Assassins Creed Tribute game - TOWCB Interview with Fan Project Game Director Noah Stavish

Back in December, a devoted and skilled group of fans who had spent the past year building their own Assassin Creed game released their first preview video, showcasing initial footage from the project. Now in its early stages, details on gameplay, story and the inspirations are ready to be revealed.

Teaser trailer showing the environments of the city of Valletta, located on Quarry Wharf.

It’s hard to deny that Assassin's Creed has gone through a bit of an identity crisis in its 15 year long existence, and endless stream of games. 

Originally lauded for featuring “one of the most unique gameworlds ever created”, the early titles included groundbreaking and innovative approaches to movement, story and the use of history in video games. 

As the series aged it grew past what once made it special. With the implementation of RPG elements, a stripped down movement system and mythological creatures patrolling the once purely historical settings, it’s hard to find the original ideas that drew audiences to these games so long ago. 

In lieu of official content to scratch that Assassin itch, a group of long term fans have decided to take on the challenge. 

“We really just started off with the desire to make a game,” explains game director Noah Stavish. “We didn’t have a single thing in mind for the setting or anything like that.

“We just weren’t happy with the direction of the franchise, we’re big fans of the older style games.”

“Tribute: An Assassin’s Creed Fan Game”, is a non-profit PC game, currently in development by Erudito Entertainment.'' 

Set during the French invasion of Malta in 1798, the team aims to bring the franchise back to its roots, with complex parkour and potentially even a few recurring characters. 

With his cat meowing behind him, I sat down with Noah to learn more about the development process and details of this upcoming game. 

It started quite earnestly, Noah recalls: “A group of us were talking about making a fan game over on the Assassin's Creed subreddit Discord. We then created our own separate Discord and started seriously discussing the potential locations.”

“One of the big things we knew was that we had to have a setting where you play as an Assassin. We want to play as a capital A Assassin.”

With this in mind the team created an 800 year period of time to choose a setting between, 1100 (the time of the first game) to 1900, where technology felt too advanced to tell a truly historical tale.

Between that, and the gameplay intentions of bringing back complex parkour and detailed stealth mechanics, Malta seemed like the ideal setting; a unique location and period with enough political intrigue and highly populated cities to service a perfect Assassins tale. 

But, Noah made sure to point out that this setting will be more than just a pretty backdrop. 

“There’s a lot of really interesting conspiracy and intrigue and politics to play around with.''

“At the time the Knights Hospitaller, the Knights of Malta, started digging into the ancient temples of Malta.''

Concept work for customisable outfits. The team is taking inspiration from the disguise mechanics of Hitman and Assassin’s Creed Liberation, while keeping the visual codes of Assassin robes

“We were looking at this, there were reports of this digging continuing throughout the late 18th Century. What were they digging for?

“They’re in the middle of a siege and have a department of people going to dig up the site every day. That’s really weird.”

It’s within the crevices of histories strangeness that Euridito Entertainment plan to build their story, playing into mysteries like what the Knights Hospitaller were truly upto, or Napoleon's secret motivations.

The story itself will follow a young Assassin named Karmena, as she gains new skills to take out the threats that face this island. Harkening back to the Ezio trilogy, her family will be recurring characters, with their safety and own philosophies being constant pressures on Karmena’s actions. 

It’s all shaping up to be a true spiritual successor to the original titles, with an experienced developer leading the project.

Noah told me: “I started off as an indie [developer] back in 2014. Game development has really been a passion, something I wanted to go into. 

“I ended up working at project contingency, project coral and a few other fan projects. That eventually led to me getting a job with Microsoft, I helped release Crackdown 3, Gears 5, and a couple Minecraft updates.”

With this breadth of experience leading the team, and a dedication to the franchise, only one threat really stands in their way. Copyright law. 

“Shortly after we had the idea I reached out to Ubisoft support to see about whether or not this was allowed.

“We didn’t hear from them till a week or two ago when we posted the teaser trailer. I was contacted directly by a Ubisoft representative who was just asking about the project, and I told them we were fully willing to comply with any of their demands.''

“I’m happy to do anything to make them feel secure in their IP.”

So far Ubisoft seem to be happy, leaving the project to tick along without intrusion. With a few years of development left however, we will wait and see. 

Currently, the team are looking for artists and animators, especially those who can work with metahumans and Unreal Engine 5.

To find out more about “Tribute” visit their Discord, or their ModDB page. 

Fact File

• Originally Assassins Creed was intended to be a spinoff of the Prince of Persia franchise, however as development progressed the team saw the potential of turning it into an original IP.

• The series' philosophies and historical influences are inspired by the Russian novel Alamut, which explores the real Islamic rebellions during the crusades.

• A TV adaptation of the series is currently in development by Netflix.

• At least four official Assassins Creed games are currently in development at Ubisoft, two of which will finally take the player to Asia. 

• Ubisoft hire doctors of history to research the periods the game will be set in, as this allows them to build as accurate as possible depictions of the periods they explore.

We would like to say a huge thank you to Noah for joining us for this interview.