Assassin’s Creed games have long had very detailed main story missions and… not as well fleshed out side missions. In some RPGs such as The Witcher 3 it can become difficult to tell the difference between one of the larger side missions and a main story mission. This is historically not quite how AC story structure works, particularly in the recent Odyssey and Origins. This is slated to be different in the upcoming Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, which will cut down on world size and play-through length for a more streamlined style of play.

Charles Randall, a former Ubisoft employee and Assassin’s Creed developer recently revealed on Twitter that the first game almost didn’t have any side missions at all. While they may be a bit annoying at times, it is very hard to imagine the games without them. According to Randall, Assassin’s Creed was ready to ship without any side missions just five days prior to launch, but then they received some news… the Ubisoft CEO’s child had played the game, and told him that the game was boring and needed some side missions to keep things interesting.

so we’re all ready to ship the game, first submission goes pretty well, and then

The News

The CEO’s kid played the game and said it was boring and there was nothing to do in the game

— Charles Randall (@charlesrandall) May 23, 2020

Because of this, the devs had to rush and add the entire suite of side missions in just five days, and without any new art or game design. This, in a sense could have been the reason for the style of all of these side missions since. Valhalla is set to change the format though, so it will be very interesting to see how detailed the side missions in the new game.

Recently Ashraf Ismail, creative director of Valhalla told Kotaku that some of the original elements of the series, such as a one-shot-kill hidden blade and social stealth.