Features

LOS ANGELES — French videogame titan Ubisoft is eyeing artificial intelligence and virtual reality as the next big things in gaming, its chief executive said, especially ahead of the release of Apple’s new mixed reality headset.

Ubisoft has long been known to take chances on new gaming innovations — the company launched an early partnership with Nintendo on its 2006 sensation the Wii console.

Now, ahead of next year’s release of Apple’s Vision Pro headset, Ubisoft Chief Executive Yves Guillemot is ready to make another bet on the future of gaming — that virtual reality is around the corner.

After a decade that saw the revolutionary rise of free-to-play smartphone games and titles streamed directly from the Internet cloud, Guillemot thinks VR is likely to be the next major industry disruptor. 

“VR is eventually going to happen,” he told AFP at a company showcase event in Los Angeles.

“Apple investing massively in the field is fantastic for all of us,” he added. 

With Vision Pro, Apple joins Facebook’s Meta, which had been the driving force behind VR video games, in lobbying studios to adapt versions of hit titles for its virtual reality Quest device.

“Apple’s commitment and investment will take that industry to a new level,” said Guillemot, and Ubisoft “for sure” envisions developing games for the Vision Pro one day.

“It’s going to come,” Guillemot said, as soon as enough of the $3,500 headsets are in users’ hands.

Expanding horizons

Designing games for new platforms “doesn’t always work out perfectly”, warned consumer behaviour analysis firm Circana’s executive director of videogames Mat Piscatella.

“But, by supporting new market entrants, Ubisoft is usually well-positioned should that new product or service type succeed, and placing many bets seems to have generally worked out pretty well for the company over the years,” the analyst said.

And in an era of consolidation in the game industry, Piscatella praised Ubisoft’s diversification strategy as the company broadens its entertainment offerings.

CEO Guillemot said Ubisoft would continue to expand into film and TV streaming content.

Ubisoft is behind the AppleTV hit “Mythic Quest”, a comedy series set — naturally — in a video game studio.

And on Monday, the company announced that its animated series “Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix” will debut on Netflix later this year.

The series is set in “a dystopian, cyberpunk version of 1992” and features versions of characters from Ubisoft games.

“The goal here is to make sure that our brands can reach more players all over the world,” Guillemot told AFP.

“Being on Netflix or Amazon Prime or other networks can make those brands better known and let everyone in the world participate in our creations.”

At the Los Angeles event Monday, Ubisoft also announced a free-to-play version of its blockbuster “Assassin’s Creed” franchise, along with a virtual reality version of the game compatible with Meta’s Quest gear.

In addition, Ubisoft teased a video game spun off the blockbuster “Avatar” movies as well as a “Star Wars Outlaws” title made with LucasFilm.

AI games

Also on deck to shake up the world of video games is artificial intelligence, said Guillemot.

He said he sees generative AI as a “fantastic opportunity”, especially given how eagerly users have taken to the technology since the Microsoft-backed ChatGPT bot was released late last year.

“It’s like inventing the mouse for the personal computer, it changed everything,” Guillemot said.

“Games are going to be more intelligent; as creators of games, we have to see how close we can get to what exists in real life.”

For example, a game might use generative AI to tap into computing power stored in the cloud, giving every character in its universe a spontaneous life of its own — players could encounter these personalities the same way they might meet a stranger on the street in the real world.

“Video games [are] a $200 billion industry today because we’ve always surprised gamers with new things,” Guillemot said.

“Gen AI and VR and cloud will make the industry even more attractive and fun.”

GENEVA — Around one in every six adults experiences infertility, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recently estimated as it called for an urgent increase in access to fertility care.

The WHO determined that around 17.5 per cent of adults worldwide are affected by infertility at some point, and found little variation between regions and wealthy and poorer countries. 

“Globally, an estimated one out of every six people are affected by the inability to have a child at some point in their life,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in the foreword to a fresh report on the issue.

“This is regardless of where they live and what resources they have.”

Across their lifetime, 17.8 per cent of adults in high-income countries and 16.5 per cent in low- and middle income countries were affected by infertility, it found.

Tedros said the report — the first of its kind in a decade — revealed “an important truth: infertility does not discriminate”. 

The WHO designated the issue a “major health challenge globally”, but stressed the difficulty of comparing the situation in various regions due to a lack of data from a number of countries.

‘Jury still out’

Infertility is classified as a disease of the male or female reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse.

The report did not examine the causes of infertility, and did not seek to determine trends over time, or infertility differences between the sexes.

Instead, it provided a first estimate of the global and regional prevalency after experts ploughed through piles of studies conducted around the world between 1990 and 2021.

The WHO warned that there were significant variations in the data gathered, including some countries only including adults up to a certain age, and others with no age cut-off, insisting on the need for better data.

“We cannot, based on the data we have, say that infertility is increasing or constant... The jury’s still out on that question,” James Kiarie, head of the WHO’s Contraception and Fertility Care unit, told reporters.

Tedros agreed.

“Infertility affects millions,” he said, lamenting that “even still, it remains understudied, and solutions underfunded, and inaccessible to many, as the result of high costs, social stigma and limited availability”.

Stigma, inequity

Pascale Allotey, head of the WHO’s Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research division, also highlighted the stigma associated with infertility and the inequity in access to treatment.

“The cost of fertility care is an immense challenge for many people,” she told reporters, warning this is “a serious equity issue and very frequently a medical poverty trap”.

At the same time, “procreation comes with a significant societal pressure”, she said, pointing out that in many countries “pregnancy remains critical to the perception of womanhood and... of a couple”.

“Failure is often met with stigma,” Allotey said, pointing out that people with infertility often suffer “anxiety and depression, with ramifications for people’s mental and psychosocial wellbeing”.

There is also “an increased risk of intimate partner violence associated with infertility”, as relationships are tested,” she warned.

The WHO is calling on countries to include infertility treatment as part of their reproductive health policies, services and financing.

“We want to make sure that we break the silence on infertility,” WHO fertility research scientist Gitau Mburu told reporters.

Tedros also insisted that “the sheer proportion of people affected show the need to widen access to fertility care and ensure this issue is no longer sidelined in health research and policy”. 

“Safe, effective, and affordable ways to attain parenthood [must be made] available for those who seek it.”

CAPESTERRE-BELLE-EAU, France — Jose Viator was hoping tourists would flock to his beachside bar on the French archipelago of Guadeloupe, but he has been forced to close because of stinky brown seaweed.

“It’s a nightmare,” the 61-year-old said.

The pristine sand and turquoise Caribbean waters of his coastal village are usually a magnet for tourists at this time of year.

But a thick carpet of potentially toxic sargassum algae has washed up on the beach of Capesterre, filling the air with the smell of rotten eggs as it decomposes and keeping visitors at bay.

It is just one part of the Caribbean to have tackled excessive seaweed influx in recent years, in a phenomenon that has been linked to pollution and global warming.

More than a third of the sargassum washing up in Guadeloupe over the past 12 years has landed in Viator’s village.

“We make a living from tourism, but we’re forced to close several months a year” because of the stench, he said.

The fumes also damage nearby houses and other property by eating away at metal, but insurance companies will not reimburse the damage, he said.

A digger ploughed up and down the beach nearby, scooping up clumps of the rotting seaweed so that a truck could ferry them away.

Jean-Fernand Diabangouaya, a 54-year-old convenience store employee, said people were resigned to the influx of brown algae.

“We’re used to it. It’s been 12 years now,” he said.

Since 2011, 40 per cent of the sargassum washing up in the Guadeloupe archipelago has landed in Capesterre, according to the authorities.

“We have always known sargassum, but since 2011 it’s really got worse,” Sylvie Gustave-dit-Duflo, the vice-president of the Guadeloupe region in charge of environmental affairs, told AFP.

The decomposing algae emits around 30 gases in total, she said.

Among them, hydrogen sulphide (H2S) causes the rotting egg smell and is thought to have negative health effects if inhaled in large quantities.

Since mid-April local authorities have recommended “vulnerable people” move away for the area after measuring H2S concentration in the air.

Prolonged exposure to slightly higher levels can cause headaches and problems in some asthma patients, while a 2022 study has linked the rotting seaweed to an increased risk of pregnancy complications in women living on the coast.

Scientists believe global warming, deforestation and runoff water full of sewage, agricultural waste and other nutrients have all contributed to sargassum choking Caribbean beaches in recent years.

“It’s probably linked to several factors: nitrate and potassium being flushed into the ocean, whose temperature is rising,” said Gustave-dit-Duflo.

Sargassum, whose brown branches are dotted with bubbles that keep it afloat, has existed for centuries in the north of the Atlantic Ocean.

But huge mats of the algae have started to appear in the south Atlantic in recent years, likely fed by the nutrient-rich runoff of the Mississippi, Amazon and Congo rivers.

The so-called Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt contained about 13 million tonnes of seaweed by the end of March, according to the University of South Florida.

Sargassum may provide a rich habitat for marine fauna at sea, but it harms coastal wildlife when it washes up on land.

And removing it from the coastline also costs millions of euros, says Gustave-dit-Duflo.

“We’re having to manage a curse that we did not cause,” she said, calling for international action to solve the problem.

Local authorities are aiming to set up a marine barrier made up of nets and buoys to protect the village’s beaches from the brown seaweed by June, Mayor Jean-Claude Maes said.

Until then, the only option to get rid of the rotting algae is to spread it out across acres of isolated land until it fully decays and dries out.

But even that is not ideal.

When it decomposes, the algae leaks heavy metals into the ground, according to a 2022 government report.

A more refined take on Lada’s classic, compact and uncomplicatedly capable Niva SUV line, the Niva Travel is a more comfortable, quiet and well equipped sister model to the better known classic Niva.

Complementing the 3-door Niva as a more modern and practical vehicle with 5-door utility and contemporarily rugged styling, the Niva Travel might lack some of the original and iconic Niva’s charms, but is by no means toned down or compromised in its extensive off-road abilities, and shares the same engine, drive-line and suspension design as the former.

A different take

Launched in 2021 by the now wholly Russian-owned and independent automaker Avtovaz/Lada, the rebranded and re-styled Niva Traval is in effect and evolution of the VAZ 2123 compact SUV first launched in 1998 and later marketed as the Chevrolet Niva as a joint venture collaboration with General Motors. Slotting in between 3- and 5-door versions of the classic Niva — now afforded the Legend moniker — the Niva Travel may share much of the same mechanicals, but distinctly differs in design from the uncluttered older model’s clean lines.

Different in design from the enduring Niva Legend and its beautifully proportioned and uncomplicatedly boxy design, the Niva Travel’s more modern styling themes include a big, wide and hungry trapezoidal grille flanked by slim, scowling and heavily browed headlights. It also employs trendy touches like more contoured and bulging surfacing, lower black cladding, black B- and C-pillars, stylised rear lights, and a more swept back windscreen. Its spare tyre is, meanwhile, repositioned from the Legend’s under bonnet location to external mounting on the side-swinging rear tailgate.

Compact and capable

Comparatively narrow and tall for manoeuvrability through off-road routes, the Niva Travel’s design, however, differs from more modern SUV in its low waistline and big glasshouse, which provides excellent road visibility for manoeuvring and accurately positioning it on- and off-road, and when parking. A compact 4.1-metre long mountain goat style off-roader, the Niva Travel rides high at 220mm above the ground and features short 749mm front and rear overhangs, which allows it generous off-road angles and the ability to transverse rough and inhospitable terrain.

Powered by a marginally detuned version of Lada’s familiar, long-running and uncomplicated longitudinally-mounted 8-valve 1.7-litre four-cylinder engine, the Niva Travel develops 79BHP at 5,000rpm and 94lb/ft at 4,000rpm. Giving away just 3BHP and 1lb/ft, but gaining 200kg compared with the lighter Niva Legend, the bigger and better equipped and insulated 1,485kg Niva Travel is nevertheless only slightly slower. Accelerating 0.2-seconds later through 0-100km/h at 19-seconds, the Niva Travel is capable of a 140km/h maximum, and returns 10.2l/100km fuel economy on the combined cycle.

Reassuringly rugged

Little changed in headline statistics, the Niva Travel’s additional weight over the Legend is, however, more noticeable on the move and in how it feels slightly blunted and less responsive. Requiring one to hold gears to higher revs to build enough power and momentum before up-shifting on steeper inclines, one is tempted engage the Niva Travel’s low gear ratio range for more robust low speed performance for certain on-road circumstances and topographies. That said, the engine is nevertheless smooth and rewardingly linear in operation and character.

Driving its permanent four-wheel-drive system through a 5-speed manual gearbox, the Niva Travel offers plenty of traction for sure-footed off-road driving. Riding on front double wishbone and rugged live axle and coil spring rear suspension, the Niva Travel’s extensive off-road abilities also include long wheel travel to traverse big obstacles while maintaining ground contact, and a locking centre differential and low gear ratios for demanding inclines and low traction conditions. Fording 500mm through water, it can, meanwhile, be optionally fitted with a high A-pillar mounted intake snorkel.

Comfort and composure

A small manoeuvrable SUV with reassuring road holding, the Niva Travel is an authentic, yet, rugged off-roader with terrifically unexpected refinement. If anything, it is its very refinement that detracts from sort of loud, visceral and ultimately engaging charisma of the older, lighter Niva Legend. That said, the Niva Travel proved stable and settled on the road, soaking up imperfections with forgiving composure. Turning in tidily but leaning somewhat through corners owing to its comfortable suspension, the Niva Travel’s steering and braking were meanwhile accurate and natural in motion.

Quiet and comfortable, the Niva Travel’s cabin provides a high but supportive and ergonomic driving position with its user-friendly controls and terrific road visibility. Its gear lever motion is crisp, clear and satisfyingly precise, and clutch intuitively precise.

Well packaged despite a narrow and compact frame, it offers decent legroom and generous headroom at the rear, while luggage space is well sized. Finished with honest well-built materials, the Niva Travel is comparatively modern and well equipped, and features a powerful A/C and clever driver’s armrest that rotates to alternatively serve as a rear cupholder.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Engine: 1.7-litre, in-line 4-cylinders
• Bore x stroke: 82 x 80mm
• Compression ratio: 9.3:1
• Valve-train: 8-valve, SOHC
• Gearbox: 5-speed manual, four-wheel-drive
• Driveline: low gear transfer, locking centre differential
• Final drive: 3.9:1
• Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 79 (80) [58.8] @5,000rpm
• Specific power: 46.7BHP/litre
• Power-to-weight: 53.2/tonne
• Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 94 (127.4) @4,000rpm
• Specific torque: 75.4Nm/litre
• Torque-to-weight: 85.8Nm/tonne
• 0-100km/h: 19-seconds
• Top speed: 140km/h
• Fuel consumption, urban/extra-urban/combined: 13.4-/8.5-/10.2-litres/100km
• Fuel capacity: 58-litres
• Minimum ground clearance: 220mm
• Cargo volume, min/max: 320-/650-litres (estimate, to waistline)
• Kerb weight: 1,485kg
• Gross weight: 1,860kg
• Towing capacity, braked/unbraked: 1,200/600kg
• Suspension, F: Double wishbones, coilovers, anti-roll bar
• Suspension, R: Live axle, coil springs
• Steering: Power-assisted re-circulating ball
• Brakes, F/R: Discs/drums
• Tyres: 215/65R16
• Price, on the road: JD16,500 (with comprehensive insurance)

By Tareq Rasheed
International Consultant and Trainer

Human Capital is the most crucial capital for sustainability and the development of countries. Since the 1950’s, Jordan has been one of the top countries in the Arab world and Middle East to have the most professional human capital.

His Majesty the late King Hussein had said in one of his most important speeches that  “The human is the most expensive and valuable resource we own”; and it proved always to be true. For development in any country, there are seven sequential strategies to be applied:

• Teaching: Education is the most critical field of development. Education is the pipeline for all other professions; engineers, doctors, IT specialists and finance experts are all the output of an excellent education system. Jordan is one of the best countries in education; locally, regionally and internationally at both school and university levels. Jordanian teachers in the 1960’s till today support most Arab countries especially the Gulf with well-educated and professional teachers

• Training: Teaching provides knowledge while training aims to develop skills. In the training sector, there are Jordanian trainers who work both locally and regionally with a very professional and reputable experience in the field

• Developing: This requires continuous learning and gaining of skill in several Jordanian universities and in applied scientific colleges; engineering, medicine, law and others. There are associations for graduates; these associations provide their members with continuous development

• Qualifying: The role continues for the different associations to provide their members with professional certificates from well-known bodies and organisations. This results in very qualified human capital in Jordan in almost most professions

Once these four strategies are applied, the result would be a very professional outcome to serve the country, through the following three strategies: 

• Delegation: The responsibility of managers and leaders in Jordanian organisations, both public and private, to start delegating qualified employees

• Empowerment: Through continuous delegation strategies, the Jordanian Human Capital is empowered and will now be responsible to manage and lead and thus develop Jordan for the future

• Creating second and third layers of professional experts would help Jordan grow and develop

The Human Resource Departments in the private and public sectors will play the important role of the previous seven strategies that will lead to professional and the continuous development of Jordan. The strategic functions of the Human Resources Departments include:

• Human Capital Planning: Analysing and determining the needed human resources from different specialists

• Job Analysis: Providing the job titles and job descriptions for different departments

• Developing Personal Development Plans: Where career paths are defined for each position and the development paths through training, coaching and mentoring

• Performance Evaluation: Setting the needed Key Performance Indicators for different objectives and evaluating the human capital performance through a well designed criteria

• Design of salary scales and benefits for different job titles

• Designing with the finance department the incentive system for the best employees in performance; this will help job enrichment and growth

• Recruitment: By setting the selection criteria and conducting the interviews of candidates to select the best

The Jordanian Human Capital has proved through several benchmark studies and assessments to be one of the best both regionally and internationally through the guidance and support of His Majesty King Abdullah.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

PARIS — The red eye that refuses to be extinguished, the metal body that cannot be crushed — for many of us the word “robot” conjures one image: the Terminator.

But robots are now everywhere, serving as companions in care homes or vacuum cleaners in our homes, and manufacturers are keener than ever to design friendly machines.

“At first we noticed the kids could be a bit afraid,” said Do Hwan Kim of his firm Neubility’s tiny delivery robot.

To get around the problem, the firm added big doughy eyes that can indicate, making it look like the world’s friendliest futuristic wheelie bin.

Dozens of the machines now trundle around campsites, university campuses and golf courses across South Korea.

“Campsites even use it on their posters,” Kim told AFP at the VivaTech trade fair in Paris, underlining its transformation from potential threat to family friend.

And VivaTech played host to plenty of other robots designed with cuteness in mind — ones with cartoon animal personas, others that looked like children’s toys from the 1980s.

The aesthetic stands in stark contrast to the creepy dog-bots and anonymous drones that have become standard.

‘Escaped’ from cartoon

As robots have become more common, a whole field of academia has grown up studying the interaction between machines and humans.

Kerstin Dautenhahn of Waterloo University in Canada, one of the most noted researchers in the area, said she had seen a huge shift in the way manufacturers looked at design: from an all-consuming concern with function to an acute awareness of appearance.

“What you find in many, many fields... is that people pay a lot of attention to how the robot moves, how it looks, how it can interact with them,” she said.

This holds true for robots sharing production lines with human workers just as much as those designed to care for older and disabled people.

“Even with those robots where the main function for example is to transport objects from A to B, people still need to pay a lot of attention to how the robot moves, how it can express its intentions,” she said.

A French firm called Enchanted Tools has fully committed to the friendly aesthetic.

Their robots have names, genders, cartoon-style personas and even a back story.

“These two characters have escaped from a cartoon to come into our everyday lives to help us manage our social spaces,” said the firm’s boss Jerome Monceaux.

He envisages the brightly coloured machines with cat-like features will help in hospitals, hotels, restaurants and anywhere with objects that need moving.

These cute robots take their design cues from a family of social companion robots, which are big business in Japan.

Stairway hell

Dautenhahn says there is plenty of evidence that people in Japan and South Korea hold more positive views about robots than people in the West. 

“In Japan, if you say ‘I want to build a robot that helps older people in a care home to be happier’, they just think it’s a great idea,” she said.

In European countries, the initial response is often negative, fuelled by dystopian science fiction.

“We have to do a lot of convincing,” she added.

Small pilot schemes in the United States have seen robots get bullied or even assaulted, though social-media videos have also shown people helping robots navigate pedestrian crossings.

Handling these cultural difficulties is a challenge, says Dautenhahn.

But there are plenty of other difficulties.

Robots are expensive to design and manufacture, and so they don’t come cheap to buy.

Enchanted Tools reckons its robots will retail at 35,000 euros ($38,000) while Neubility said it aimed to manufacture its bot for $5,000.

Then there is the issue of finding a market. 

Do Hwan Kim said Neubility was aiming to corner grocery deliveries and has a pilot scheme with the 7-Eleven chain in South Korea.

But its robot faces a cosmmon hurdle for machines: it cannot climb stairs.

Kim hopes market forces will give a helping hand.

“At the moment, the delivery cost is so much cheaper with the robot that people are happy to come down the stairs to get their groceries,” he said.

LONDON — A “final Beatles record”, created with the help of artificial intelligence, will be released later this year, Paul McCartney told the BBC in an interview broadcast Tuesday.

“It was a demo that John [Lennon] had, and that we worked on, and we just finished it up,” said McCartney, who turns 81 next week.

The Beatles — Lennon, McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr — split in 1970, with each going on to have solo careers, but they never reunited.

Lennon was shot dead in New York in 1980 aged 40 while Harrison died of lung cancer in 2001, aged 58.

McCartney did not name the song that has been recorded but according to the BBC it is likely to be a 1978 Lennon composition called “Now And Then”.

The track — one of several on a cassette that Lennon had recorded for McCartney a year before his death — was given to him by Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono in 1994.

Two of the songs, “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love”, were cleaned up by the producer Jeff Lynne, and released in 1995 and 1996.

An attempt was made to do the same with “Now And Then” but the project was abandoned because of background noise on the demo.

McCartney, who has previously talked about wanting to finish the song, said AI had given him a new chance to do so.

‘Now and Then’

Working with Peter Jackson, the film director behind the 2021 documentary series “The Beatles: Get Back”, AI was used to separate Lennon’s voice and a piano.

“They tell the machine, ‘That’s the voice. This is a guitar. Lose the guitar,’” he explained.

“So when we came to make what will be the last Beatles’ record, it was a demo that John had [and] we were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI.

“Then we can mix the record, as you would normally do. So it gives you some sort of leeway.”

McCartney performed a two-hour set at last year’s Glastonbury festival in England, playing Beatles’ classics to the 100,000-strong crowd.

The set included a virtual duet with Lennon of the song “I’ve Got a Feeling”, from the Beatles’ last album “Let It Be”.

Last month, Sting warned that “defending our human capital against AI” would be a major battle for musicians in the coming years.

The use of AI in music is the subject of debate in the industry, with some denouncing copyright abuses and others praising its prowess.

McCartney said the use of the technology was “kind of scary but exciting because it’s the future”, adding: “We’ll just have to see where that leads.”

Exhibition

After the Beatles, the singer-songwriter went on to have hits with his band Wings, but also dabbled in painting and photography as well as animal rights campaigning.

An exhibition — “Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm” — opens later this month and is part of the reopening of the National Portrait Gallery in London after a three-year refurbishment.

It features more than 250 unseen images that McCartney took on his Pentax camera between November 1963 and February 1964 as Beatlemania emerged.

“It’s very poignant, it’s great because whenever you lose someone, I think your natural thing is, ‘Well, we’ve got beautiful memories’, and you hold fast those memories of the good times,” he said.

“I don’t tend to dwell on the fact that you’ve lost someone. After a while — it’ll maybe take a year or two — and then you can look back and you just remember where you met them, things you did...

“And when it came to The Beatles, and you have this overwhelming stuff happening to you, you knew each other so well that you could lean on each other — that’s what I see in these pictures.”

LOS ANGELES — French videogame powerhouse Ubisoft on Monday announced that a virtual reality version of its blockbuster “Assassin’s Creed” franchise will be available by year’s end.

Player’s in “Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR” will take on the roles of earlier protagonists from the franchise, complete with the trademark hidden wrist blades, dramatic parkour escapes, and the iconic “leap of faith” from atop buildings.

“Being able to feel what it is like to become a master assassin is going to be a huge draw for players,” the game’s senior creative director David Votypka told AFP at a Ubisoft Forward showcase of upcoming games in Los Angeles.

“It’s a really strong fit for VR.”

Gameplay in “Assassin’s Creed” involves a lot of climbing, jumping between buildings swinging from poles, running, combat and more.

“Games that work best in VR are obviously the ones that feature a lot of physicality; so it allows us to make something different and better in some ways than the non VR version,” Votypka said.

A team at Ubisoft was devoted to making sure people who get disoriented or nauseous from dashing about in VR are comfortable, adding features like quick ways for characters to “teleport” from one spot to another.

There was also discussion early on by the team how realistic it should be for someone in VR to sneak up on a person and stab them to death, according to Votypka.

Game designers tuned down the violence of assassination scenes, making them quick and controlling where targets could be struck.

“You can’t torture them,” Votypka said of assassination targets.

“It’s still more like video game violence as opposed to trying to simulate what a real hidden-blade kill might be like.”

The game will be available on Meta’s latest VR headsets known as Quest, formerly branded as Oculus.

The new VR component will also add an interesting double-layer to the series, whose plot often centres around modern-day protagonists entering their own virtual historic world.

Players will see through the virtual eyes of Ezio Auditore da Firenze in Renaissance Italy; Kassandra in Ancient Greece and Connor in Colonial America in a storyline that lets them slip in and out of the memories of ancestors.

Real-world moves, while holding controllers, will be used to duel, throw axes, move with stealth and more in the game, demonstrations showed.

“This is a full proper ‘Assassin’s Creed’ game in VR,” Votypka said.

“I hope that it shows players and developers and publishers that big brands can be awesome in VR.”

Ubisoft also showed off a coming “Assassin’s Creed Mirage” addition the franchise tailored for play on videogame consoles and personal computers.

“Mirage” was described as an homage to the first Assassin’s game and plays out in ninth-century Baghdad.

Gamers will take on the role of “Basim” fighting against “The Order of the Ancients” in “Mirage”, which is set for release on October 12.

“Assassin’s Creed” is also going mobile, with a “Codename Jade” free-to-play version of the game set during the time of the Qin Dynasty in China.

Players were invited to register for a public “beta” test of “Jade”.