Assassin's Creed creator prefers the "pure" first game to sequels

Assassin's Creed creator Patrice Désilets believes the first game is the best in the series, although he said the premise didn't become a "real game" until the second entry,

“I like the first Assassin’s Creed because it’s the purest one. There’s a bunch of stories that you can have, but it’s all in your head. You have to create your own adventures," Désilents told Edge.

"Whereas in Assassin’s Creed 2, we created the adventures for you and you’re following them. For me, the first one is an amazing toy. The second one is the real game with rules and missions and it’s really precise.

"But personally I like the poetry of the first one. It’s pure.”

The developer, who recently returned to Ubisoft thanks to its buyout of THQ Montreal, said playing the first Assassin's Creed felt a little bit like improvisational theatre.

"Out in the kingdom, with your horse, there are so many places with little setups with Crusaders where you can tell a story. When you get close to Damascus, there’s a guy on a stage and he has 35 soldiers in front of him. If you kill him, they all chase you. I played that and it became my little story," he said.

"With Assassin’s Creed, our problem was we never actually asked anyone to do it. Most of the players just pass by those setups. But in Assassin’s Creed II, we had a mission for all of them.”

Désilets's comments are part of a longer feature on the making of Assassin's Creed, which is well worth a read.