Assassin’s Creed Unity would have “looked really weird” in 60 FPS says Ubisoft

It’s already common knowledge that most gamers want to see 1080p resolution and at least 60 fps on all the games nowadays. Many developers are trying to satisfy that demand and make gamers happy but there are some companies out there that like to do things their way. Ubisoft is one such company and many people have accused them of intentionally downgrading the PS4 version of Assassin’s Creed Unity in order to make it on par with the Xbox One version. The game will run at 900p and 30 fps but Ubisoft says that this was the plan all along and that it didn’t downgrade any of the versions. Moreover, the company is of the opinion that not all games benefit from higher frame rate and Assassin’s Creed Unity would have “looked really weird”, just like the Hobbit movie.

“At Ubisoft for a long time we wanted to push 60 fps,” Nicholas Guerin, World Level Designer for Assassin’s Creed Unity told TechRadar. “I don’t think it was a good idea because you don’t gain that much from 60 fps and it doesn’t look like the real thing. It’s a bit like The Hobbit movie, it looked really weird. And in other games it’s the same – like the Rachet and Clank series [where it was dropped]. So I think collectively in the video game industry we’re dropping that standard because it’s hard to achieve, it’s twice as hard as 30fps, and its not really that great in terms of rendering quality of the picture and the image.”

Alex Amancio, Creative Director for Assassin’s Creed Unity also emphasized the fact that some games are better off at 30fps. He also says that 60fps is more more suitable for a shooter rather than an action adventure title like Assassin’s Creed Unity. “30 was our goal, it feels more cinematic,” Amancio said. “60 is really good for a shooter, action adventure not so much. It actually feels better for people when it’s at that 30fps. It also lets us push the limits of everything to the maximum. It’s like when people start asking about resolution. Is it the number of the quality of the pixels that you want? If the game looks gorgeous, who cares about the number?”

Ubisoft previously announced that Assassin’s Creed Unity will run at 900p resolution and 30 fps on both the PS4 and Xbox One. However, the company later said that “the final specs aren’t cemented yet” which suggests that either the resolution or the frame rate might change by the time Assassin’s Creed Unity comes out next month.