For many gamers the Prince of Perisa series is a fan favorite from the previous console generation. Using a classic license with a brand new story and attractive 3D engine, the trilogy won extensive acclaim. While the Prince of Persia story arc ended, the series does have somewhat of a spiritual successor in Assassin's Creed.

The game shares a Middle-Eastern setting and extensive platforming, but the resemblance ends there. While Prince of Persia is more fantasy, Assassin's Creed is historical and while Prince of Persia was linear, Assassin's Creed is more open-ended. On top of its ambitious design, Assassin's Creed is also well on its way in surpassing the sales success of its predecessor.

We caught up with Adam Novickas, director of marketing at Ubisoft, to find out about the need for Creed.

It's almost liked they threatened people if they didn't buy the game...
According to the NPD, Assassin's Creed was the third and tenth best selling title for November on the Xbox 360 and PS3, respectively. This meant that it had total sales of roughly 1.35 million units in the U.S. alone. In the U.K., the game has also been climbing the charts, having gone from seventh, to second to first in the successive sales weeks since December 15, according to Chart Track.

The success of the game in the highly competitive November period is itself impressive, but the game appears to have legs as well. Already, Ubisoft has reported that worldwide sales (not shipped) of Assassin's Creed have exceeded 2.5 million, making it among the best selling titles on PS3/Xbox 360 in many territories. Ubisoft recently raised their sales expectations for the game, up two million to roughly five million unit sales during the '07 - '08 fiscal period.

When asked if Assassin's Creed has exceeded Ubisoft's sales expectations, Novickas responded frankly, "Yes, it has. Assassin's Creed is the fastest selling new video game IP in the U.S. ever. We took calculated risks with Assassin's Creed and created a game that had no comparison on the market and consumers responded."

"Assassin's Creed is a new type of game with impressive graphics and physics," he continued. "The technology, game design, theme and emotions merged together for a fresh take on the action genre. We proved that if you provide gamers an innovative gaming experience and a different way to play games, consumers will get curious and buy the game so they can experience it for themselves. That said, Assassin's Creed has a broad appeal to gamers around the world especially in the U.S. and U.K. ...but also in other parts of Europe and Japan as well."

Take a Leap of Faith
If Assassin's Creed was to be defined by industry buzzwords and pigeonholed into a genre, it would be like Prince of Persia meets Grand Theft Auto, a "sandbox" open world game in a medieval environment. What this means for the action/adventure open-world platformer is that there's a lot to see and do in the various cities of the Holy Land. Players can stalk the rooftops or try to blend in with the masses on the streets while planning their skullduggery in the meticulously recreated historical cities of Jerusalem, Damascus, Acre, and Masya.

Altair shows off Assassin's crowd mechanic

"People have been responding really well to all of the environments and the exploration elements of the game. We made a big splash when Assassin's was first revealed at E3 2006 and since then we had a following of players and consumers as we continued to show off the environment setting and time and storyline up to launch day," said Novickas. "The true freedom players experience in Assassin's Creed is a key appeal of the game. The simplified control scheme allows players to easily navigate through the cities, lets them play the game at their pace, and choose their path. This type of complete freedom is something that can only be experienced on next-gen systems. If players want, they can play in a more stealth-like mode or they can take on all adversaries and battle it out. Also, people can play the game slowly, at a deliberate pace and learn more about the storyline or they can play it at a more rapid speed where the action pushes the player forward."

"One of the main goals of Assassin's Creed was to create an immersive game with a deep story, compelling characters and an authentic environment," he added. "We definitely feel the soundtrack by Jesper Kyd and the voice acting by Philip Shahbaz and Kristen Bell helped achieve this level of immersion. We wanted each facet of the game to be as polished and beautiful as the graphics, animation and gameplay, so the soundtrack, the voice work and ambient sounds as you walk through the cities were worked on with meticulous detail. We're very pleased with how it all turned out in the end."

A killer sequel coming?
To complement this acclaimed game, Ubisoft pulled out all the stops for the Assassin's Creed marketing campaign. From the first major reveal at E3 2006 to various trailers, developers diaries, and TV ads that included a complete buyout of South Park, it hit all the right buttons. To learn more about the ad campaign, please read GameDaily BIZ's Ad Watch.

"What stood out in my mind was the overall integration of the entire marketing campaign, in particular the trailers and TV spots," ventured Novickas. "The trailers tie in with the TV ads and we worked closely with the networks to make sure the ads had great impact on the viewers. The TV ad campaign kicked off with the highest-rated and one of the biggest football games of the season - the Patriots vs. Colts game. Our trailers were just like movie style trailers so the audience could experience the depth and emotion of the game and get excited about playing it."

Although sometimes there's a bit of doubt as to whether a game will garner a sequel, in the case of Assassin's Creed that doubt can pretty much be erased. Despite the fact that no such sequel has been announced, we at GameDaily BIZ guarantee one. The game has been a huge hit for Ubisoft, and furthermore, the story directly and purposefully sets up a sequel set in the near future. With the underlying game technology already present, we feel it's only a matter of time until Assassin's Creed 2 is officially announced.