Assassin's Creed II - Developer Spotlight - Ubisoft Montreal

Progress Update

Memory Sequences 9 & 10 complete

Achievements Earned - Masquerade (Complete DNA Sequence 9), Bianca's Men (Complete DNA Sequence 10) & Victory Lies In Preparation (All Item, Armour, Hidden Blade upgrades).

Should be done by Saturday.

Song

Flight Over Venice 2

Developer Spotlight

Ubisoft Montreal

Ubisoft are one of the biggest game companies in the world. Started up in France in 1986 by the five Guillemot brothers, one of whom, Yves, is still the CEO of the company. Ubisoft started in-house production of games in 1990 and in 1997 would open their most important development studio, Ubisoft Montreal. Being a French company, it made sense to have their North American base in the French-speaking part of Canada. It is Ubisoft's largest development studio with over 1,700 employess and a ton of well received and, more importantly, commercially successful games. Their first two games, however, were not successful or well received: Tonic Trouble for the PC (later ported to N64) and Donald Duck: Going Quackers (though I remember playing this when the PS2 was new and it not being that bad. I was nine though). 

Their fortunes would change with a little game called Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. The game was met with glowing reviews, with the Xbox version getting an average score of nearly 93% (Says GameRankings) and selling over 3 million copies. In addition to the Splinter Cell series (22 million sold), Ubisoft Montreal was also responsible for the Prince of Persia series (17 million sold), Far Cry (8 million) and, of course, Assassin's Creed (38 million sold). The latter is easily Ubisoft's biggest game franchise (outselling the Just Dance series by 10 million copies). All figures come from Ubisoft themselves.

Pictured: The place Ubisoft prints their money

Ubisoft Montreal is set to expand even further, they plan on adding 1,400 more employees by 2013. That would make them the biggest game development studio in the world. And as long they keep making hits, it is an accomplishment they definitely deserve. We will definitely be bumping into each other in the future.