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900 people worked on Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, says director

Ashraf Ismail reveals development headcount for upcoming open-world action game.

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900 people contributed to the development of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, director Ashraf Ismail told Examiner in a new interview.

Ismail revealed the figure when asked if Ubisoft would consider developing an Assassin's Creed Universe-type game that would combine multiple worlds into one larger experience.

"From a pure production standpoint, it would be very, very difficult to do something like that. On this game, we've had over 900 people working on it," Ismail said about Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. "With the Assassin's Creed machine and being the game director, even I am sometimes amazed. It takes 900 people to create the content for this game, so to try to do multiple worlds that are all big and fleshed out with unique characters in them, I'm not sure it would bring that much to the player."

It was previously suggested that Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag was developed by 1,000 people, though Ubisoft said at the time that the studio "does not traditionally comment on developer headcount." An Ubisoft representative told GameSpot today, "We do not have any statement."

Eight Ubisoft studios worked on Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, including the company's outfits in Montreal, Singapore, Sofia, Annecy, Kiev, Quebec, Bucharest, and Montpellier.

Ismail said an Assassin's Creed Universe-style game just does not make sense for Ubisoft.

"So I don't see us ever doing that where we have multiple, big worlds. I do see this idea where you are playing in different mini-worlds and you are playing as different assassins, but I don't think you'll ever see America with Connor, Ezio in Italy, and the Caribbean with Edward in one game. I don't think it makes sense for us to do," Ismail said.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag launches on October 29 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii U. Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC versions will follow in November.

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