THE GAME GUY
Ubi Montreal blurs lines between game and film
October 24, 2009
Marc Saltzman
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
Gamers who played through Ubisoft Montreal's groundbreaking Assassin's Creed – the 2007 interactive adventure that has sold more than 8 million copies to date – have more than Assassin's Creed II to look forward to when the sequel launches next month.
Oh sure, this follow-up video game for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 will no doubt impress when it debuts on Nov. 17 – in fact, more than 250 developers have been tirelessly toiling on it – but Ubisoft has an extra treat up its sleeve related to the Assassin's Creed world.
Assassin's Creed: Lineage is a series of short films that expand the fiction even further, and reveal the characters and events that lead up to Assassin's Creed II – primarily involving the father of the game's protagonist, Ezio, during the Italian Renaissance.
The first of the three 12- to 14-minute episodes will debut on YouTube's home page in eight countries (including Canada) on Tuesday, for a period of 24 hours. Plus, the first episode will also ship on the Assassin's Creed II game disc.
For a closer look, The Game Guy took a trip to Hybride Technologies, the Ubisoft-owned facility best known for creating special effects in movies, television and advertising. Nestled in the Laurentians town of Piedmont, Que., this unassuming studio (which looks like a house from the outside) is responsible for visual effects in such Hollywood blockbuster films as 300, Sin City, Journey to the Center of the Earth and Snakes on a Plane.
Sitting in a cozy theatre room, we watched an uncut version of the first Lineage episode, which introduces Ezio's father, Giovanni Auditore da Firenze, as well as other family members and key characters (such as Lorenzo de' Medici, the Italian statesman and de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic during this period). The acting, story and pacing were all quite impressive, and certainly help you get a sense of the backdrop to the anticipated game sequel.
To create a complementary look between the games and films, the visual effects studio combined live action and CGI, including motion-capture ("mo-cap") technology performed at Ubisoft's Montreal studio, where actors are suited up with body sensors and special cameras that import their fluid movements into a computer.
"The Lineage film series is for both Assassin's Creed fans as well as non-gamers – if not more for the latter group because we already have Assassin's Creed II for gamers," Yves Guillemot, chief executive officer of Ubisoft, told the Toronto Star.
"Just as Apple sees iPods or iPhones as a gateway to Mac computers, we hope Lineage will wow non-gamers and get them interested in Assassin's Creed games," he says. "We're confident the Lineage films will serve as a window to a universe non-gamers might not consider otherwise."
Toronto Star