In New Short Doc, Ubisoft Admits Past Mistakes And Celebrates Future Of “Assassin’s Creed”

When Ubisoft took its biggest franchise to the French Revolution it was feted for such a beautiful, historically accurate, video game. But soon reports of glitches and mistakes marred the once bright glow of Assassin’s Creed Unity.

This week the video game publisher the next edition of its storied franchise, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, set in 1868 London. So far, the brand has released a debut trailer, nine-minutes of gameplay footage, as well as a short three-minute video of various Ubisoft people acknowledging the challenges with Unity and how the franchise is moving forward.

But a new short doc from directors Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky (of cult classic and Sundance award-winning Indie Game: The Movie fame), and agency Cutwater, takes a closer look inside the franchise by talking to the people behind it about the failures of the past, and the challenges and excitement behind the new game.

“Codename: Victory,” (starts at 13:37 of the YouTube video) talks to creative directors, developers and more at Ubisoft’s Montreal and Quebec City studios, chronicling the history of innovation in the game through the lens of those who have worked on the series from the beginning. It then transitions into a featurette on the new game, including game-play footage, with pop-up links to more gameplay walk-thru videos, the trailer and more.

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate will hit stores on October 23, but this is clearly the rumbling engine of the pre-E3 hype machine just getting started.