This sort of journalism just irritates me.
You don't put words in quotes unless they actually said them! From what I know Ubisoft didn't say that.
Here are the only quotes I found
From Polygon
"It's double the animations, it's double the voices, all that stuff and double the visual assets," Amancio said. "Especially because we have customizable assassins. It was really a lot of extra production work."
In the game's co-op mode, players will have custom gear but always view themselves as Arno, Unity's star. Friends are displayed as different characters with the faces of other assassins.
"Because of that, the common denominator was Arno," Amancio said. "It's not like we could cut our main character, so the only logical option, the only option we had, was to cut the female avatar."
Speaking with Polygon during a different interview, level designer Bruno St-André estimated more than 8,000 animations would have had to be recreated on a different skeleton.
"We started, but we had to drop it," St-André said. "I cannot speak for the future of the brand, but it was dear to the production team, so you can expect that it will happen eventually in the brand."
From Eurogamer
"I understand the issue, I understand the cause, and it is a noble one, but I don't think it's relevant in the case of Unity," Amancio told Eurogamer in an interview at E3.
"In Unity you play this character called Arno, and when you're playing co-op you're also playing Arno - everybody is. It's like Aiden Pierce in Watch Dogs."
In an earlier interview with Polygon, Amancio said potential playable female characters had been cut from the game due to the amount of work it would involve to include them.
Speaking with Eurogamer now, Amancio switched stance, insisting the decision had nothing to do with production.
"I think this started from confusion in relation to the co-op, where they thought it was an avatar which it isn't," he insisted.
"Arno has different skills - you select skill points in the game, there are gear elements that have an impact and all these weapons that make the character you make your own. But you're always playing Arno."
Assassin's Creed has a history of diverse characters, most notably Aveline de Grandpré, star of Assassin's Creed: Liberation. "We're following in that tradition, and we've found a way to add co-op," Amancio continued.
"On the brand we've had multiple diverse characters. Altair is Arabic, Connor is Native, we've had a female lead. This game is set in the French Revolution, so you're playing a Frenchman."
Amancio said the wording of his previous comments was a "slip up".
"The team members are here, they work really hard and we take them as spokespeople as we want the answers to be real," he said. "These people aren't professionals, and sometimes they slip up. It's fine. We focus on what we're presenting that's cool - again, I just don't think Unity applies to this subject matter."
