Ubisoft has been interesting to watch lately as it attempts to tell several different kinds of stories. Tom Clancy’s The Division is an online shooter that deals with a virus that’s devastated Manhattan while Watch Dogs 2 features a hacker collective attempting to shut down a city-wide operating system.
This all in order to move away from linear narratives and towards more player-driven tales. According to Ubisoft chief creative officer Serge Hascoët in conversation with French publication Le Monde, aspects like cutscenes limit player freedom. “During these scenes, I’m not doing what I want to do, which is evolve in this world. I don’t want us to write one story, I want there to be tens of thousands of stories, that each character has one, and I can speak to them if I want to know that story.”
“What interests me is to create worlds that are interesting to me as well as anyone else. If I have a game set in San Francisco (like Watch Dogs 2), I’d want even my mom to be able to have fun, drive a boat, helicopter, car…There has to be interesting people to meet, too, and that they come across well.
Hascoët wants to give players the opportunity to fill many different kinds of roles as well. “We want to give them many methods: private detective, assassin, hacker, hunter… You can try out these professions along with their problems, and to become more powerful.”
Does Watch Dogs 2 accomplish that? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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