Assassin's Creed Dev Confirms Its Horses Are Just 'F****d Up Human Skeletons'
While you might not associate the stealth adventures of the Assassin's Creed with survival horrors like Silent Hill or Resident Evil, it turns out the franchise's horses are just like something you might find cooked up in an Umbrella lab. Giving insight into the origins of Assassin's Creed, one of the OG developers has given us a harrowing insight into our equine friends.
When Altaïr Ibn-LaʼAhad first broke onto the gaming scene in 2007, little did we know what a giant Assassin's Creed would become. Although the series really found its fame with the Ezio trilogy that kicked off with Assassin's Creed II, we wouldn't have explored Ancient Egypt as Bayek or Norse mythology as Eivor if not for the seeds the first game sowed. Still, it sounds like things were a little clunky back then.
Why Are Assassin's Creed Horses 'F****d Up' Human Skeletons?
Assassin's Creed developer Charles Randall posted on Twitter and explained how technical limitations led to a bizarre design for the game's horses. In some nightmarish experiment, the team reportedly mangled a human skeleton model and made it look like a horse. "Cheers to the amazing animators and riggers that managed to make that guy look like a horse," said Randall tweets.
The Frankenstein-esque experiments don't end there though. Randall said how Ubisoft simply didn't have the budget to create the one-armed character called Malik, so instead, the team turned his arm inside out to make it look like it was missing. Giving us another peek behind the curtain, Randall added, "I assume if you could get the camera to clip into him you'd see a tiny little scrunched up arm inside the bicep."
Finally, there's a brilliant story about how players would leave a playable area (or not). It was technically impossible to leave a level's boundaries, so Ubisoft programmed the game to kill Altaïr if he managed to go out of bounds. "Up until that point I always said 'If all else fails, kill the player,'" concluded Randall. "Was super happy to finally get to put it into practice."
What's Next For Assassin's Creed?
Things have come a long way since then, with Assassin's Creed fully embracing its open-world potential to continuously deliver AAA games. There's no sign of the AC name slowing down, and moving far beyond Altaïr, fans are excited to see where we go next. Thankfully, there are a slew of projects in the works thanks to the live-service Assassin's Creed Infinity, the Basim-led Assassin's Creed Rift, and the VR Assassin's Creed Nexus.
If all of this wasn't enough, we're almost guaranteed another main entry in the franchise - although we're not expecting it in 2023. Finally, there are those eagle-eyed fans that think Ubisoft hid a sneaky Assassin's Creed remake hiding in the recent AC showcase. If we get to see this retro classic revamped for new-gen audiences, here's hoping it's done some work updating those "f****d up" horse skeletons.
