Ubisoft Chief Creative Has Had Enough of Linear Narratives

During an interview with French newspaper Le Monde, Ubisoft chief creative officer Serge Hascoët said that he’d prefer to move away from linear narrative structures, in favor of more player-driven approaches, Game Informer reports.

Hascoët sees things like cutscenes as a restriction of player freedom. “During these scenes, I’m not doing what I want to do, which is evolve in this world,” he said. “I don’t want us to write one story, I want there to be tens of thousands of stories, that each character has one, and I can speak to them if I want to know that story.”

“What interests me is to create worlds that are interesting to me as well as anyone else,” Hascoët said. “If I have a game set in San Francisco (like Watch Dogs 2), I’d want even my mom to be able to have fun, drive a boat, helicopter, car… There has to be interesting people to meet, too, and that they come across well.” He wants the player to be able to enjoy themselves on their own terms. “We want to give them many methods: private detective, assassin, hacker, hunter… You can try out these professions along with their problems, and to become more powerful.”

All of this raises the question: Will the Ubisoft space game teased in Watch Dogs 2 have a linear narrative, or will Hascoët get his way?