Experience iconic Assassin’s Creed gameplay in a AAA VR adventure featuring stealth, parkour and combat.
| Type : | Professional Game | Genre: | Action, Adventure |
|---|---|---|---|
| My role: | Game Designer | Team size: | 400+ |
| Game Engine: | Unity | Link: | Meta Quest Store |
| Worked on it for: | 2+ years | Release date: | 2023 |
| Platform: | Meta Quest 2, 3, 3S, pro | Company: | Ubisoft Düsseldorf |
Summary:
The first AAA Assassin’s Creed built from the ground up for VR. Nexus delivers iconic parkour, stealth, and combat in immersive open maps. I joined Ubisoft Düsseldorf midway through development and contributed until launch, focusing on Comfort & Accessibility to ensure a highly comfortable and innovative VR experience.
Key contributions to the game :
Teleport locomotion
- Extended and improved design
- Designed new sub-features
- Tweaked and balanced the feature over time
- Efficiently reported various bugs.
- See my deep dive blog post for full breakdown: https://medium.com/@julienlorans/assassins-creed-nexus-vr-teleport-design-deep-dive-2558e4eadc0d.
Comfort Presets
- Defined and iterated on feature combinations
- Validated presets through playtesting
- Edited lightweight preview videos
- Worked on naming conventions and verified French translations.
- Wrote descriptions for presets and all features.
Vignettes
• Adjusted shader parameters for intensity levels
• Handled edge cases
• Improved design through iteration
• Verified impact through testing in various presets
Parkour Visualizer (and Auto-Parkour)
- Tweaked the arc and icons sizes.
- Reported and helped resolve false positives.
- Contributed to control scheme and overall UX.
- Thoroughly tested for bugs.
Fear Of heights & Animus Grid
- Edited the 3D model size and placement.
- Adjusted shader parameters.
- Reduced visual bugs introduced by AppSW.
Holster Assist
- Adjusted placement, distance, and shaders for best comfort.
- Minimized visual bugs with AppSW integration.
- Added design for various edge cases.
- Tested it in all kinds of situations (climbing, combat, stealth…) to ensure usability.
Hand Stabilization
• Refined and extended the design
• Customized parameters for different object types
• Ensured compatibility with teleport system.
Retrospective Insight :
This was one of the most complex and rewarding projects I’ve worked on.
- Gained expertise in VR Comfort and Accessibility
- Iterated on complex features like Teleport
- Collaborated with 13 studios across 7 countries
- Learned Meta Quest hardware (2, 3, 3S, Pro)
- Explored cutting-edge AppSW optimization techniques
- Honed teamwork across time zones and cultures
- Learned how to work on any large-scale AAA game.