Assassin's Creed creator Patrice Desilets, has announced his new game Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey at the Reboot Develop Event in Croatia.
The short teaser showed a journey back through time through the great achievements of mankind from Dolly the Sheep all the way back to the use of the first tools. Stating that it was from the man that had you killing ‘millions of Templars, hidden in haystacks’ the teaser announced ‘the greatest adventure of all: our own.’ It’s only concept art in the trailer so far but Desilets is back and still focussing on triple A experiences, despite heading up a much smaller studio.
The game’s official site describes the game as a ‘third person action adventure survival episodic game’ and that it wants ‘the player to relive the greatest moments of mankind with a documentary twist.’ So, yeah, just humanity’s greatest moments for Desilet’s return to games.
Ancestors is being created by Desilet’s new Montreal based indie development studio Panache. Panache is currently only a team of six. “Why Panache? This is how we want to attack the industry. Attack it. With panache,” says Desilets. “We are an indie IP creation shop. Right now we’re six and we want to make short episodic-ish triple A games, it’s the beauty of being independent. We can do what we want.“
Triple A is still key for Desilets. “The core of the experience will and should be triple A quality,” he says. “We distribute these games in the digital world and we then grow them bigger and bigger.” Digital is also a big focus for Desilets as he stated that: “It’s got to be digital all the way. In 2021 no one is going to be going outside their house to buy video games just like we don’t go out to buy cds for music.”
With his talk at the event focussing on creating believable design and how the triple A gaming landscape is changing, Desilets also discussed his experiences creating his three Assassin's Creed games and constant work on the series that meant he needed a sabbatical to recover and see his family. Desilets also confirmed that he still does not have the rights to show off anything from his work on 1666: Amsterdam which he was working on before his employment was terminated with Ubisoft. Panache, has he puts it, has a more "rock and roll approach" to HR and development.
There will be more information on Ancestor's: The Humankind Odyssey later this year.
