 What's up everybody I'm the hook and I'm the blade and together we're, you know, welcome to the blade cast a show about all things I'm your host Lawson with me as always is your other host the one and only Tim. What can you introduce me a different way. How I don't know just not not that way. What you didn't like the little Tim I just you may be nervous you were like the one and only and it's like oh what do I say to that. I understand it's it must be hard to carry the unbearable weight of massive talent on your shoulders massive Tim. Just big Tim energy on this episode of the podcast it's always that way I know Hello everybody so today yeah we've got a great episode for you guys it's it's gonna be great it's gonna be excellent some would even say I'm excited someone even say that Lawson's excited. If you remember back we did a previous of what if episode basically just talking about some hypothetical things some things that we knew about that kind of got cut and didn't happen. And we have a lot of fun going back and forth about things that could have been an assassin's Creed and so we said fuck it let's do it again. Yeah this time we are just going to focus a little bit more on things that were actually like kind of beyond a conceptual stage and remove late in the development. So nothing like Patrice saying that he want he wanted the kingdom to be like a hunting ground for you because that never made it out of the conceptual stage. That's completely manufacturing a made up Wild West game that probably never existed. Well that well the caveat with that is like we were talking about things that are like pre production and maybe like was floated around but these are things that were a little bit more concrete. This is like cut content type stuff right. Yeah exactly things that were removed or switched around or saved for other games etc. Just a couple notes at the top of the show some of these things are legitimized more than others and I will as we go through I will say which ones are like for certain that from the horse's mouth type deal. Some of these are a little bit more maybe left field. I'm not making any kind of a definitive statement about any of these things that aren't actually like as I said from the horse's mouth. So any of these things that are a little strange. A point of clarification is the horse Ubisoft. Yes or people I've never imagined Ubisoft as a horse before but I'm kind of enjoying it or people affiliated people who actually worked in the game and authoritative figure if you will an authoritative horse. Yeah our pet horse Ubisoft. We can't call you up and be like hey man is this true. So if any of this is just like super proved false. I'm sorry leave us some hate mail. Also I don't want to make any kind of definitive statements about why something got cut or why this didn't make it in the game. There are many moving pieces in these games and you know like sometimes it's easy to tribute blame the Ubisoft because they do a lot of shit but. Sometimes just no one's fault you know so and I will get into why this is relevant later on. But yeah so that's really all I have to say. Lawson did you have anything to add. As far as like a note at the top of the show. I do love notes at the top of the show specifically. Yeah we all do. We all do. But I don't really have anything. I'm kind of just I'm just vibing. You're long for the ride. I'm going with the flow and I'm excited to see where it takes me. We're just gonna start from AC1 and work our way down. These are some small details to be honest. Kind of had a hard time taking up some things about AC1. I did find though that apparently and this is actually in the code of the game that there was like a drop in co-op mode. Yeah I have actually seen some footage where someone was able to like connect a second controller and then like a ghostly Altair figure would pop up. Apparently this was totally going to be a thing and they dropped it. It stayed within the code of the game somehow. I heard that I remember like maybe an interview with Patrice or something that they talked about wanting to do co-op in the first Assassin's Creed. And that the reason they couldn't do it was because like split screen was just not effective because you need to have a lot of vertical awareness to be able to climb something or see where you're climbing. And you need a lot of horizontal awareness to interface with crowds and do effective core. It makes sense why like as far as split screen goes just wasn't feasible. That makes a lot of sense. I'm wondering if it could have been more of like a not so much a split screen thing but like a utilizing the Xbox Live features in PS Online. Right. It's interesting though that they like that they have this idea for the first game and then Unity pops up so much later and does it. You know I'm sure besides just like running around together that there must be like a design thing where if you want to be running with your friend there has to be a thing where they didn't build parkour situations or like parkour routes made for like two people to be alongside each other. You know it was more of just you so maybe. Yeah I don't know. So this is probably the most speculatory thing on the list. I really just found it while I was perusing the wiki. It says that Constantinople was in the game or was supposed to be that kind of is on the edge though of like conceptual. So I just want to mention it because honestly finding things that were cut in this game is very hard because it seems like there wasn't a lot that we know of. You know of course there's the crossbow thing that was clearly in the game without you know that's minor. Some other things like you could ride a horse within the cities that's actually present in a demo that you can watch. Weird how that didn't make it in the AC2 either. You also had not only a gentle push function but you had an ability to shove citizens like guards can do to you if you get too close. So gentle push is still a thing but then you could shove them I guess with a different like probably high high profile and gentle high profile B. Yes. And so that would have been very useful for beggars. So moving on to AC2 you were not unaware of this. We've talked about this a little bit before but this is a great way for us to expand on it. So AC2 and this isn't this isn't an assassin's creed dev diary. You can look it up on YouTube and it's totally available so this is legitimized. It was originally supposed to end in 1503. Coincidentally when Rodrigo Borgia was to die totally did not was not supposed to end where it was. And I've read that there was a little sliver of room that was actually playable not just the part that you run through to get to Rodrigo. So which makes sense because I actually just recently finished AC2 again and it does look like there's a good chunk of the city that is built. Yeah you know we talked about the whole relationship between AC2 and Brotherhood in the last what if episode. What's most interesting to me is the idea of when in development it became the plan like was it simply a case of oh we couldn't get Rome in AC2 to work the way we wanted it to. So we had to cut some content and then later they go hey we want another Assassin's Creed Ezio game this next year. Do you think you can finesse it with what you left over. Or alternatively if as they were making AC2 they started to have ideas for what would become Brotherhood and they were like oh you know what we could do a whole game out of this. So let's stop doing it in AC2 and let's save it for later. I suspect the former just because I feel like the sales of AC2 led to that decision. I feel like I heard that somewhere like it's sold so well that they were like hurry guys all hands on deck we got to shit out another Ezio game next year. But I don't know. You know I'm also curious too because I'm wondering if they just had like a really good response to like playtesting with Ezio as well. That's also possible right like all the playtesters just start like leaving just stands on their controllers. Yeah exactly. And then management starts going maybe we're on to something. People really like that Leonardo da Vinci guy. Someone's having a breakdown in the lunch room. I think they forgot to hug Leonardo. I mean look like there's totally like bits like we know that like the DLC that that's actually in the game was not supposed to be in the game on the disk. Like it's on the disk. You know they just unlock it for you fucking shitty as doofy DLC. AC2 might have the most cut content because it had the most things that were actually on the game that they just didn't use. Which I wonder why it of all the games when you if you take all the things that were supposed to be in the game and you just put them in the game. How ambitious and unruly and fucking huge of a game is that still probably only like 10% the runtime of Valhalla but I can't imagine the pacing of that game with all that extra stuff in it. Yeah I mean ending even further into 1503 and if you include the missing sequences that's a long game but still not even like you said not even close to as long as Valhalla. Yeah. I read that there's apparently this part of Venice that was supposed to be playable. There is a part of Venice that you can see off the distance. It's it's kind of low res but it's there that was apparently supposed to also be playable. I mean the thing that's most interesting to me about the 1503 date is that was what was originally intended then still though I think that if AC2 had ended where everyone intended it originally we probably wouldn't see Ezio ever again. That's a good point and I think that it's interesting how I mean that dev diary video you're talking about I don't know when that came out in the hype cycle for AC2. But the fact that they were talking in the video like the game ends in 1503 had to be a decision that was made very late in the game. I'm curious about that you know like. Yeah I mean because that's the thing is a dev diary isn't like it's not something you put out after the game comes out. Right. Okay so I just looked at the date it's October 22 2009 for those who are unaware or who may need a refresher of this. It's the Assassin's Creed Dev Diary number five where they talk about Ezio and Corey May is like our game begins in 1401 and ends in 1503. Famed Leo K lookalike Corey May. Dude it is uncanny how similar they look. It really is. I think that Leo K is just Corey May and he's hiding. It explains a lot it explains a lot is all I'm saying. Yeah it explains how brilliant and smart it is. So it is interesting to think about like what would have happened to Ezio. I still think that ending it in 1503 that would have made a more conclusive story. The way it ends now it clearly seems like a cut in a rewrite. Yeah we've talked about how the ending of AC2 is actually pretty weak all things considered as far as character stuff goes. It's pretty wack. It's pretty wack. When you really think about it it doesn't make sense. And it makes sense now that they're like that that wasn't the original intention it was supposed to go much further with brother ego. So I finally enough I don't have a brotherhood section on this list because brotherhood is just cut cut content from AC2. There's nothing cut from brotherhood that we could talk about. Actually in brotherhood they had this whole section where you're going to fast forward into the future and play in French Revolution Paris as a whole different character named Arno. But that actually got cut and turned into a whole different game. I got cut and turned into AC3. So for revelations there's just there's one interesting detail that I wanted to talk about. So going back to the concept of Noble for AC1 comment. Supposedly there was supposed to be some concept of Noble gameplay as Altair and that would have been a really easy like re reuse of assets and stuff. So I totally see that having happened. Oh like they would. Okay like you're playing as Altair but it's Constantinople but it's like you know 11 hundreds instead of 1500. Right. And so back so back into like some of the original stuff that I read apparently like the sack of Constantinople happens in 1204. That would have lined up perfectly with Altair. And we know from like Expanded Universe stuff that Altair made a trip to Constantinople but was unsuccessful in planting a bureau there. So it completely lined up with with things like the Secret Crusade and everything because you could just reuse the Constantinople assets and just don't give them the hook blade. They did that with Amosia stuff anyway. Exactly. Would have been pretty cash money. Yeah there's some other things you know a little bit more speculatory about how like Animas Island was supposed to be a little bit more like spooky and how the Desmond's journey was supposed to be a different concept not like the first person portal stuff. I can't validate any of that. I'm trying to imagine a spookier Animas Island and I feel like it could have actually worked really well. I wonder why they moved away from that. All things considered Animas Island is actually pretty bright and colorful. It's very Tron like. Yeah it's not like it's not like oh this is scary. So like they could have really turned up the the spook. Clay wasn't going to be just like a normal body talking to him. It was going to be also like kind of kind of reminiscent of how we saw him in AC2 and Brotherhood just this kind of like spooky figure looming over Desmond and Animas Island. And apparently this was going to be how Desmond learned the actual truth about Lucy and everything. And so he was going to like be like hey Desmond, Lucy she's Templar. Hey Lucy was a Templar. And he'd be like fuck. And he'd be like oh I guess it's good I killed her then. Yeah I guess it's good that I sliced her bitch ass up. And then I stabbed her in the belly dude. Dude. Whoa nice one dude. Dude you killed a Templar that's so sick. Honestly what interests me about that I mean first of all yeah one of the big failings of revelations is that one of the key revelations was not put into the story of the main game. It would have been confusing I think maybe hard to justify like how does Clay know Lucy was a Templar. Who knows. At the same time though what's actually strikes me as the biggest reason we didn't get spooky Animas Island is something that Darby McDevitt said to us said to you on Twitter this past week. Because you actually you tweeted at him with the clip of in our revelations episode episode 14 where I talked about how Clay is sort of a thematic reflection of Ezio and that he realizes that his greater purpose in life is he's just got to help Desmond save the world and that he's not the chosen one. And he was like yeah he said he built the narrative of every character every main character in our relations around the idea that they would have to realize by the end of the story the exact extent of what they could accomplish with their life. And right if Clay Cosmeric is going to be a sinister spooky computer ghost it's a little bit harder to humanize him to the point of being the guy that you see in that like like how do you earn that moment in the end of him you know sacrificing himself for Desmond. If up until now he's been a creepy ghost boy right. It's probably safe to assume that that was more conceptual than anything. Perhaps. Yeah I don't see how you can validate him as a main character and not use him that way and clearly I mean like these decisions had to have been made very quickly. Yeah. Because they clearly had Clay voiced and acted and stuff so it's not like this was a last minute decision or anything. Right. So we're starting slow with a lot of these but trust me the snowball is just getting bigger with AC3 AC3 also probably rivals AC2 with cut content but we just don't know about any of it. But we do know there's a very slight gameplay things are very popular AC3 like this was actually like within like screenshots of the game that were released. You had you had a canoe you could use a canoe to travel cool. Apparently if we're talking about how Brotherhood was like AC2 table scraps even black flag pulled a lot from AC3 as well. Apparently there was going to be naval free room so that Connor could just get on the what was it though the Akila. Yeah the Akila. And just kind of free room in that area so totally makes sense how they were kind of working on that system then just brought it over to AC4. Yeah. Apparently Philadelphia was going to be in the game but the architecture just didn't work which for as well as the other architecture in this game works it must have been pretty fucking bad. It must have been pretty fucking bad dude. It must have been pretty shitty. That would have been cool. You know another I think another city location would have been interesting. That's the thing right is like I can appreciate when it's like hey dad like this this city wouldn't work for Assassin's Creed but they obviously stopped caring about that a long time ago. Like why why just put like why can't you just do Philly and then design it in a way where it's maybe not super one to one but it's still it's functional. Yeah that's the thing it's exactly your point it's like Boston and New York already sucked to parkour through so how bad could Philadelphia have really been. Right. And also just I mean yeah that whole generation of games until Rogue was a little bit just not great as far as parkour and city design experience go. But it's really interesting how like if Rogues New York and AC3's New York can both be considered viable by the Assassin's Creed franchise and both be considered like this is true enough to the architecture that we're comfortable with designing it this way. As a completely clueless dummy I don't know what it is about Philadelphia that made it undoable. About Rogues New York to like the thing is is they're not just the different cities one just designed better. Right. So it's it's weird how they how they could make a few changes and have I think an actually like solid design structure and so make it to make it parkour friendly. If it can be done with AC3's New York to such a degree I could have seen like Rogue having Philadelphia and it being the same situation. Right. I wanted to check since we were talking about it and see if there was a reason that was given because I remember Noah Noah commented on our last what if episode about that exact thing about Philadelphia. Oh yeah. OK. He said what if AC3 had Philadelphia E3 footage shows Connor killing Silas who was killed in sequence to buy Haytham in 1776. Connor goes to Philly multiple times their special map marker assets for it and even the map of the frontier goes south to accommodate having a third major city. It really appears that Philly being cut due to technical issues is what caused Haytham to exist and the poor pacing throughout. Wow. OK. That's that's really interesting. Right. Yeah. Because it does kind of feel lacking with just the two cities. Right. Like I think Philadelphia would have rounded it rounded it out a little bit. Especially when you consider if that leads to the whole Haytham idea that's like a really big change. Oh yeah. I mean that that's the that's the like first three sequences of your story gone for Haytham. That's interesting. So there are if there are actually assets in the game and that's totally like Philly was going to be there and they just cut it. It's probably pretty late cut maybe. Yeah. It's interesting to me how I'm really curious about what about Philadelphia specifically was it was like so terrible like that. Yeah. In a way that New York and Boston weren't. Wait you're telling me the AC three team had standards. You're telling me the AC three team couldn't make a city. Some slight things like everyone knows Connor was supposed to be able to scalp people that turned out not to be too appropriate for his tribe. Yeah. That is that that is seen you know in like the target game playing what not. So that that seemingly was a little bit of a late change. I'm not sad that it's gone. Who cares. But interestingly enough, apparently the hookblade not the hookblade what the fuck am I saying the rope dart was apparently actually just supposed to be in. I actually have concept art of this. It's actually the hook the hook play Jesus. The rope dart. Get the hook blade out of your brain. The rope dart was supposed to be actually like attached to the hidden blade and was called the chain blade chain blade. So you would shoot it out and you know whatever like and they I guess they thought it was a little too fantastical. So they cut it which they could have they should have just done that with you know what I'm going to say right. Yeah. The rope launcher. Yeah. Why are they why there's no combat application for the fucking rope launcher blows my mind. You're telling me the assassins have the rope launcher on their wrist and would never fucking shoot it into a human being. Seriously. Yeah. It could literally just function as a rope dart and combat. It's ridiculous. As we know the best AC gadgets kind of bleed out into all other aspects of the game. The hookblade affects navigation and combat both. And that's why it's so effective. Yeah. And that's why it's the best gadget. Moving on AC for now we are getting into the into the juice into the meat because now we're getting into the good shit. I had to I had to Peter through about fucking co-op and scalping just to round out this list. Now we're in the end game baby. I can't wait. So with AC for this is really interesting. And this is from the horse's mouth meaning the Darby horse. Oh yeah. I don't know if you know this. AC for how to cut sequence Darby says this was kind of late in the writing process but not so much when they started development. There was supposed to be a sequence after Edward is betrayed by Roberts. He goes directly back to Mary read and he's like look listen I fucked up. I'll help you find the sage because he betrayed me. He's not a nice guy. And this would then lead into a and I'm sure like Noah can comment on this. I have no idea. But this this would lead into like an actually like historical accurate time where Mary read and Bonnie were fighting the British and Edward would be a part of that. And so this actually would have led straight into how Edward was captured with Mary and and how they ended up at the same prison. OK. So the idea is that Edward would have went to help Mary and Edward Mary and and would have been on this kind of little escapade. Then they would have gotten captured by the British and that's how Edward would have been thrown in jail with Mary. And Darby said that he wanted to take this opportunity to have Mary scold Edward while they're in jail together. You know. So that way like that's kind of where Edward's like I guess come to Jesus moment happens. So that's kind of interesting because that kind of would have really set things up for the finale in a different way. Right. Totally. Yeah. I can see all the reasons why that would have been a great sequence and and could have maybe helped the the sort of connecting tissue like A to B of getting Edward into that prison. And absolutely having that moment at the same time. It's one of those things that like I'm not desperate for the version of AC four where that's included because they still managed to make everything work really well. For sure. And it is interesting though too because for me probably I would have liked a sequence like this a little bit more because I felt like Edward's relationship with Mary kind of ended a little too abruptly. I want to see more of them together. This would have satisfied that. I think that's true. I think they're that I would have liked to see more with them. I think it's a testament to how strong the interactions that they do have are that I still felt you know that that connection and that attachment. Right. But I would not have said no to an opportunity to flush them out more. It's interesting to think too because the way it happens in AC four is Edward gets betrayed by Roberts. He gets out of the observatory but is injured and Roberts just sells him off and he ends up at the same jail as Mary. Yeah. I totally would have preferred him getting betrayed escaping you know and then Mary kind of puts trust in him then Edward fucks it up somehow. And then he gets you know then he gets chewed out by her in prison and he's like wow like I've put you both in danger now for my own selfishness. The other nice thing about is that it sets. Yeah I agree. The other nice thing about it is that it actually adds another node on the path to assassin because presumably if he's helping Mary read he's helping her in the context of she's trying to get Bartholomew Roberts for the sake of the assassins. So he's now doing something for the assassins even though critically he's mostly just doing it for revenge and that's another great sort of like you know you line up what his motives are and what the assassin's motives are. It would probably be the first time in the game that they're aligned but you see that he's still doing it for the wrong reasons which makes his choice to actually join and actually help for the right reasons even that much more impactful. So it's a great idea. Yeah for sure. And I think it could have provided us a little bit more attention to Edward like slowly kind of like digging the assassin ideology like like maybe him and Mary could have conversations and he's like you know what I didn't think about it that way. Yeah. And ultimately what the final straw is them getting in jail and Edward then realizes when fucking Mary is like about to die in prison partly because of something that he did that would be really impactful. Yeah. Being with Mary leading up to her death that would have been really hard on everyone so I I'm sad that it didn't make it in obviously you know it works without it. Darby says that they kind of would have like gone back to NASA in this process and Darby says that NASA was kind of used too much they wanted to go back to Kingston and whatnot so that was also a part of the reason why he said that it was good that it got cut ultimately. Yeah. But he did want this to happen because he really liked that historical point like with Mary and and the funny and the cool thing about it too is like Mary isn't a pirate she's an assassin who's using the pirates for cover. Right. So it would have been really interesting to see like how what she's doing on these pirate missions that that are different than everyone else and how she's kind of getting and to accept some of the ideology perhaps anyway. Last thing about AC four so you know how at the end of AC four Edward you know goes in these little assassination missions Darby says that he was really they all really liked about how AC one had the And so some of the final assassination missions were going to be more about investigate than assassinate so that would have been cool just to get more Edward assassinate things but ultimately you know I think the assassination still work fine. Yeah and some of them in the end kind of do end up working like that. Well the overabundance of tailing missions really makes me think the whole investigation assassinating thing would just be more tailing missions so no thanks. That's a good point. Yeah so that's pretty much the biggest thing that Darby says was cut so there you go. So moving on now we're getting to even more of the good shit. Now we're in unity. Nothing for rogue. No fuck rogue. Oh fuck you. No apparently there were there were I was going to add a section for rogue but every detail that I found was just people like beating around the bush about what it was actually cut so. Interesting. Apparently there was a couple sequences cut. There was actually a whole introductory part of the game that was going to be in a different location but they cut it and they couldn't talk about it so they didn't give any details about it. So there you go. I don't know why they're mentioning this before because I knew this. I just got reminded about it in this process for unity. Take a guess who was supposed to write it originally with the first treatment. Take a guess the first treatment of unity. Yes. Fuck you. Yeah. So did you know that or that it was an actual guess. Well I just guessed because I know that unity started development right after Brotherhood and you have wrote Brotherhood so he might have been involved in that. Okay. So yeah there's a bunch of things stuff there. So you have them was the was around for unity like he was going to write unity pretty much. Yeah. He eventually left the child of light. He's very vague about why that was. So could have been because of some of the things I'm going to mention here. I'll go back to you Haley. But you know the whole like a mancio timeline is really is really interesting because he came off of revelations and he was like I guess I'll do your unity game. Then apparently he left Ubisoft entirely which we know he didn't come back to Ubisoft until 2012. And he got on the project and then left Ubisoft and then came back in 2012. So he started on unity after revelations. Yes. So the way that he explains it who fucking knows this will actually happen the way he explains is that they offered him unity and he was like well I gotta do revelations because unity started right around after Brotherhood. And so a mancio was busy with revelations and then after revelations finished apparently you know he just pretty much fucked off and left the company. Right. He didn't come back until 2012. He had to go soul searching and face licking. Yes. Exactly. But 2012 wasn't that much longer after revelations happened but like to think that like how how much was he was he actually involved in this project. Let's say he worked on it for two years tirelessly like with how long unity was actually in development like that's that's a job in the bucket. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of an interesting point like do we know who was running the ship before a mancio. No. In terms of creative direction. No. I don't. Right. I think it's the Yo-Halem. So Yo-Halem this is from the horse's mouth. I need to stop saying that. I need to stop saying that. Look there's too many horses and too many mouths in this podcast Tim. This is from the Yo-Halem mouth himself. So OK. So the original pitch for unity it was inspired by a movie called Red Violin. Are you familiar with this movie. Not even a little bit. So the Red Violin is a movie about a violin believe it or not. Whoa. And it's red. It follows from when it was first crafted and then it and then it follows it between owners throughout 100 years 200 years. Hmm. Do I know I've ever seen the movie. Not at all. But that was Yo-Halem's inspiration. And so basically what we can assume is that it was going to fall presumably the sword of Eden throughout all these time periods and the time anomalies within unity were actually from that original concept of the unity prologue is an example of a part of this surviving unity prologue like was going to be like the first section of this sort of Eden ownership thing. And the thing is that each owner dies after they like each owner ends up dying. So that's why your prologue guy dies. That's why Arno was supposed to die. Wow. And so that was the big question that Yo-Halem was was saying is like should our own liver die. And so that was the thing. It was going to pass owners. And so then that makes you look at the time anomalies in a whole different light because that means you would have had the prologue which probably would have had more medieval Paris action going. Then you have French Revolution, Arno time period. You have World War II. You have the Statue of Liberty being built in Paris. So theoretically we would have had a unity that took place over a huge spate of time following a piece of Eden through all of its owners. And the thing that is really cool to me is that that could have translated into a modern day story. So obviously like look that's very ambitious. And for all the things that Unity wanted to do you know like could that have actually happened? Who knows? That was part of why I gave the preface earlier is like Yo-Halem apparently like while Yo-Halem was on the project this stuff got changed. So was that the reason why he left? A child of light perhaps? Was it maybe his decision to change these things? Maybe. I don't want to attribute blame to one person. You know it could have been Yo-Halem changing his mind. But it's probably not that. One thing I could speculate on is that if they're trying to you know because there's this whole narrative that sprung up where a lot of the choices that it seemed like they made about like player progression and RPG-esque character building in Unity directly followed on from the data they were getting for how effective the RPG ship mechanics in AC4 were. The people were staying in the game in Black Flag just to level up their ships and fight more legendary battles and stuff like that. So maybe they get that data they did make that decision that like well let's let's apply that to the character. Maybe that goes hand in hand with the whole co-op idea of you know like you've talked about customizing and specializing your characters so you can differentiate it from the other people you're playing with. That would all be very hard to make work in that red violin context because you can't really level up a character if the game has four main characters because it jumps through time periods. Correct. Right. Yeah. I don't know. The reason why the reason why this I think I feel like this gets a pass because it is like it is conceptual to the point where it didn't make it pass like the first treatment. Yeah. However there are remnants of it in the game. We have the time anomalies. They became something else but like the Unity prologue was we were probably going to play as that guy you know until he died. It was probably going to be more than just a mission. It was probably going to be a sequence you know and that totally makes sense for all like the assets they built for the anomaly stuff. I know that you are particularly like you really want to see an assassin speaking that takes place over many different areas. Yeah. That's what I've been wanting to see and our friend blue as well. That's something that I listened to one of the episodes of his podcast over on overly sarcastic productions of their new podcast. He was talking about having the exact same thing he wants to see where he was specifically talking in the context of like a like an Asian setting like in China or Japan. I've always talked about in the context of Russia of going between like Russian Revolution and Cold War era Russia and maybe even long before that. Right. But that being like something they wanted to do for Unity and the fact that like we've got that we got the sort of exploration of that a little bit with the World War One Rift and Syndicate and you had actually you sent me a link a while ago to an interview with Corey May back in the day. And he was talking about that being something that he wants to do with Assassin's Creed in the future way back when he was really involved with the brand. We know that you have him and Corey May are like close like they were friends in the series and they work together a lot. So this could have been something that the two of them were theorizing together. You know it gives me like a little bit of hope that maybe one day they'll return to that idea now that they have more like next gen capabilities and stuff because it would be I think the best way to match the scope of some of the recent Assassin's Creed games while still focusing on you know a parkourable urban environment because you can give us one big beautiful city over three time periods and it could be a case where you know that's three separate maps and if you stitch them all together you get something bigger than Valhalla's England. I hope not but possibly you know since it seems like that's something they care about. Throughout the eras you could do things like let's say that there was a bridge there that wasn't built before and now you have parkour opportunities. That could totally be a future. You could progress linearly through the story you go from the past to the future. For sure and look I mean Ubisoft clearly like if they're like no but we want to do a lease you know that could have also tampered with the whole idea that you're going to have multiple characters because how can you have a fruitful relationship arc if you are moving beyond all these characters so frequently. But apparently so within Dead Kings Leon the little boy apparently he was supposed to be actually like originally he was going to be in Unity as like Arno's little companion. Yeah. That would have been really interesting to me because there's not a whole there's not a whole lot of like child presence in AC what I'm interested in to give Arno who has daddy issues a little son figure you know. Two daddy issues. Yeah. He has multiple daddy issues. At least. Yeah I think that would have been interesting especially if if that was ever involved in tandem with the original vision if one of the characters in the future timeline is the what is a kid in one. Yes. The main character in another. Yes. Yes. Yeah you are you are you are right on the money with that one because that's totally what they could have done with it. Like they could have had Leon like then you play as Leon as a man in the later era. And he's like look at my cool assassin robes I got from my not dad. Yeah it's like Arno's like here take the sword of Eden. Take the sword of Eden. And then he dies with it. I'm dead now. Goodbye. I think it would have been really cool to see that happen. The anomalies are some of the best parts of Unity would have been cool if there was actually a story attached to it. And like you said we get that we get that it's scratched with syndicates so it's not all lost you know. Right. It's funny though to think about right because the time anomalies thing like the black box era and whatnot like that was all like Unity and syndicate and they're just like see you later. The time anomaly thing could have been really awesome if they developed it more and that's also why like the eventual third game to the Revolution trilogy could have really like been the revelations in that sense and took all these things and made them into like one holistic experience which reminds me of a feature that I've been excited to introduce to the podcast Tim Anomalies. Just drop the E. Me for different time feeds. Tim Anomalies, yeah. We'll have alternate pathways through the podcast based on Tim saying different things. You can choose your own Tim in the episode. Yeah, choose your own Tim so. Which Tim do you want to hear? Angry Tim, sarcastic Tim. You have chosen Italian Tim. Oi. That's a good cup of tea. I don't think that was Italian at all. You have chosen French Tim. Oi. That's a really good piece of bread. Oi. Alright, so you like my Cafe Teatra. Alright, move it out of syndicate. This is last on the list that I have. Lawson. Yeah. Pop quiz. Who also wrote syndicate? Can I choose a different Tim? Wrong. It was Jeffrey Yohalem. Jeffrey Yohalem. This made it really easy for me to dig up things about unity and syndicate all at once. Straight from the Yohalem's mouth. Straight from the Yohalem's horse. Did you know that there was supposed to be a playable modern day in syndicate? Yes. Well, for those that didn't, there was originally going to be a playable section of modern day. Got cut. I will send you the concept art of how you would interact with it in the open world so that you could like throw it up on the screen or whatever. But yeah, there was going to be like little phone booths that you could enter and then go into the modern day and so the modern day gameplay would have been the story that we got. So it's not like we were going to get a different story. It just would have been playable. So we would have been able to escape with Rebecca or Sean or maybe just play as Rebecca. That would have been interesting. That would have been cool. That was a feature. They couldn't end up doing it unfortunately, but there was going to be playable modern day. Ultimately though, that's the thing is we love syndicates modern day. Everyone knows that and it's not playable. So that's not the determining factor really of a good modern day anymore. Yeah, it's not the end of the world. You actually kind of uncovered on Twitter with one of the guys who worked on it, we know that the time anomaly in syndicate would have been more, right? They cut a lot of it because of featured a woman. Yeah, it was Justin Farron. I think I talked about it on the podcast at one point where he worked for Ubisoft Singapore and they were talking about the World War I rift and they had a lot of difficulties with the editorial department at Ubisoft because they literally asked Singapore, can you give us a version of Lydia Fry that is a man? And they're like, do we have to? Can you give us a version of Lydia Fry that's less feminine? What if we just turned down the female slider on this Lydia Fry? It is interesting to think that it would have been much longer than it is now. It seemed to have been like a battle to even get it to where it is, right? Yeah. The open world was going to be a lot more like dynamic. So we talk a lot about actually about how Jacob kind of destroys things and then Evie has to clean up. Almost immediately though is what happens. In the game though, we would have seen like adverse effects of these things within the open world itself. So we would have seen things at the store like consumables and whatnot would be astronomically priced because of inflation. We would have seen guards all over the place. We would have seen the transportation systems break down and then you can't fast travel anymore. And that would have all happened as like side effects of Jacob fucking things up? Yes. Damn. So that would have been present within the open world and then here's the thing. This is how you're hitting me. Sounds so cool. You could just say fuck it and not clean things up as Evie. But to unlock the final sequence you have to clean up certain things as Evie. It does kind of mandate that you play as Evie. But it's also cool that you could just leave it fucked up for the whole game, right? Yeah, I mean that's interesting because I feel like what that allows you to do is it allows you to sort of set your own difficulty with it. As someone who I never used fast travel I might have just left that alone. But if I started not enjoying having to spend more on consumables then I would have maybe wanted to step in and fix things as Evie. And the reason I think that this is so fucking cool of an idea is as you know Tim something that I always talk about is I'm a huge slut for whenever the gameplay circumstances directly tie into the narrative. So when the world changes because of progress in the narrative in a way that actually affects the gameplay of the game that really excites me. I can see how it's a slippery slope though because what if you have the player who fucks up everything before cleaning anything up how hostile is the world towards him now him or her playing the game that everything is broken and nothing is yet fixed how difficult does that make the remaining missions and the remaining progress in the game? I can see the consequences of that. It's something that it would have been a really easy way to innovate on the narrative of that game with the tools that they already had of the actual setup of the engine and the gameplay that would have been like a little sprinkle of innovation on top that might have really elevated the whole game. That's the thing is they kind of would have been slightly ahead of the curve of these dynamic open worlds too because that's all the rage right now and you know open worlds can always benefit from being more dynamic and it's really interesting to think that not only with the narrative tie into the world but it also kind of gives you the power to correct it as well I appreciate how they don't just give it an optional thing like yes you're going to need to repair London you can't just leave it broken forever and finish the game that way so I do like how it's not completely optional but I also like how they were going to give you the option to wait until the final sequence but they're still not saying that you could just fuck up London and never repair it as Evie you know it would also give stakes to Evie's actions too because Evie would have to be doubly careful not to screw things up even more which speaks to her personality That was the narrative device and syndicate that I appreciated I loved that sort of back and forth between Jacob and Evie it's just that feeling the gameplay side effects of that progression could have made it even more you know it would have made a lot more people dislike Jacob probably which would have been fair and deserved yeah it would have been interesting if that was going to lead into a Jacob redemption thing where perhaps at the end of the game they team up to fix things together and Jacob realizes his buffoonery which is kind of what happens right what happens because instead what happens right is it's kind of like a milk toast version of this where Jacob does something and then Evie will call him out on it but she still just cleans up his mess and then they kind of move on like I feel like if Jacob himself was seeing like I don't know fucking people like starving in the streets like because of him you know or if he saw people like getting you know like not able to get to work because of him or something and that would give Jacob some self reflection right totally because if everything's super hyper inflated you can't can't buy anything people are gonna go hungry and so Jacob is actually making things worse when he thinks in his you know in his man child brain that he's making things better that would have been some really interesting like introspective stuff that Jacob could have done in tandem with Evie calling him a moron and fixing his shit because at the end of the day Evie does love Jacob and so she wants him to do better and that could have been a really interesting relationship hundred percent not to not to say that their relationship doesn't exist now they clearly have a relationship in the game and I've read a lot of fan fiction where their relationship gets even more interesting but we're not going to talk about that that's all I have for cut content oh shit hold on hello hey I'm here drop my phone no it's okay it landed on the back that's all I have for cut content so I feel like there's a lot of interesting stuff there there was one thing I wanted to mention in our last what if episode that completely passed me by that I want to just throw in now go for it there was at one point they were considering at least in like the marketing branding department of things that Assassin's Creed Odyssey was not going to be Assassin's Creed Odyssey or Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Assassin's Creed yeah Odyssey and Assassin's Creed Adventure you can see some of the concept branding for that and I feel like that would have been really interesting because it might have actually alleviated a lot of the complaints people had about Odyssey I feel like if you looked at it through the lens of being a spin-off and not expecting to see Assassin's Creed stuff in it that maybe you could have actually experienced it in the way that the developers presumably intended it to be experienced could have been interesting but I also see why it's risky move because you don't know necessarily is the Assassin's Creed brand strong enough to support a spin-off of that nature right it's interesting because that would also make them all the more ignorable yes if Odyssey was coming out it was Assassin's Creed Adventure I know to fucking ignore all that shit and just not bother with it and that would have given Ubisoft and you've mentioned this before we talked about how like if they ever did a Templar game again if they did a Templar spin-off you were saying how that could have been their way of embracing very non-traditional AC gameplay and still kind of set it in the Assassin's Creed universe so I think a similar effect could have taken place here where Odyssey could have been Odyssey and Origins and Vihala and they all could have been their games they could have been these little spin-offs yeah I wonder I mean I feel like the reality that we're in right now is that we're just getting these in Assassin's Creed Adventure games but they're being sold to us as mainline traditional AC titles and I feel like it would be more beneficial for us if there was at least that little subtitle in Assassin's Creed because look you go to any Ubisoft feed about Assassin's Creed now and there's someone underneath it saying why are you calling these Assassin's Creed still I feel like people would still see the Assassin's Creed Adventure and still just go buy it you know like I don't know if they would I don't know if it would impact sales as much as but look clearly there was a decision made that changed it to Assassin's Creed Odyssey over Odyssey and Assassin's Creed Adventure so there very well could be some market research that suggests that that subtitle doesn't work but I do think that as far as our perspective is concerned as hardcore fans that it would have given some much needed separation like even when I was just playing around with Immortals Phoenix Rising a bit I was like it's crazy how much more palatable some of the Odyssey design choices are when they're not infecting my Assassin's Creed absolutely like this combat is actually pretty fun when I'm not expecting Assassin's Creed if they're more ignorable then you could even like them more yeah it is interesting to think like what that have actually split the games up or would we have just gotten an Odyssey and Assassin's Creed Adventure and then Assassin's Creed Valhalla yeah you kind of you start to wonder how many ideas for games have they had or settings or you know what have you that they thought there could be a really great game there but it just wouldn't be Assassin's Creed enough for our liking because it seems like they got really excited about this ancient Greece game and they knew it was going so far back in time that after Origins they couldn't hamfist any Assassin stuff into it so they leaned into that and you also wonder if it's Odyssey and Assassin's Creed Adventure how much of the very few things that our Assassin's Creed stick around I bet you there's no modern day in that game you know what I mean I bet you there's not a lot of isu in that game potentially because those would be exactly the kind of shackles that they would theoretically be free of by not branding it Assassin's Creed for sure and you could do settings that don't need necessitate parkour because you don't really need parkour right unfortunately I think with the ultimate decision they made on Odyssey and with how Valhalla has turned out I think they've they've come to a place where the actual lines of the brand are flexible enough that they could probably get away with anything more or less and still have people buy it and play pretty much maybe not with us the fans but you know we are not the general gaming public and our needs are more specific than theirs unfortunately yeah it's interesting to think with the what was I gonna say holy shit you're like this isn't in my outline I color coded it and everything I did I gave like revelations like a purple that's that's so horny I don't know what I was gonna say fuck it well god damn it anyway yeah that's you can just end there that's a plenty good spot to end if you guys have any additional things that may have been cut that you know about that we didn't mention here leave them in the comments and you know what fuck it we'll do a part three like I said at the beginning if anything of this is like just completely dead wrong you know whatever I mean at the end of the day a lot of it's hypothetical too you know we just had a lot of fun discussing what could have been and you know what sometimes discussing what could have been makes you sad but sometimes make you happy like in this situation that is quite possibly my favorite tim anomaly yet boy if you like the show we really really appreciate it if you leave a comment on our youtube channel video upload of the episode assuming you're listening to it on youtube give us a like give us a comment subscribe if you're not subscribed which apparently 30% of you listening to this are not so fix that immediately please I mean look I understand why you're not subscribed just please I don't I don't get it all we're great podcast we deserve your subscription thank you so much I appreciate it you know from from this this tim anomaly appreciates it but you know maybe maybe there's another one like that really doesn't appreciate it and that's why you should tweet at us at hookblade on Twitter to get access to the other tim anomaly about what was your favorite tim anomaly this week and hold on wait I think I have one more let me do let me do Ethiopian no please don't oh that was what I was going to do isn't it great being an Ethiopian that's it that's my favorite tim anomaly also we have a facebook page like our facebook page if you like to do that like our facebook page if you like to like facebook if you like liking facebook pages like our facebook page it's called hookface pod book I might change it to that now actually but yeah that's it we really appreciate you guys listening and supporting the show I've been the hook and I have been the blade and with that good night good night