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IGN's "Making of": The hidden secrets
Markuz, June 22, 2014
E3 is by now over, but we at ATA never stop looking for information, especially when we are pushed by our fans. We recently received more than one private messages in our social inboxes showing how there were still lots of information hidden inside IGN’s first “Making of” video. We then followed our fans’ advice and tried to analyze the video frame by frame to see if we could find other juicy details for our community and it seems we were successful... if we could say so. The variety of information ranges from what seems to be part of the script of a scene to the identification of some characters through the names of some of the files which appeared on the screens shown in the video. Without further ado, then, let’s dig in the “Making of” video by IGN! Arno’s face It could be easily assumed, but what we see is Arno’s face model. This can be inferred by the name “ACU_FacialRig_ArnoROM” of the file in the top right hand corner of the picture.
Also the file with the 3D grey models seems to be called Arnaud_Wrinkles_ZB.jpg , probably to show how the 3D model’s wrinkles should changed based on the different expressions (yes, the name in this file appears to be Arnaud). In addition, knowing that this is Arno, we can also see that his eyes, if this is the definitive version, are green/light brown. The Food Chain The video shows for a very brief amount of time five pictures coming from what appears to be the story board of a co-op mission called "The Food Chain". The story board shows that the mission takes place in Winter, 1793 and starts with a coach moving along the streets of Paris, possibly carrying food supplies, escorted by guards. A man with a big hat coming from the side of the streets goes towards the carriage and in the last panel pulls out a gun in front of a guard. Who might that man be? It's possible that, considering the title, the mission revolves around the starving crowd who will do anything to survive, even assaulting food convoys. The Interiors (of the Louvre?) Another little interesting thing that appeared on the screens of the developers is the interior of a nobly furnished building.
In this case Arno is walking among many people with "Find Le Peletier". The reference, as pointed out by our fan Joe, is probably Louis Michel le Peletier, marquis of Saint-Fargeau. Initially, he shared the ideals of his class (the nobility), but gradually he became more and more radical, a factor that made him very popular and led him to become president of the Constituent Assembly. It was said at the time that it was his vote that condemned King Louis XVI to be guillotined, a vote which ended 361 to 360. On 20 January 1793, the night before the death of the king, Le Peletier was assassinated in the restaurant of the Palais Royal. This can lead to the hypothesis that the setting of the screenshot may be precisely the Palais Royal in Paris The right side of the picture shows the writings "SQ08_M010_SC015_PalaceRyBy", "SQ_08_M020_SC020_CIN_VantagePoint", "SQ09_M010_SC030_CIN_LouvresArrival" and "SQ_12_SC070_CIN_Survivor". These writings, placed under the "Cinematic Scene" section, may be a reference to the cinematics that take place in this building / interior. In this case the building could be the Louvre. Otherwise, if the name of the cinematic scenes is not related with what we see, then at least we possibly know the name of some of the single player missions (SQ should stand for Sequence, M for memory/mission and CIN for cinematics) and the fact that the game should contain at least 12 sequences for the single player campaign. The Templar woman The next developer PC screen features a woman dressed in dark blue. While she may appear to be a normal character (though her clothes and physical traits are very detailed), the name of the file that appears on screen is what is really interesting. The file is called "TST_Ale_Woman_Templar_01_001". So this woman should belong to the Templar Order and looking at her glance, she already seems to play the part. The prison mission and the Eagle Sense (Pulse) mechanic This screenshot is actually full of information. We see Arno in a prison-like environment during a co-op mission that is codenamed
"COOP_LB050" that we'll later see with the title "Kill Roux". The mission objective is shown on the left and reads "Locate and Free the 3 captive Assassins 0/3". This should mean that at a certain point of the game the other three Assassins from the co-op mode will be caught by the Templars (or the guards) and Arno will have to free them. It will be interesting to see how this kind of mission will play out, considering that every player is Arno in their own game (Will three of the players have to stay in prison until the fourth one frees them? Will they have a chance to escape by themselves?). Another interesting element from this picture can be found at the top of the screen. While testing the game there are different
[Minor Spoiler] A little dialogue in Sequence 9 Thankfully for us the developers put on subtitles in the bits that they let IGN show in the Making Of video, so we get to see Arno climbing a building while a little dialogue shows up reading "You'll have to cut the rope!" "It's stuck!". From what we can see at the bottom of the screen, this should appear in SQ09_M030 (which should be memory 3 in Sequence 9).
The choice flow chart This screenshot shows what appears to be some sort of flow chart with two outcomes starting from the same source, which *should* take place in Sequence 10, Memory 1, Scene 9 "SQ10_M010_SC090_AMB_BringWine" (the name can be seen at the top of the screen and "Bring Wine" might be the name of the mission). The first choice (the top one) leads to "ExittheCafé". The reference here may be to the Cafés that were mentioned in the news in these past days. The other branch, instead, leads to a green box called "MissionAIConditions" which then leads to "Poisoned". For this branch we have two different hypotheses: "MissionAICondition" maybe is something that checks the condition in which the player's character (or maybe better an AI character) is in and can lead to the outcome "Poisoned", which could be the title of a new mission or, most likely, the end state of a mission that took place in the aforementioned Café. In this particular situation, we could be in front of a mission in which the protagonist has to kill/poison a certain character inside of a Café, but if he gets spotted, he has to exit the Café and start over, in a similar way to the missions in the past games in which the protagonist had to free a certain area from the Templar occupation, but if he had been spotted, the captain would have fled, leading the player to start the mission over. A new female character, Elise During the video it's possible to see a new female character. The chances that she might be an important character are high as she is given a name, Elise. Actually the file contains "Elise_ball" so this might be her outfit for a ball and maybe it will not be the only one for her in the game. It's also possible to see in the background many reference pictures that possibly were used to design her clothes.
[SPOILERS AHEAD] The big plot screen This screen reveals lots of content in terms of plot, even if there aren't very heavy spoilers. What we see in the screenshot is what seems to be program used to contain all the script for the game.
Looking at the screen this is the exact same tool that was shown in February 2013 in an article by Polygon about Corey May and the Alice Studio, a program called Oasis. Following Corey May's words, it's not just a scriptwriting tool but it also has connections to several
Now that we know how this program works, we can get a clearer idea of what the screen shown in the Making Of video actually portrays. We can see the same root and branch structure on the left, and all the elements probably represent the story "parts" of Assassin's Creed Unity. We can see:
To go even more deeply, as explained by Corey May, all these missions are made up of several components / scenes and that is what we see in the screenshot about the "Assassinate Bullion" mission. The developer looking at the screen (Fabien Noel, Audio Director, as shown in the top right-hand corner of the screenshot) is checking what seems to be the fourth scene of the mission. As said by May, this makes the program display the script of the scene, which can be partly read: EXT. ALLEYWAY - DAY A man and a woman walk along the alleyway. The man is wounded, and the woman is supporting him. The man collapses as they come in to frame. E3 WOMAN -Screams- Noooooo! As you walk by. E3 WOMAN Help! Help me please. Help... Help... E3 WOMAN Please... No.... Architecture templates The next screenshot gives us a better idea of the approach used for building the city of Paris: it seems that the devs make use of architecture templates to create the buildings inside the game world. A rather normal choice if we think about how large the city is and how some of the buildings may have architectural similarities between them.
Dialogue in the E3 Co-op Mission In a similar way for the aforementioned brief dialogue which is supposed to take place in Sequence 9, the Making of video shows another bit of conversation, which this time happens in the E3 Co-op Mission (which is written in the lower part of the screen). Before going into the conversation, it's interesting to notice that this seems to be another part or another version of the E3 mission, as not only we see Arno interacting with a hay cart and walking among the crowd, but we also see the side objectives for the mission which are "Synch kill 4 guards" and "Don't get any damage". While the second one is a common side objective, the first one is interesting as it was more common in the adversarial multiplayer, specifically in the Wolfpack mode. So we should expect the comeback of the Synch Kills (which are kills that the players have to carry out simultaneously or in a very small amount of time). Regardless of this, here is the transcript of the aforementioned dialogue:
"Well you see your excellen... uh... citizen, sir... we've had several loads taken. If you could look the other way, I'm" (interrupted sentence) "Citizen you disgust me! Be glad I don't report you immediately for your repulsive Bande Noire leanings." "Ah, s'no point, he won't listen. He has his orders. We can't do a damned thing but make the" (interrupted sentence) The video of course does not contain any explanation about who is talking but it can be hypothesized from the dialogue itself. The first two lines define a dialogue seemingly between Arno and one of his servants. The first line should come from Arno and if that is so, it should be a first glimpse of his wit/irony. The second line comes from the person talking to Arno, and he/she calls him "your excellence" and that is why it's possible to assume he/she is one of Arno's servants. This second line of dialogue also justifies in game why the city of Paris will have all the haystacks and hay carts that Arno will be able to dive in.
And that's it! This ends our analysis about the first part of IGN's Making Of video, but always stay synchronized with us, you never know what might appear in our next analysis...
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