Ubisoft pays tribute to the Non Playable Characters
DDB Paris developed a series of animated ads for Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey video game called “My Life as an NPC,” celebrating the non-player characters (NPCs), or reactive AI that live in the game. These are the in-game individuals who are impacted by the presence of gamers running around in their world, who are usually knocked around, looted, cheated, robbed and killed.
Leading up to the game’s launch, a series of vertical videos were portrayed as personal Instagram Stories or Snapchat videos. These clever spots show the perspective of the non-player characters, who are usually ignored, but are often the victims of a player’s antics in the game. An ad called “Leap of Faith” shows an assassin on top of a building, shot from the perspective of an NPC on the ground. The people beg him not to jump but one woman dares him to do it. The man leaps from the roof then falls into a surreal world with copies of himself.
Ultimately, he lands on a pile of hay, unharmed. The woman comments on how the hay just happens to be there. This is an inside joke among Assassin’s Creed fans who can unlock game achievements by taking a “Leap of Faith” themselves and are always located by the conveniently placed pile of hay.
By paying tribute to the non-player characters, a mainstay in any open-world game, DDB Paris looked to draw attention to how fleshed-out each NPC’s AI is in the new Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey video game.