More than 15 years, a legal clash and a bankruptcy later, “Assassin’s Creed” creator Patrice Desilets is looking to the future with another game that returns to the past, “1666: Amsterdam”. Set during the European witch hunts, the game was warmly received when presented at the Summer Game Fest in Los Angeles in June, and Desilets said he was almost overcome with emotion shortly before taking the stage. “30 seconds earlier, I was almost crying,” the 52-year-old Quebecois told AFP at the Gamescom gaming extravaganza in Cologne, saying the moment marked the end of a “very personal” battle. An action-adventure game developed with a team of about 70, “1666: Amsterdam” puts players in control of a witch and can play in different eras -- 1666, 1999 and the present. The first two chapters were released Tuesday for PC in early access, and the final version should comprise about a dozen, Desilets said. No sales figures or expectations have been released but Desilets said he was “very satisfied” with initial feedback. Slow development “I got the idea for the game during a trip to Amsterdam in spring 2011,” Desilets said, a few months after leaving the French gaming giant Ubisoft. At Ubisoft Montreal, Desilets had headed up three of the firm’s major hits of the 2000s: “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” as well as the first two instalments of the “Assassin’s Creed” series. His departure followed “certain frustrations” and a desire to “strike out on my own”. He joined the studio THQ Montreal and pursued the “1666: Amsterdam” project, which also takes players through different historical eras, while allowing them to explore multiple narrative timelines in a rich 3-D world. Work lasted two years at THQ Montreal before the studio went bankrupt in 2013 and it was bought out -- by Ubisoft. Desilets was subsequently dismissed months later. “It went badly”, he said. Years of legal wrangling then followed until, in 2016, he regained the rights to his work-in-progress game. In the meantime, Desilets founded his own Montreal studio, Panache Digital Games, and began work on another title, “Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey”, released in 2019. “1666: Amsterdam” then came back on the radar, only for the Covid-19 pandemic to once again slow production. AI controversy Amid the positive reception for the new game, some criticism emerged over the use of generative-AI to make parts of the game environment. “Yes, we used AI in pre-production, and it ended up in the prologue,” Desilets said. “But since then, we have completely removed all those elements. And we no longer use it.” And whether by coincidence or imitation, Ubisoft is preparing a new instalment to “Assassin’s Creed” called “Hexe”, also expected to be set during the European witch hunts. “All the better if Ubi is interested in this subject,” Desilets said wryly. “I agree with them, it’s an interesting subject.” Looking ahead, Desilets said his philosophy toward games is, the more the better. “I want to be the Clint Eastwood of video games,” he said. “To be old and keep making video games, because I love it.” But would he ever return to the wildly successful “Assassin’s Creed” franchise? “No,” he said firmly. “I’m independent, I have my own studio. That time is kind of over.”
