014

meggielee22 @ awildmelanie

I think what they meant is they were going to give you the option of choosing either a female or male protagonist but they decided not to because they are "too overtaxed already"

Posted 18:48 on 11 June 2014

awildmelanie

I actually don't see a lot of sexism in this article, but I also don't understand what they're trying to say. They're saying that they were thinking of a female protagonist, finished the game WITH a male protagonist, and then said that it would be too much work to make it female. DUH. Obviously it would be hard to redo the main character for a game that's already finished. Ugh. If they were really "thinking" of doing a female character, they would have done it from the start. This is just bull. They didn't even have to release this statement, but they did and made it a huge deal. Like wtf Ubisoft you're dumb.

Posted 18:19 on 11 June 2014

Neon-Soldier32

It seems an odd thing to mention - I mean, Liberation had a female protagonist, so it can't be that much effort. But then, this is the first next gen AC game, so I'd rather have something innovative on new hardware than the same AC game, but with a female lead.

Aveline (who? -exactly!) wasn't particularly raved about. I mean, she's a woman? So what? The reviews didn't mention that having a female protagonist had a drastic impact on the game, in fact the reviews said it was a relatively poor effort for an AC game.

Besides, Ubisoft are working on something much more PC for the next AC: A wheelchair-bound assassin.

Posted 15:13 on 11 June 2014

ATCQ @ Bretty

"Ubisoft likes to spend a lot of time on the little things and are very much a "if we can't do it right we won't do it" it seems."

Uhh, did you see the amount of detail they skipped out on in Watch_Dogs? I like Ubisoft's games but I don't think it's fair to say that that's their way of doing things.

Posted 14:21 on 11 June 2014

Bretty

The thing with Ubisoft is each of their characters have a unique swagger about them, a unique way of holding themselves, doing things etc and so forth.

Even though they could've easily just given the women the male animations and nobody would've really cared Ubisoft likes to spend a lot of time on the little things and are very much a "if we can't do it right we won't do it" it seems.

It's not like they're a company that have shyed away from female protagonists in the past.

Posted 12:49 on 11 June 2014

demondownload

As a friend said, it's an unfortunate reality of games purchasing that I'll not be able to buy Assassin's Creed Unity. But that IS "a question of philosophy".

Posted 12:21 on 11 June 2014

The problem arises though that if they've done it before surely it wouldn't have taken much longer to add to the existing assets and then go a bit further.

It's one of those odd situations where if they'd said nothing it'd all be ignored. Games come out with only one playable gender all the time.

Posted 11:32 on 11 June 2014

A shame they can't include it.

Hopefully this will be something amended in the next game after this (it almost definitely will be).

It definitely is going to rub people the wrong way but from the way he was talking it sounds like a case of either push back the game or get it out on time.

Don't think it's laziness, I just think it's something had to go and unfortunately creating a unique character with unique animations and clothes would take quite some time to do.

Posted 11:11 on 11 June 2014

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