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Assassin’s Creed creator unveils Ancestors, his newest game

Patrick Désilets reveals his indie studio’s first project.

 

Dennis Scimeca

Internet Culture

Posted on Apr 23, 2015   Updated on May 29, 2021, 12:11 am CDT

The creator of Assassin’s Creed has revealed his new game.

At the Reboot Develop 2015 conference held in Dubrovnik, Croatia, Patrick Désilets announced Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey.

As with most game reveals, the short video Désilets shared with the audience during his presentation said very little about the game. The majority of the reveal video was a pictorial walkthrough of key landmarks in human evolution. Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey will be episodic, following a trend begun by Telltale Games and seen in games like Resident Evil: Revelations 2 and Life is Strange. Désilets’s new game will also have a documentary feel.

The theme of human evolution fits with Désilets’s interest in historical fiction. Exploration of ancestry is a key theme of the Assassin’s Creed franchise, which Désilets created while working for French publisher Ubisoft. The bulk of Désilets’s presentation, as reported by Eurogamer, was not about his new game, however, but about the career path which led to the founding of his indie studio Panache Digital Games.

After working on Assassin’s Creed, Assassin’s Creed 2, and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Désilets took a sabbatical from Ubisoft. “We did Brotherhood in 10 months,” Désilets said at his presentation, as reported by Eurogamer. “And then I realized something—maybe I was working too much. I had my second daughter, and when she was 2 days old, I was already back at work on Brotherhood.”

Désilets departed Ubisoft in 2010 and joined studio THQ Montreal to begin work on 1666: Amsterdam. When THQ collapsed, Ubisoft acquired its Montreal studio and with it ownership of 1666: Amsterdam. Désilets was fired shortly thereafter, and his lawsuit over ownership of 1666: Amsterdam is ongoing.

Désilets’s new studio, Panache Digital Games, has a very small staff and is focused on making short, episodic games with triple-A production values.

H/T Eurogamer/ Screengrab via Eurogamer/YouTube

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*First Published: Apr 23, 2015, 2:57 pm CDT