AAA Games' Future "Lies In Smaller Teams," Says AC Unity Director

"think that you can solve a problem by throwing people at it. But adding people to a problem stagnates the people that were already being efficient on it. It just creates a lot of variable noise ... So I think the future lies in smaller teams."

""Let's say you're working on the naval system on Assassin's Creed: Black Flag," said Amancio. "That's an amazing feature you can give to a co-dev studio because it's self-contained: with good direction, you can give the co-dev studio autonomy over making it as fun as possible, as long as all of the points where it connects with the main game remain stable.""

""constraints are the secret behind any good art. And whether they're artificial or they're real constraints, they have to be imposed. Our brains are all pretty much structured the same, so given the same inputs, we'll output similar ideas ... I think ideas are important, don't get me wrong ... It's constraints that force you not to use that first idea. Sometimes it's financial or it's technical, but that forces you to find something different, and mastery and excellence exists in those decisions.""

AAA game development commonly attempts to solve issues by adding headcount, which can stagnate effective contributors and introduce variable noise. Smaller, autonomous teams can develop self-contained systems and co-develop features—such as a naval system—while preserving stable integration points with the main game. Imposed constraints, whether artificial, financial, or technical, drive creative problem-solving by preventing reliance on the first idea and forcing alternative solutions. Mastery and excellence arise from decisions made within those constraints. Franchise plans remain unconfirmed, though reports indicate a possible Black Flag remake reportedly called Resynced and a Netflix cast for the series is assembling.

Read at GameSpot