Eight Studios on AC4: Black Flag & More

Ubisoft has declared that eight studios are collaborating on Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag. It comes as no astonishment that this open-world Caribbean adventure is colossal. It encompasses a whopping 50 locations, including three expansive cities, and a vast ocean area waiting to be explored.

Ubisoft informed Eurogamer that the development of Black Flag initiated in the summer of 2011, precisely when the company was occupied with putting the final touches on Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.

Since that time, Ubisoft Montreal, Singapore, Sofia, Annecy, Kiev, Quebec, Bucharest, and Montpellier have been laboring on the project. Meanwhile, others were preoccupied with last year’s Assassin’s Creed 3.

Although Kiev and Montpellier were not included in the list of developers that Ubisoft presented in its AC4 press release this morning, they were distinctly displayed on the screen at the reveal event we attended.

“We’ve been in the development process since the summer of 2011,” Ubisoft’s Carsten Myhill, the lead game content manager, told Eurogamer. “We’ve had two teams working simultaneously – there has been some overlap, and when it reaches the end of a game, it’s a case of all hands on deck to complete it.”

Would this pattern persist in the future, with another team already at work on the next game following the launch of AC3 last November? Ubisoft remained tight-lipped.

Black Flag will be the first Assassin’s Creed game crafted for the next generation of consoles. However, Ubisoft was rather evasive about what to anticipate.

“The most evident distinction lies in the visual enhancements. We will also be providing support for the new PlayStation 4 controller,” Myhill hinted, suggesting a controller-specific feature.

“We’re going to disclose all the particulars of that [in the future]. The feature is designed for the PlayStation 4 controller, but we’re also considering other controllers as well.”

At an event in London last week, Ubisoft showcased gameplay footage that appeared to be of the current generation in terms of graphics.

“It’s extremely early in the development stage, so that is the current state of the game,” Myhill explained. “It’s not console-specific at this moment. We’re building it on PC at present, but we do have it operating on all platforms.”

There’s a great deal more to discover about Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag in our freshly published preview.