The art of the kill

With the simultaneous release of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, a high-end comic book and gallery exhibit, Ubisoft has the ultimate tie-in in their crosshairs

NIKOLAI ORELOV AT WORK: Assassin’s Creed: The Fall

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is the first game in the popular series where gamers can play together online, and Ubisoft Montreal has formed its own guild of local artists to help promote its Nov. 16 release. The studio has been touting its ambitious cross-media plans for years, and with Brotherhood, the XBox 360 and PlayStation 3 video game is now also the art exhibit and made-in-Montreal comic book.

Both promise to be more than your typical tie-ins, starting with this week’s release of the first installment of the Assassin’s Creed: The Fall three-part comic series. “It’s quite an astonish­ingly rare job, where it’s a big commercial product by a big corporation, yet it feels to us very much like a personal creation,” says comic co-creator Cameron Stewart. “We figured we’d have to work around very strict rules with a brand as big as this, but it turned out to be the opposite. We had a whole lot of creative freedom.”

SEEKING TSAR QUALITY: Karl Kerschl (L) and Cameron Stewart in St. Petersburg

Both Stewart and fellow co-creator Karl Kerschl are well known in comics circles (their previous work includes Batman & Robin and The Flash, respectively), and naturally were apprehensive about associating themselves with a game-based comics series, given that such adaptations are traditionally regarded as cheap afterthoughts. But as gamers well versed in Assassin’s Creed, the two couldn’t pass up the challenge of taking the essence of the game’s stealthy, rooftop-jumping action and bringing it to the static world of comics.

“It’s an uphill battle on both sides,” says Kerschl. “Video game comics have the reputation for not being the best quality, but also there are a lot of gamers who won’t even sit through cutscenes, much less pick up a comic.”

Stewart and Kerschl secured the gig after submitting a tandem proposal to the studio’s newly formed cross-media project division, called Ubi Workshop. The original plan was to continue the story of Ezio Auditore, the protagonist of the AC2 and Brotherhood games, but the artists ultimately created a new character and time period: the Tsarist Russian-era assassin Nikolai Orelov.

Following in the footsteps of Assassin’s Creed: The Exposition held at Arludik gallery in Paris this October, Galerie d’Art Yves Laroche (4 St-Paul E.) will be housing a free exhibition of con­ceptual art—the highly detailed, digitally drawn artwork that’s done before being translated into the 3D graphics found in the final product—from all three Assassin’s Creed games this Nov. 15–27.

GROUP WHACK: Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood

For Brotherhood, six conceptual artists designed 80-100 pieces of conceptual art, each taking anywhere from two to five days to complete. “[The pieces at the Montreal gallery] are exactly as we used them for the games,” says Ubisoft Montreal concept artist Olivier Martin. “None of the concept art was made specifically for the exposition, and nothing was re-touched or altered.”

Stewart and Kerschl went to St. Petersburg, Russia and Martin’s team to Italy for on-site research. Both groups, however, took special care to get the look of their respective hero characters right. As their offices are only a few blocks away from each other, Stewart and Kerschel frequently visited the Ubisoft studios and brainstormed with the Brotherhood team. The game was devel­oped with other Ubisoft studios, with the one in Annecy, France, handling the multiplayer mode. “We’re all working on the same thing, just different mediums,” says Stewart. “Getting togeth­er made us feel like we’re part of something bigger.” ■

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