Ubisoft’s Alex Hutchinson has spoken about the future of game development, saying that large scale triple-A projects are on their way out.
In an interview with Edge, Hutchinson explained that as the video game industry changes, we’re going to see fewer and fewer projects that have the massive scope of Assassin’s Creed 3.
We’re the last of the dinosaurs. We’re still the monster triple-A game with very large teams [and] multiple studios helping out on different bits. There are fewer and fewer of these games being made, especially as the middle has fallen out.
We really felt like this was a rare opportunity. We had an experienced team, who had worked on the franchise for a while; we had the full backing of Ubisoft to make something huge.
Hutchinson went on to add that the sheer amount of time they’ve had to work on AC3, coupled with the fact that we’re so far into this generation, has provided them with an unprecedented opportunity to make a game with so much ambition.
We had almost three years to do it, which is a rarity these days; the tech and the hardware platforms were both mature, which allowed us to start running instead of building base features; and the installed user base for all platforms is massive.
Many of these factors are about to change, by choice of circumstance, so a lot of us truly believed this was a once in a career opportunity.
While Hutchinson brings up many valid points, it’s hard to imagine how the next generation of gaming hardware wouldn’t demand (at least) the same level of manpower and resources. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
[Via]
