How Assassin's Creed: Unity brings the brotherhood into co-op
It seems one major rule of cooperative assassination is "keep your distance." Few know that as well as Ubisoft, which reacted to some of our questions about Assassin's Creed: Unity's cooperative multiplayer component. Assistant Art Director Patrick Limoges told Joystiq that co-op missions are online only, so assassin buddies won't get to rub elbows while slashing at guards in the Xbox One, PS4 and PC game.
"How it works is that you're playing the single mission in the story of Arno. He has his own mission, but when you play co-op it's like you're playing a brotherhood mission," Limoges explained. "So your friends joining you, they can walk through the city with you, they can actually join you in a specific mission, a co-op one."
While other cooperative multiplayer games give players the chance to create their own characters or choose from a diverse cast of heroes, Assassin's Creed: Unity players each play as the game's main character, Arno, and for now there is no competitive multiplayer mode. When asked about the co-op's gender diversity options – why not have the choice of appearing differently in a friend's game, for instance? – Ubisoft told me it would revisit the question in the future.
Regardless of tackling missions as a duo, trifecta or a group of four assassins, there don't appear to be any computer-controlled allies in sight, as Limoges explained: "It's all friends. I'm sure you can play with strangers also, but it's all real people." Instead of totally sidetracking players from the main plot, Ubisoft wants to use the co-op missions to compliment the game's story, which is set in the 1789 version of Paris, during the French Revolution.
"All the co-op missions are basically the same experience you would have in this. We didn't want to have a 'capture the flag' inside Assassin's Creed. It was about giving you a story-driven [experience], it's exactly the same experience you would have but with friends," Limoges added. Assassin's Creed: Unity will launch on October 28.
[Image: Ubisoft]
