Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed franchise is a bit of a wonder. The first three console instalments have sold close to 30 million copies worldwide. Those are the kinds of numbers we associate with military shooters, licensed football sims or some other shade of mass market grey. As opposed, for instance, to a game where murderous pretty-boys trot around incredibly picturesque renderings of second millennium capitals, which are actually dreamworlds dredged from the gene pool by an Inception-era VR machine. For instance.
The publisher announced a fourth game yesterday, subtitled Revelations, in which velvet-stubbled master assassin Ezio Auditore once again tours the streets of fifteenth century Europe, slashing arteries left, right and centre. It takes place in Constantinople, jewel in the Ottoman Empire's crown, and is dated for release this November. Being long-time fans (and occasional hot-tempered detractors - Jonty wasn't too impressed by Brotherhood's fetch quests) of Assassin's Creed, we've compiled a wishlist.
1. Stick With One City
Brotherhood's decision to confine its action to Rome probably made sense from a resource perspective, but the newfound focus paid dividends in design terms too. Gone was the laborious prospect of intercity travel. Gone were the insipid moments where the developers had clearly spread their efforts across too broad an area. For the first time in the franchise's history, sidequests were more than just throwaway collect-a-thons or brief, purposeless bouts of Slay The Numpty. They had structure. They had nuance. Hopefully Constantinople's offerings will prove every bit as substantial.
2. No Boring Business Subgames
Much as we enjoy buying up properties, visiting the bank, watching units of currency gradually mount into teetering, monotonous towers of... hold on a second. We don't enjoy any of that stuff at all. We spend too much time scrutinising our payslips for misplaced decimal points to care a toss for the jingling of virtual florins. And given the present economic climate, why on earth would we want to RENOVATE banks?
3. A More Intelligent Crowd
Back when Assassin's Creed was first announced (as a "PS3 exclusive", fnar fnar), Ubisoft had some ambitious plans for the game's AI civilians. Rather than just unconsciously boxing you in or veiling your approach from victims, they'd take an active, even hostile role in proceedings.
Bystanders might grab hold of fleeing assassins, or point out unsubtle dabblers in Ye Olde Parkour to the authorities. We suspect Ubi had good reason for doing away with these dynamics, but even so, we'd like to see more experimentation here. Spare us the wandering mandolin players, though. Stupid muppets.
How many assassins does it take to slaughter a city's worth of testy guardsmen? Answer: one, providing he knows how to perform a countering killstreak and isn't too noble to employ the "Glasgow Kneecap" when confronted by a chap in armour. Assassin's Creed's melee combat - you know, the parts where you kill people who are aware they're being killed - has grown less superficial over the years, but it'll take more than poncy canned showboating to trouble the Aragorns of this world. Step your game up, Ubisoft.
19 comments so far...
rafoca on 6 May '11 said:
Co-op!!! Yeah!!
Co-op campaign, please!
CunningSmile on 6 May '11 said:
I'm not sure a co-op campaign makes much sense within the methos of the franchise (you can't both be Desmond's ancestor) but a stand alone co-op story line similar to Splinter Cell's would be very welcome.
But the most welcome thing wouldn't even be in game but real world. Almost every studio at Ubi is working on different aspects of AC (there were 6 involved in Brotherhood) so I'm sure that we would all REALLY welcome an announcement that one of those studios hasn't been working on yearly cash cows but has spend the last couple of years working on a revolutionary jump AC3 for next year.
Bezza89 on 6 May '11 said:
Firstly, I don't want to sound pompous or smug or whatever, but when you say 15th century, is this AC set before the end of Brotherhood (ending in 1507 I believe; 16th century) or was it just a very easily mistaken typo?
Secondly, Mr Smile, I think co-op could be done, but the co-op character a la fable would be a merc, or more likely one of your assassin recruits. BAM.
Thirdly, stuff Assassins Creed where's rainbow six?
terry cheyne on 6 May '11 said:
please no co-op play with inbreed rednecks telling you to p off and have a cup of tea no thanks
mistergrimm on 6 May '11 said:
The other player could still play as somebody who worked alongside Desmond's ancestor over a period of time.
DMIK on 7 May '11 said:
wouldnt mind slaying a few foes as leonardo......
Waffles2541 on 7 May '11 said:
I think they should leave the coop until AC3, and then try and link it into the story line a bit.
I also think they should add some fighting based multiplayer modes, like for instance 4 people cooperating in taking down an ever increasing number of guards, using moves that employ more than one assassin.
Grummy on 7 May '11 said:
Ed old chap, could you flesh out your statement regarding the combat for me please? I'd like to now where you stand on it more specifically, good, bad, how it's progressed through the 3 games etc.
The combat in AC is a big thing for me, but I'm not going to put my thoughts on it here yet, I'd like to see more of what you think first.
Grassy Ass.
OXM ETboy on 7 May '11 said:
I think it's less a "combat system" per se as a "make me look cool" system. When the kill streaks are flowing in Brotherhood it can be very satisfying, but there's no real structure to it - you're either mashing a button or waiting to initiate a counter. I've always felt that AC combat detracts from what's worthwhile about AC - the acrobatics, crowd manipulation and, above all, the stealth - so I guess the key improvement from 1 to Brotherhood where I'm concerned is efficiency - letting you get in and out in a matter of seconds, even against larger groups, while looking damned good to boot.
Grummy on 7 May '11 said:
So how would you like to see it improved further?
For me, the combat has always been key to my enjoyment of the game, and I still rate AC1 as the best largely because of the combat. I won't deny it was easy, especially if you took the 'counter everything' approach, but the sheer pleasure I got from chaining together attacks, block and counter in an exquisite dance of unbridled carnage has been one of my highlights of this generation of gaming. Largely it was down to the animations and how beautifully they flowed together going from an offensive swipe across the throat, to a stab into the chest of the man to my left, block the man on my right and back into an offensive kill, and it all looked like one sweeping move....sublime. For me, the 2 and Brotherhood lost some of that magic. Combat became a chore, you lose that sense of beauty to the proceedings, the fun was gone.
What it needed, in my opinion, was for the combat to be deeper. Sure, if I'm fighting a standard guard, then my simple kills and counters should work as always, but stronger enemies should require chaining together more attacks in a row before you are able to kill them, and even stronger enemies should be able to block and counter themselves, leaving the combat to be a test of greater skill. What we got instead was repeated hacking to wear down health bars. That's wrong imo as the combat just looked like one long chain of repetetive weapon clashing animations until finally the swing breaks through and the enemy dies, no beautiful kill animation or anything. I'm all for making the combat a deeper experience, but they need to use the system they started in the first game, and build on it better. Much better that it is still a technical one hit kill on any enemy, but it requires great skill rather than just mashing attack until health drops, or worse, just relying on twin hidden blades which countered EVERYTHING.
Disclaimer: Apologies if this sounds like incessant rambling and/or my spelling is off. I just finished work a couple of hours ago and I'm struggliong to stay awake long enough to get through this.
Erasable Druid on 7 May '11 said:
Oh, on the whole I agree with you, Grummy. Except when you use 'IMO'. Not a fan of these things. However, to some extent, your ideas were realised in AC2, with the variation of enemies. Standard, lighter, and heavier guards.
AlluisiveTurtle on 7 May '11 said:
I think co-op would be a terrible idea and is a badly thought out suggestion. Having co-op would impact in two ways, firstly, if you did not wish to play in co-op, then you would have to always keep an eye on your AI companion as you played through the single-player campaign. Secondly, if, as someone suggested, a shorter co-op campaign was tagged on as in Slinter Cell, then the single player would end up being shorter, as in Splinter Cell. So, as I said, no to co-op, Brotherhood was alreay shorter than the other two as a consequence of multi-player, so let's not shorten it still further by adding co-op. There's enough co-op out there already.
Grummy on 7 May '11 said:
I have to ask, why is your dislike of acronyms worth mentioning here? It doesn't make any difference, although you certainly make it sound like it does for you personally.
No, it really wasn't realized in AC2. Combat in AC2 was the worst of the 3. It had the stronger and weaker enemies (so did AC 1 with guards and Templars), but the combat just amounted to hacking away until the health bar went down. Even the lowest level guards took more effort to kill. In the end it just wasn't fun and wasn't worth trying when dual hidden blades was so easy. What I want from the combat is NOT to be hacking through health points, but for stronger enemies to be more skillful in combat, requiring longer chains of attacks which they can in turn block and counter. It didn't play out like that in AC2. All you did was repeatedly do the same basic swing until their health dropped. The beauty of the AC combat is in the aesthetics of the animations, and the AC2 combat killed that.
In my mind I see Ezio fighting a palace guard with his dagger, stringing together a chain of 3 attacks, to break through the defence, they all need to be timed correctly, essentially making an attack combo. When the last blow lands, it breaks through and gives us a lovely kill animation, not just a basic weapon swing. Then he turns and is faced with a Guard Captain of some kind, an enemy that can counter. He starts with a 2 swing combo, knocking back the Captain, who blocks the 3rd blow and returns with a swing of his own which Ezio counters, but the captain blocks again. Ezio this time switches to his sword and waits, the captain comes in with an attack chain, Ezio blocks them all, but the captain sweeps the ground and throws dust in Ezios eyes, leaving him vulnerable to a free blow which floors him. Ezio, quickly jumps back on his feet in time to counter another swing from the guard, which the again he blocks, but leaves him open to a chain of 5 perfectly timed blows from Ezio which finally breaks through his defences and skewers him through the chest.
Now, picture this, but every chain of attacks is a combo of blows coming from different angles of attack. Picture the ebb and flow, the blocking and the countering as 2 well matched enemies face off. This is what the combat lacks, and netiehr AC 2 nor brotherhood brought us. They tried, and they failed. They left us with irritating repetetive swinging of weapons, knocking down health bars then ending with basic weapon swipe. Not aesthetically pleasing, no beautiful flow of animations, and no feeling of being a highly trained bad ass assassin.
Erasable Druid on 8 May '11 said:
Grummy, will read and, hopefully, respond to your post properly later, when I've time. Just wanted to answer the first bit now: I was joking
Grummy on 8 May '11 said:
Groovy.
Mr Brutal XD on 8 May '11 said:
It's a good point but just because there is the co-op option there doesn't mean there needs to be an AI to accompany you in the absence of a friend. In Saints Row the host player was seen in the cut scenes and then the other player appeared during the actual game play. This meant that you didn't have to have an AI partner. Drop in/drop out co-op is what is needed. No need for an explanation of who the other assassin is or why he's there.
Bezza89 on 9 May '11 said:
Especially with so many throwaway Assassin Recruit characters from ACB.
gtull on 9 May '11 said:
Couldn't agree more, where's a new RS???
UrbanDiz on 30 Aug '11 said:
I Would Like to see Leonardo Da Vinci make an appearance in Revelations. His appearance was in AC2 was Good but In Brotherhood it felt distant even in the DLC The Da Vinci dissapearance, he felt distant (trying to find him and all)
I Would also like too see all Questions answered but one to make the plot of the next assassins creed more exciting and make a new assassin carry on Ezio's Legacy, maybe his lost long two son's then u can be more then one assassin and make 2 alternate endings making one of the brothers die to make the player feel a bit personal about the death eg I almost cried when Roman died In GTA cuz he was such a funny brilliant character. Make one serious, no sense of humor and one funny and has a sense of humor