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Assassin’s Creed Lineage : Blurring the medium boundaries

It should come as no surprise that the gulf between cinema and next generation computer games are being narrowed as new technologies are introduced and how the modern audience prefer to consume these products. Only recently the latest instalment to the Halo franchise, Halo ODST, ran with a live action trailer that tantalised the fan base and gave less enthusiastic observers, such as myself, a tempting glimpse at the possibilities of what could have happened with a full Halo movie.

Games Developer Ubisoft are now exploring the potential of ‘convergence’ -- the technique of ’streamlining the creation of all digital entertainment from games, to movies, to digital shorts’. In other words, enhancing an intellectual property by publishing it into many mediums to a) broaden the audience for the game and b) engaging the audience on a much deeper level. One future holistic example would be the ability to watch a movie, pause it and then play as a character on the screen…

But while we may not be at that point yet, Ubisoft are exploiting this new ground and are releasing a series of live action film shorts to compliment the upcoming release of Assassin’s Creed 2 called “Assassin’s Creed Lineage”. Here’s the trailer for the film…

Assassins Creed Lineage will focus upon ‘Giovanni Auditore da Firenze’, the father of the new game’s protagonist Ezio, and will provide background to the story within the game. Of course, as you may have seen in the earlier trailers, Giovanni meets his fate at the gallows and Ezio swears to avenge his father’s death, but this film is hopefully going to add a new level of engagement and depth to already well-hyped and beautiful looking game.

One interesting element is that the majority of the film utilised green screens, but the CGI environments and backgrounds were created using the Anvil engine, the very same engine used in the actual games. Maybe the reality of jumping in and out of a scripted cinematic experience maybe not that far away, but regardless I can vouch for the gorgeous and elegant visuals of Assassin’s Creed to date.

Overall I’m really stoked for this film and knowing how watching ‘Saving Private Ryan’ makes my palms itch to play World War II shooters -- I can only see myself wanting to pick up Assassin’s Creed 2 when it releases on November 11th (bizarrely on the same day at Modern Warfare 2 which is the most marketing decision in gaming for some time). The first film installation will debut on 27th October on YouTube and we are to understand that the entire series will last just under one hour. Check back for updates on this series and the game…

Source : www.ign.com