Former Creed animator questions lack of females in Unity

A former member of the Assassin’s Creed animation team has joined the ranks of people questioning excuses made by the AC Unity team about why there are no female characters in the game.

As discussed in our opinion piece this morning, the game’s producer James Therien claimed that implementing such a character would require "double the work" for the team in terms of redoing animations. Reports have emerged that a male Assassin’s Creed character has 8,000 animations due to the series’ famed parkour system.

However, Jonathan Cooper – an animator at Uncharted dev Naughty Dog and former member of the Creed team – claims that such extensive work would not be required, dispelling a few more myths about the series’ animations via Twitter:

In my educated opinion, I would estimate this to be a day or two's work. Not a replacement of 8000 animations. http://t.co/z4OZl3Sngl

— Jonathan Cooper (@GameAnim) June 11, 2014

Fun fact: in our last prototype together, entering your name as @Aleissia allowed you to play as a female character.

— Jonathan Cooper (@GameAnim) June 11, 2014

Fun fact #2: Aveline de Grandpré shares more of Connor Kenway's animations than Edward Kenway does. pic.twitter.com/lFHHnBfLht

— Jonathan Cooper (@GameAnim) June 11, 2014

Man, if I had a dollar for every time someone at Ubisoft tried to bullshit me on animation tech 😉

— Jonathan Cooper (@GameAnim) June 11, 2014

Earlier today, we spoke to animators about the real challenges of implementing female characters in games, and whether Ubisoft’s decision to abandon them was justified.