Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Assassin's Creed 3 Setting Leaked?


According to Joystiq (who got their information from Kotaku, who got their information from a Best Buy employee), the above image is representative of what we can expect out of the main protagonist from Assassin's Creed 3.  The main protagonist that isn't Desmond, of course, but rather one of Desmond's ancestors, who must've really got around.  Middle Eastern, Italian, now Native American?  Truly, it boggles the mind a little.  Regardless, there's another family tie that makes even less sense, so maybe I just shouldn't think about it too much because Ubisoft clearly just wants to set a game in the American Revolution which isn't a very popular era, actually.  Well, not -yet-, though I have a feeling AC3 might usher in a few others covering the time.

Back when AC3 was just revealed the theory that the French or American Revolution could be the main aspect of the past-story, so somebody seemed to have been right on the money!  Or just really really lucky with guessing, I guess.  I would've preferred something a little, uh....older, perhaps even before Ezio since, hey, there's no reason someone before him couldn't have just been a really good assassin, but I guess this'll work.  Guns are still new, so they probably won't see overuse, but the fact that our Main is clutching one isn't too encouraging.  Still, he also has a bow and arrow which, by using the last games as a metric, will be far more deadly than the actual pistol itself anyway.  Though, speaking of his weapons, I'm not too sure about that Tomahawk replacing the hidden blade; it just seems a little less, uh...functional.  Assuming it -will- replace it, which....well, just look at it.

Something else I'm a little iffy on for this is the idea that, and I might just be completely wrong on this, there just aren't the types of big, tall, expansive buildings in Colonial America as there are in the other locations that AC has visited.  Especially depending on the actual when that it takes place in, since it'll be even less so if they start really early in it.  Would that mean a bigger focus on using nature and the environment rather than rooftops and such?  Would it just....have a much less 'stealthy' approach in general?  I don't know and maybe I'm just thinking of the period incorrectly, but I just can't see Assassin's Creed gameplay in this time period without some heavy editting.  Then again, I might just be completely misrepresenting my memories - in which case, I'll happily admit I'm wrong.

Honestly, I just don't know about any of it, really.  I had AC3 built up in my head as the ultimate ending to the story; rather than visiting the past, Desmond was just ready to take it to the 'man' as it were, and the whole game would revolve around just that.  With the modern-day landscape of skyscrapers and such, as well as all the advances in technology that could exist or could 'reasonably' be in the game, it would be a very different experience, but built on the exact same principles as the first two.  If Desmond still had to hop in the Animus, I figured it'd be smaller bites, chunks here and there of different assassins lives just to earn their main tricks - akin to Sly Cooper 1, I guess, with the whole Thievius Raccoonus angle of special abilities.  I guess this still could be the case and the Native American is just a red herring (I'm not really going to question its legitimacy - it looks pretty real) in a sense, but I doubt it.

Still, I'm interested in it as I would be with any iteration of Assassin's Creed 3, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it all pans out.  I have faith that Ubisoft will, at the very least, create a game I don't dislike, as it has done with AC1-AssBro.  They weren't perfect, but they weren't bad games in the least and I'm still eagerly anticipating a time where I can play Assassin's Creed:  Revelations without worry, though I'm not sure such a time exists.  I likely won't jump on AC3 right off, so dodging the spoilers will be a bit painful, but I've managed it before and I'll manage it again.  Though, I have to admit, the temptation with Assassin's Creed 3 will be much higher than most games, simply because I'm not so much invested in the story as I am interested in it - It doesn't seem like an easy story to write, much less reign in towards end-game, so their efforts will either go incredibly well, or incredibly poorly and it's really hard telling which side they'll land on.

Update!:  Aaaand, it's official.  Just in case you want to see the Box Art without clicking a link...


Come April, we might get some more information, as Assassin's Creed 3 is GameInformer's April cover story.  Until then, this is all we've got.

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