Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice – April Interview
Topic: How was the concept of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood of Venice born?

ATA Team, April 27th, 2019

1) How did the idea of this kind of board game come to mind?

Thibaud: V-Commandos [Triton Noir’s first board game] was inspired by the fun gameplay of some famous stealth-based video games such as Metal Gear Solid, the Commandos series, and obviously Assassin’s Creed. As we thought about our next game, it struck us that the gameplay of V-Commandos was like a template for an Assassin’s Creed game. What’s more, Fabrice was Creative Director of Assassin’s Creed Initiates. His knowledge was crucial to start developing the board game because he gave us a great insight on both the passion and diversity of the fans as well as on the way the universe and franchise work.


Fabrice: Both of us have worked at the Ubisoft Montreal game studio on Assassin’s Creed projects among others.Actually, a big part of the whole team has been into those video games for quite a long time, which makes it very easy and natural for us to develop an Assassin’s Creed board game.
Having kept excellent relations with Ubisoft, it felt completely natural to talk to them about the idea of making Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice.Our team is very used to the video gaming experience and does want to put the same feel into a tabletop game. I definitely like the challenge!

2) How much time did it take from that moment until the greenlight for the project by Ubisoft?

Fabrice: : It was amazingly quick. First we tested the water with the Brand team and there was immediately a high degree of interest. Then of course we had to come back with a foolproof concept, and that took us a few weeks.
We showed the concept to the Brand team and started to talk with the licensing department. It took us a few more weeks until we had a go. It is really amazing because I believe we were the first team to come to them with a Kickstarter only project. They were incredibly enthusiastic and super smart at understanding this whole new way of putting a game into the hands of the fans.
Then of course the legalese and final contracts took a bit more time,but we could move on and design to prepare the Kickstarter launch.

3) What is the biggest challenge you have faced while creating the original base of the game?

Thibaud: can we really highlight one big challenge in this project? Well, the project itself was a huge challenge since we want to make a very qualitative game that will convince fans of the Assassin’s Creed franchise, but also players who liked our first game V-Commandos, and those who are into cooperative or infiltration board games in general.Speaking of Assassin’s Creed lovers, one challenge was to respect the franchise’s DNA obviously! We have regular meetings with the Assassin’s Creed teams at Ubisoft Montreal (we are neighbors!) to make sure we stay in line with this universe that so many people are in love with. But overall in this license deal, we can use some big freedom of creativity in the development process, which is soooo cool. In the end, we want miniatures and other gaming components to be beautiful, immersive, stunning. Everyone might say so, right? But Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice will not just be a board game; it has to be something more… something for game collectors and art lovers!