STACK #121 Nov 2015

Off With The Head We execute ten interesting facts about the guillotine you probably didn’t know. It was actually Antoine Louis who invented the guillotine, although it was eventually named after French physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin. A German engineer named Tobias Schmidt suggested using an angled blade as opposed to the proposed rounded blade. most humane form of execution. Until the arrival of the guillotine, the nobility were beheaded with a sword or axe. Regular citizens of France faced the hangman’s noose. The guillotine was initially tested on sheep, calves and corpses from poorhouses. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin was actually opposed to the death penalty, but he considered the guillotine to be the On 17 April 1792, highwayman Nicolas Pelletier entered the record books by becoming the first ‘live’ person to be executed with the guillotine. The blade and ensemble weighed 40kgs and could remove a head from the body in 0.005 seconds. * Between 17,000 and 40,000 people are estimated to have been executed by guillotine during the French Revolution. 75 per cent of those were thought to have been innocent. Within the space of nine months in 1793, King Louis XVI and his wife Marie-Antoinette became the guillotine’s most famous victims. Not just confined to France, the guillotine was widely used in Nazi Germany, where it was used in over 16,000 executions. France banned capital punishment in 1981 and the guillotine was removed from official service. It was last used for an execution in 1977.

The setting for Assassin’s Creed: Unity was chosen immediately after Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood had been released; but it took years to recreate the city of Paris to scale and level of detail. Paris is by far the most ambitious we have ever attempted in the history of Assassin’s Creed. Although we get to see and experience Paris on a daily basis, it’s only when we get to the later stages of development that we experience it coming together... the magical moment when crowd-life animations match their audio and the final art and lighting are integrated. Only then do we experience the full immersion we were striving for. In terms of authenticity, did the team consult period plans, paintings and documentation in order to construct a historically accurate depiction of Paris? The Paris of ACU is definitely an accurate reproduction of Paris as it was circa 1789-1810. We based it on many historical plans to create our street layout, while adapting it to our navigation metrics. Also, the 35 landmarks we recreated are the most faithful ever reproduced on any Assassin’s Creed game. We use loads of books to get to know the details, but sometimes we actually consult archaeological reports. We do sometimes take a little liberty on some details, such as the stryge on Notre-Dame. For the team, this conveyed an important emotional element, and although it was built a few decades later, we included it in the game. On the other hand, the paintings you’ll find in Notre-Dame are specific to the era. Also, we divided Paris into seven districts. Each uses a different architecture set, mood and specific crowd life.This was done by consulting specific documentation, such as the Cris de Paris, corporation lists, and a load of historical costume books. Archives and libraries, either physical

What’s involved in researching a period for an Assassin’s Creed game? Do you have a team of resident historical experts or do you consult externally? For Unity , we had external and internal historians who worked hand-in-hand with our core creative team. In fact, they start their painstaking research right at the beginning of the conception phase. The core team does a lot of reading on the specific setting and era, and even get to visit the actual location. The process usually takes us from very high-level ideas of themes and overarching ideas, and then we gradually narrow down to the core of what is important to us in the specific chosen setting and time period. This is how, for example, we came to the conclusion that the American Revolution really needed the naval and frontier aspects, or that the French Revolution is more about an urban playground. We then begin our search for our historical villain; someone whose many traits can somehow epitomise an aspect of the setting.The fact that that character died in a relevant moment in the game’s timeline is also a plus… The team itself also undergoes historical training. We also make any pop culture elements that deal with our specific timeline, such as books, films or TV series readily available to everyone. For some specific team members, such as the artists responsible for recreating our buildings, monuments or characters, we provide even more specific elements such as blueprints and costumes. We then usually ask for external historians to review the results.This is important, especially for the script.

or digital editions, are our best allies. The result is an impressive, immersive experience built on a cinematic scale.

Assassin’s Creed: Unity is out Nov 18

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