Assassin's Creed III has made "huge progress" on dynamic crowds

No more two hour market chats for the NPCs of Assassin's Creed III - and out in the wilderness, you'll meet an entirely new kind of living landscape.

Creative director Alex Hutchinson told Ausgamers that Assassin's Creed III has made "huge progress" on crowd AI, a hallmark of the whole series.

"The biggest additions have been to allow crowd member to be attracted to areas or interactions, and then to leave those and begin another action in sequence," he explained.

"No longer will you be able to watch people stay in a conversation for hours. Eventually they’ll go on their way."

In a series so well know for debuting huge crowds, it's a bold mvoe to leave the cityscape, but Hutchinson said "animals are the ‘crowd’ of the wilderness".

"Players can obviously hunt the animals, but we really want people to immerse themselves in the tracking and trapping elements of interacting with animals," he said.

"We want people to see some species just by navigating the world, but many others will require the player to use tactics and strategy to find and kill them. In a sense, we want players to assassinate animals more than just shoot them."

Interestingly, Hutchinson said player behaviour will be rewarded by what he called "alternate gameplay loops", giving an example of a hunting club approaching Connor as a potential member after observing his preference for the bow.

"They will give the player an invitation which will allow them access to a previously inaccessible area of the map where they can join the club and gain a bunch of new side-challenges and rewards," he said.

Assassin's Creed III is expected on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in October, with a Wii U version undated.