However, things went downhill with AC: Origins. To get results similar to those of AC: Unity, the game would require 450GB of lighting data and it would take 3 months to bake the lighting. Thus, Ubisoft decided to use a more efficient GI solution. Yes, they had to make some compromises. At the same time, though, they were able to reduce the GI data to 9GB. So no, we weren’t delusional when we were saying that AC: Unity’s lighting was way better than that of Origins, Odyssey, or Valhalla.
We always reference Assassin’s Creed: Unity as one of the games with the best pre-baked lighting. And now you know why. Ubisoft went all in with it. But, as explained above, this was only possible due to the game’s world size and fixed time of day. Would I love to see a similar AC game? Definitely. But here is the thing. AC: Mirage, which was a “smaller” and more “traditional” AC game, did not sell as good as AC: Unity. So, as a publisher, you can’t bet on something like that when RT can save you a lot of time and money.