Assassin’s Creed III Creative Director Shares How They Could Have Made It Better

With Assassin’s Creed III’s recent remaster announcement alongside the big Odyssey road map reveal, it’s time to reflect on how the game that was met with a very mixed reception could have been better. Ubisoft Creative Director Alex Hutchinson recently opened up about what he would change to up that excitement.

Hutchinson recently took to his Twitter account to outline a few key changes he would have implemented before the game went live last generation. With his opening tweet beginning with “If I could offer a few edits I would perform if I had my hands on that AC3 remaster,” this is what he came up with:

1. Take the damage volumes off the fires in the final mission so people don’t fail it and finish the sequence with a bad taste. It’s too hard for no real reason.

2. Force the completion of the Temple missions in the present day as they trigger instead of letting them stack up at the end. I thought it would be nice to give players options, but it actually just ruins the pacing at the end.

3. Create a path to force more of the Homestead side missions earlier: They feature the charming, fun and more human version of version of Connor that is not as obvious if you only play the main missions and ignore the side content.

4. Push more of the naval encounters in the main flow. Again, my preference for letting players engage with the content at their own pace doesn’t work as well in a blockbuster. Make the masses play the cool boat missions!

5. Somehow, somehow make sure every person who buys the game sees the animation sequence where a homesteader gets a pig, puts it on a chopping block, cuts each limb off, skins it, packs them up and takes them inside. It’s amazing.

7. Notice that we cast the fantastic @TheNoahWatts as Connor, well before the internet of videogames gave a shit about respecting other cultures and we have characters speaking historically appropriate languages (+sub titles) in a blockbuster FOR A GODDAMN HOUR. That made happy.

8. Agree that we allowed people to draw rude things in the snow in a game well before it was fashionable or technically advisable.

9. Finally admit that today, years after it was released, it was okay to change the color of Connor’s sash from the crimson red of Ezio and Altair to a nice royal blue, and that it really wasn’t worth having seven two hour meetings about.

10. Agree that the only weapon in the AC universe that comes close to the cool factor of the hidden blade was that tomahawk.

11. I’m adding this one to agree with @GameAnim we should have broken up Haytham’s intro into chunks and interspersed them throughout the game to get to Connor faster. The shock reveal of another playable character was great, but the start was too slow.

Extensive, right? But ultimately fascinating! Though it may seem like a lot, a lot of this should have been a no-brainer. That, or just really easy fixes. With the remaster coming out with its own set of tweaks, it will be interesting to see how fans react now that the initial reaction has had a few years to settle.