If you’re an Assassin’s Creed fan, this is the year for you. Not only are we getting an old-gen game called Rogue that continues the storyline from Black Flag/AC3, but we’re also getting a brand new title exclusively for next-gen called Assassin’s Creed Unity.
If you’re not an AC fan, and are instead one of those people who has never bothered with the series/got burnt out from the same old stuff every year, Unity may be the excuse you need to jump on the bandwagon. Unity is the first next-gen only title to be released and as such marks a turning point from the series, complete with new mechanics, new storyline, new characters and a new, hopefully fresh experience. There’s plenty to get excited about here and fans of the series both new and old will more than likely find something great within the newest Assassin venture.
That’s the hope anyway! The series has always been quite divisive in the past; certain people love certain games, while many don’t like others or the characters presented therein (i.e. ACIII), but – judging by the good old marketing machine so far – there’s every chance Unity might just be exactly what the series needs.
Here’s 10 tantalising things we really can’t wait to see when Unity launches officially on November 11th in North America and November 13th in Europe.
Be warned; mild spoilers on plot of this game and previous entries may lie herein.
10. Assassin Or Templar?
At first glance, our new Assassin, Arno, looks like just another hooded dude taking up the mantle from our last protagonist, Edward Kenway. This guy has an intriguing backstory though; he’s originally born into an Assassin household, loses his family, gets adopted by the Templars, his Templar daddy gets killed, and he is welcomed back to the Assassin brotherhood to find out what’s going down. It all happens to be in the midst of the French Revolution too.
We also know that Arno has a love interest, Elise De La Serre, who just happens to be the daughter of a Templar Grandmaster. This conflict between the two sides we’ve seen constantly in the past appears to take on a new path with Unity; it appears that the lines between Assassin and Templar are being blurred and there’s (hopefully) going to be a great deal of delving into the motives of both sides, rather than just the Assassins being good and the Templars being bad.
One of the few highlights of Assassin’s Creed 3 was the section where you played the start of the game as Haytham, a man who turned out to work for the Templars. It presented a very different side of the conflict, but was quickly forgotten about when Connor came into the picture. Hopefully Unity can fix this, delving into both sides of the story and the conflict Arno feels as he rises through the ranks of the Assassin brotherhood.
9. What’s Going On In The Present Day?
As in all Assassin’s Creed games, Unity – for better or worse – will include a present day section where someone interacts with an Animus to relive the memories of someone from the past (in this case, Arno).
Ubisoft has been keeping pretty quiet about the present day stuff for their new game; all we know is that we’re going to see ‘something new’ and that it will focus on the Assassins requesting help reliving Arno’s memories whilst simultaneously helping them out in the present day. Since it’s new, we can pretty much rule out the first-person wandering through Abstergo from Black Flag and can virtually rule out Desmond Miles, who appears to have really and truly kicked the bucket after the events of ACIII.
The present day stuff in AC has always been pretty divisive; some gamers call for it to be kicked out altogether, while some are still intrigued by the storyline. We’re hoping that this time around there’ll be a lot more explaining, and a lot less confusing elements that make LOST’s storylines look like kid’s books. What’s going on with the Assassins? Why is Juno in a virtual world? What’s up with Roberts, the crazy time-jumping reincarnated IT guy who got himself killed to try and revive Juno? Does anyone else’s brain hurt?
As Unity marks the start of a new generation of AC on new hardware, now is the time to make this confusing storyline more streamlined and easier to understand. We’re really hoping that the present day sections of Unity add up to something great.
8. AC Goes RPG
In the past, Assassin’s Creed games have given gamers several options for kitting out their character. You’ve been able to change your clothes, weapon sets and even build up a ship, but you’ve always been limited in terms of abilities by what the game dictates.
Unity is set to shake this up by including – for the first time in the series – the ability to level up Arno’s abilities as you go, unlocking new parkour and other upgrades as you progress. This allows you to craft your Assassin in a new way; you might, for example, get a new traversal move, or instead put your efforts into upgrading your weaponry and making you all the more deadly.
This new approach works in tandem with the game’s narrative. Arno’s story chronicles his rise through the ranks of the Assassins, and what better way to experience his growth than in a natural way that progresses as Arno becomes more experienced?
It’s also going to be extremely interesting to see parkour moves progress naturally as the game goes on, particularly as parkour has been completely revamped from the ground up to make movement much more fluid than in previous titles.
7. The New Combat System
By the time Black Flag rolled around, the AC series had developed a combat system that made racking up kill after kill so very easy. We lost count of the amount of people we felled in ACIV, but it was a ridiculously high number by the time the credits rolled.
Ubisoft is mixing this up in Unity by first of all removing the double hidden blade, a series mainstay ever since it was developed for Ezio in Assassin’s Creed II. Instead Arno will be equipped with a mere single blade and players will have to think more strategically than before about their next moves.
To go alongside this Ubi has also revamped the combat system. It’s now said to be much harder to play, with the insta-kill counter button of previous games being totally removed and guards who will attack more aggressively and react to Arno’s moves.
There’s also the new, game changing Phantom Blade, a mechanic that allows Arno to shoot a blade across a vast distance to kill someone on the sly. Who knows what other secrets Ubi might have planned for the final build of the title? Hopefully there’ll also be plenty of combat upgrades to help keep combat fresh through the storyline.
6. Exploring Revolutionary Paris
First teased years ago in cryptic messages in previous titles, the French Revolutionary setting of AC Unity is intriguing on so many levels.
By harnessing the power of next-gen, Ubisoft’s development team have been able to render Paris on an almost 1:1 scale, complete with explorable interiors in lots of buildings, loads of stuff to climb with the new parkour mechanics and – for the most part – a removal of the mysterious haystacks that appear near high points as you can now climb down from a building in a much easier way.
The new parkour in particular looks an absolute joy to experience. No longer will you be limited by the design of the world; you’ll now be able to climb and descend at will and – hopefully – you’ll spend a lot less time completely missing haystacks and splatting on the ground below instead.
The setting of the French Revolution also has countless historical mission possibilities and should be a time filled with great strife for both Arno and the surrounding cast. It’ll be interesting to see if the streets of Paris adapt to changes during the storyline, getting gradually more unruly as the people revolt and all the interesting happens of the French Revolution go down.
There’s also the massive graphical upgrades, with better movement animations, new character models, high levels of detail, atmospheric lighting and so much more going on. This looks like the kind of Assassin’s Creed setting we can get behind.
5. Unite With Your Assassin Chums
The name Unity ain’t just a fancy way of not calling this Assassin’s Creed 5; it mainly refers to the fact that this title is the first AC game to have true co-operative gameplay missions as optional extras alongside the main storyline.
Building upon the popularity of the sort-of co-op game in Black Flag, Unity will have optional co-operative side missions where you’ll recruit fellow gamers from taverns across the world and join them in a spot of Assassin fun. We’ve already seen the gameplay in action from the E3 2014 trailer, and we have to say it looks pretty darn snazzy.
Rumour has it that the co-operative elements will also extend to other elements of the game; you might be wandering around completing a side mission when the game prompts you to complete a section faster than your friends could. This again builds upon the social interaction sections integrated into Black Flag.
For those who are fans of single player only; never fear. Unity’s co-op missions are separate entities; they’re designed with every player playing as Arno in their own game, so the missions won’t interfere with the overarching narrative. The missions will include activities such as – of course – assassinations, but there’s also heist missions included as well.
Let’s just hope they don’t take a year to implement those. We’re looking at you, Grand Theft Auto Online.
4. Next-Gen Crowds
New hardware doesn’t just bump up the resolution; it allows new games to have much more than they ever could. In Unity, crowds have been massively revamped, with NPCs reacting in new ways to events in the world and crowd sizes are perhaps huger than they’ve been in any game ever.
It’s easy to have fears about this one – particularly if you played earlier Assassin’s Creed games where crowds were a hindrance – but seeing an angry mob rebelling against French aristocracy sounds pretty good (and will no doubt feature many a head on a spike).
It certainly looks impressive anyway. It’s not really known if the crowd technology is used in set-pieces within missions or can occur naturally, but we’re really hoping that the latter happens depending on what’s happening in the world. Better NPC behaviour leads to a more believable city, and Ubisoft’s efforts on this part look like they’re going to pay off.
A bigger crowd also makes it much more believable when Arno hides from pursuers; this time around, it might actually make sense when you blend amongst the people, rather than mysteriously becoming completely invisible when you stand between two dudes or sit on a bench.
3. Actually Being Able To Hide Effectively
It’s amazing it’s taken this long – considering that these games are primarily about stealth – but Unity will mark the first time in the series’ history that you actually have a crouch option to hide yourself more effectively.
There’s also a renewed focus on stealth alongside the revamped combat and parkour systems. It sounds daft even as we write this, but we’re genuinely excited to be able to hide ourselves effectively with a crouch mechanic rather than being seen for the umpteenth time as you try to position yourself behind a piece of terrain unsuccessfully.
Better yet, there’s even really snazzy-looking cinematic stealth kills which make it all the more rewarding to be sneaky. Partnering up with your mates and stealthily taking down a group of enemies looks like a genuine thrill and this revamped focus on stealth really looks like the shot in the arm the AC series needs.
2. Adaptive Gameplay
If you’ve ever played an AC mission where you’re following someone (in other words, practically every mission not on a ship in Black Flag), you’ve probably been frustrated by repeatedly failing the mission because the person you’re following randomly turned around and spotted you hiding behind a naff piece of cover. Perhaps you alternatively accidentally leaped off the roof into their path, resulting in yet another desynchronisation. It’s happened to us all, and it really sucks.
Thankfully this is being fixed in Assassin’s Creed Unity. Gone are the days when you’d fail a mission because you’re a pathetic eavesdropper/can’t navigate around NPCs blocking you; if someone you’re following in Unity spots you, they’ll instead run off, changing up the mission on the fly. This is the only example Ubisoft has given of this adaptive gameplay, but there’s every chance that it’ll adapt in more ways as you go along to make missions more fun and prevent repeated pointless failures.
A reduced focus on eavesdropping is fine by us; the concept is a good one and ties well into the context of the Assassins, but the implementation has always been shoddy and ended up being a frustration rather than any fun. Pelting through the streets of Paris on the tail of someone who has spotted you and using your new parkour moves to move fluidly without stopping? That sounds so much better already.
1. Planning Your Approach In Your Own Way
As we’ve seen in the most recent trailers for the game, Unity opens up missions in new and interesting ways, both in the main story and outside of it. In the main mission we’ve seen, Arno, now newly inducted into the Assassins, must infiltrate Notre Dame cathedral to get to his target. He can do this in several ways; should you steal the keys from a guard, or perhaps fight your way inside? If most missions have multiple options to get them done like this one, the AC Unity experience may well be good for not just one playthrough, but several. It also gives gamers much more chance to experience the game in the way they want, rather than follow predefined paths.
Ubisoft has also gone on record stating that the side missions are much more dynamic. Arno may, for example, come across a murder and have to start investigating. It all sounds like much more of an open, gamer-driven experience than ever before, and were very excited about that.
It’s looking like a good year for Assassin’s Creed. Let’s just hope that Ubisoft delivers when the time comes for Unity to shoot its Phantom Blade into our lives.
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