After a poster of the upcoming Assassin’s Creed title was leaked, Ubisoft was forced to confirm the next installment earlier than they planned to. The new protagonist is Edward Kenway, a British privateer, Assassin, and father of Haytham Kenway from AC3. I think the game is set in the Caribbean in 1754, though I’d have to look that up again to make sure.
Regardless, I’m less than thrilled. Here is the post I made to Facebook when I found out about the potential new protagonist and time setting before it was confirmed by Ubisoft. I think it very succinctly captures my feelings:
[QUOTE=Agent Foxtrot on Facebook]
AC is my favorite video game series, but if it’s true AC4 will be about pirates, then they’ve lost me. C’mon, Ubisoft! There are so many other interesting time periods! Sumeria! Pharaonic Egypt and the Hebrews under Moses! Edō Japan! Victorian England! Rome in the time of Christ! Carthage! The Greek Peloponnesian Wars! The French Revolution! The Magyars! The Huns! Han Dynasty China! The Mongols under Genghis Khan! What happened to the ultra-researched time periods that were so immersive you truly felt like you were there? What is this horseshit? Get creative again!
There were statues of renowned Assassins under Monteriggioni where Ezio unlocked Altaïr’s armor. Use any one of them as your new protagonist!
[/QUOTE]
Maybe I’m showing my age, but when I hear “Black Flag” the first thing I think of is the insecticide. Followed by Henry Rollins.
I’m glad they’re dumping Connor - he was the weak point that damaged a what was a pretty good game. The new setting doesn’t bother me too much, but I hope they don’t base it completely around the naval battle mechanism in AC3 - that was so simplistic as to be laughable. Sails up! Sails down! Reload all the cannon in 5 seconds! Weather gauge? Who cares about the weather gauge?
I’m very “meh” about this. I haven’t played this last one yet. I’m kinda over the whole “pirate” thing in popular culture and, honestly, I probably would have been disappointed no matter era they picked because I really, REALLY wanted the French Revolution.
Agreed. SO much could be done with that time period and there’s plenty of historical documentation. I can totally see Victor Hugo as the supporting role, like Leonardo was in AC2 and ACB.
AC3 bored me to tears (I got it for Christmas and still haven’t finished it, not because it’s lengthy but because it feels a chore to play - 1, 2, B & R took me at the most a week each to polish off), so I hope that at least this one will take a lesson in pacing. Also not too keen on the setting - where’s the parkour opportunities for a pirate? Which was another thing that bugged me about 3; shitty towns (no offence US), two-storey colonial Boston and the endless snowy forests were dull as dog crap compared to the spires and citadels of Jerusalem, Acre, Damascus, Florence, Venice, Rome, Constantinople… again I doubt Port Royal or Tortuga or whatever the ‘main town’ is will be a feast for the eyes and the aspiring assassin in the quite same way.
Agreed French Revolution would have worked much better (as the setting for 3, quite frankly, can’t overstate how disappointed I was with that game). Plenty of murder, political intrigue and backstabbing, Paris and other grand French cities to clamber around would tickle my fancy far more than Pirates of the Assassibean.
I’m kinda surprised they’re giving it one of the numerals instead of just making it another spin-off, considering it basically takes place in the same time period as III (and it’s actually before III in timeline). And yeah, while no matter what time period they picked would garner cries of “you could’ve picked X instead!” I think they really did pick something pretty boring.
Also don’t really see how naval warfare will really provide a good setting. Boats are boring.
I have to admit, I’m not sure whether they were intending this all along and if the boat mechanics in ACIII were the beta for this idea, or if the fact that everybody was like THE BOAT BATTLES ARE THE BEST PART OF THIS GAME made them go “you want boat battles? You got em!”
My thoughts exactly. Seriously, not every Assassin needs to be the greatest warrior of his time. Why don’t we go with a fairly weak fighter who needs to plan out his attacks so he doesn’t get into a melee in which he would surely get his ass handed to him?
I’m not sure what Ubisoft is thinking. They clearly listened to the fans when developing AC2. Most people now are screaming for either Victorian England or the French Revolution. What are we getting instead? Pirates of the Caribbean.
The first one - it’s been in development since before ACIII came out.
I’m always up for piratey funtimes, but I agree that the French Revolution would be a good era to use. Now that the games are annual releases, it’s not like we’ll have to wait around a long time to see when the next game is set.
To me this is part and parcel of the swerve away from actual assassinations. I mean, you pretty rarely assassinate someone in these games anymore; you go on a long series of missions even when you should simply be able to walk over and smack them down. What loved about 2 was that so often you were handed a list of targets and told to go nuts. The important thing was that your enemies died, and you could do it however you wanted. Now it’s more like a series of pre-arranged hoops you must jump through exactly as required.
I guess the only thing I can say is that UbiSoft has incredible awesome production values underlying incredibly awful gameplay. They build amazing worlds and make the actual game shockingly tedious. It’s not just AC, either - I look very dimply on their games because I’ve been burned by this three times now. A game gets great reviews and everyone talks it up, and I find it just agonizing to play and end up giving the game away (of in the cse of Steam, just deleting it from my PC and never looking back).
There was an interview with one of the developers at Penny Arcade that said they were going back to having more open-ended assassination missions. So apparently someone agrees with you.
I agree about your general analysis of the AC games though. I usually just borrow each instalment from a friend for a few hours and then give it back. The experience of running around such a well-realized historical city is pretty cool for about that length of time, but the actual gameplay is so mind-numbing that there isn’t really any challenge in trying to complete the game.
Isn’t the number going up one digit just a reaction to the fact that:
Desmond dies at the end of III, which effectively severs the link between the episodes - new protagonists have increased the digit elsewhere in the series - Altair -> Ezio = move from 1 to 2, Ezio -> Connor = move from 2 to 3, Desmond -> ? = move from 3 to 4. ?
I’ll get it… I just won’t pre-order it like I did all of the others. AC3 was so buggy before the first patch came out, it was almost unplayable if you ask me.