Ubisoft announces that it will be working with Hybride Technologies (the company that provided the visuals for 300 and Sin City) to produce a short film series based on the highly-successful game, Assasin’s Creed. The panel that made this announcement consisted of Yannis Mallat, CEO of Ubisoft Montreal; Pierre Raymond, president and CEO of Hybrid Technologies; Corey May, scriptwriter of both Assassin’s Creed games; and William Reymond, the short film series cowriter. Paul Semel was the moderator.

In this announcement, Ubisoft was firm in their belief that film and video games are to merge in the near future, and the short films they will produce is a step towards that direction and in the process provide great stories and an astounding gaming experience. It is said that the short films, for now entitled Assassin’s Creed Lineage, centers around Giovanni Auditore da Firenze, the father of the game’s protagonist, and will help set the stage for their new game, Assassin’s Creed 2.

There was a lively discussion afterwards, with the audience asking seemingly mundane questions such as whether the protagonist will be able to wield a bow and arrow as a weapon, and profound ones as well – one member of the audience who is a self-confessed history buff asked whether there are more historical people present in the game. To his delight (and perhaps to the delight of everyone else in the audience), it was revealed that the every major character in the game is taken from history itself, and there was considerable effort that went to making sure that the manner and location of their death was accurate and consistent with history.

From this we take it the Ubisoft is very serious about the convergence of film and gaming, and to prove this they even pointed out that there is but a single team handling both the game and the short films, and that everything was in-house. Although we were not able to see a single scene from the shorts, this announcement has certainly whet our appetite, and arguably everyone in the room agreed that the films and the game are things to look forward to.