Assassin's Creed creator Patrice Désilets is busy making prehistoric survival game Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, the first game from his Montréal-based studio Panache. But his next project may well be 1666 Amsterdam, the IP he sued Ubisoft for control of in 2013, he revealed this week.
Désilets was initially heading up the development of 1666 Amsterdam, an open world game about the devil, at THQ. The studio folded in 2013, and was purchased by Ubisoft, who Désilets had left back in 2010. Ubisoft therefore had control of the project. They then fired Désilets, who sued to gain full rights to the game, which he eventually did in 2016.
We haven't heard much about it since, but this week Désilets told VG247 that 1666 Amsterdam is "for sure" still going to happen. The jungle traversal elements of Ancestors, such as swinging between trees as an ape, will help feed into any future work on the game, he said.
"You put the cape on the ape and you’re pretty good to do another game,” he said. “If you think about it, climbing up a tree trunk, climbing a rock, climbing a building façade…It’s like now I’ve got a toolbox.”
When it does eventually happen, it will probably be different to his initial vision, he added. "It’ll probably change a little bit. You were [originally] more like the devil’s apprentice than the actual devil. Once I finish [Ancestors] and then, ‘Okay what’s next?’ If it’s Amsterdam 1666, I’ll probably restart from scratch.”
You can read Andy's hands-on with Ancestors here.
