For this Inside the Studio, World Director Benjamin Hall reveals the gears behind how his team made Assassin's Creed Odyssey a contrasted, authentic, and dynamic ancient Greece. From verticality to scale, the game's level design tackled new challenges in a world primed for exploration and fighting.
"It's the most vertical Assassin's Creed we've ever made."
Could you tell us a little about yourself as a world director and what that entails?
As world director on Assassin's Creed, my job is to work with both the level design team and the level art team to make sure we can create a world by itself –- a space that's enjoyable to be in, to explore, and to adventure around, and one that feels like it's authentic, and realistic
What's your history at Ubisoft before you became world director?
I joined Ubisoft in 2014, working on Assassin's Creed® Syndicate. Being from England, I was stoked to join the team and build Victorian London. Before that, I worked for Electronic Arts making worlds for Need For Speed for ten years.
Is Assassin's Creed Odyssey unique from previous Assassin's Creed games on a level design perspective?
For the most part, it's an evolution in terms of what you get to do as you travel around the world. Some of the things that make the world of Greece unique to other Assassin's Creed games is its verticality. It's the most vertical Assassin's Creed we've ever made. This game is also more split 50/50 between land and ocean so we get a great contrast between climbing mountains and then going on adventures on the open water. It's one of the biggest worlds we've ever created as well, so that was a challenge by itself.
"Together we worked as one team united to create a seamless world."
How did you handle that challenge?
With a lot of very talented and passionate people working on the team. We've got a great team here in Quebec but also a team in Singapore and a team in Bucharest, and together we worked as one team united to create a seamless world. It's a big challenge having such a big space but we've got a great group of leads who helped with that too.
You spoke about how it's a 50/50 world between land and sea. How do you go about building both of those aspects of the game?
It's an ongoing process that starts with the exploration phase. We start looking at what we want to build, which parts of the world are really interesting, and which parts are most historically necessary to create an authentic ancient world. Greece is renowned for its islands, so we wanted to make sure that we captured that in the world. We knew from early on that we wanted to bring naval back to Assassin's Creed so we needed to build that space to explore the world on our boat. We started creating maps on paper, and we went out to visit Greece so we could see how it feels to be in and around the Greek islands. Then we started building out which islands are interesting and which parts of the mainland are interesting and then tried to create a space that fits both for the game. One thing that was important was making sure we kept the footprint of Greece fairly accurate so people could recognize it. The shape of the Peloponnese, for example, was important for us to keep so you can spot it from very early on. Then it was about making sure that we can transition seamlessly from one place to another. It was very important that we could get on our boat pretty much anywhere and adventure anywhere.
Was the space on the islands different to build from the mainland?
There was a challenge involved with that of the sheer scale we wanted to try to reproduce. When it came to physically building the islands in a game world, we didn't have the same space that the islands have in real life. It became a process of picking and choosing the parts of the islands that were most important and the parts that we wanted to recreate, and then removing and trimming some of the landscape that was less necessary so that the journey across the islands was more fun. The islands create a great playspace for questing because you've got a contained space.
"If you decide that you want to push this region into war, that's your decision, your option, and you instigate that."
Is there one thing you're particularly excited about, anything in the level design that changed from previous Assassin's Creed games?
I think when people get into their first conquest battle, they're gonna be blown away. When you get into that space, you're surrounded by 300 people, and you get to choose who you fight for and against different merceneraries. Conquest battle has never been done in Assassin's Creed before and playing it is a lot of fun. Each region has its own leader and its own resources and you have the choice to interact with the world and push that region into battle if you want to. The game doesn't tell you there's a big battle happening that you have to go to. It happens, regions do fall into battle with each other, but if you decide that you want to push this region into war, that's your decision, your option, and you instigate that. You can even go as far as pushing a region into war and then siding with the other team.
Do you have any final thoughts for us to share with our community?
I've been seeing a lot of people building their cosplay so far and I think they're absolutely incredible and an inspiration. I want to thank people that have spent their time and their effort for doing that. Seeing some of the Alexios and Kassandras out there has been absolutely amazing.
We hope you enjoyed reading or listening to our interview with World Director Benjamin Hall, and check out our previous interview with Audio Director Lydia Andrew! We'd love to hear your thoughts – whether it's about topics or guests you'd like for us to explore down the road.
Join the discussion with our community on the official forums or reach us on Twitter with #ACInsidetheStudio.
