Assassins Creed is one of those series that I have enjoyed more and more with every entry. I played the hell out of the first one, too much really, as the mundane side missions and excruciatingly infuriating “kill ten guys across the map in three minutes” missions made me want to assassinate the game’s designers. I held off on AC2, despite everyone telling me how awesome it was until shortly before Brotherhood came out. Then I played it and loved it. I waited on Brotherhood, fearing I would be worn out on the series, but finally played it early this year and loved it as well.
What this has taught me is a) don’t wait to play AC when the next one comes out and b) stabbing a dude through the neck after hurtling off a building to the sounds of an eagle’s cry never gets old. This month’s Game Informer breaks the details about the upcoming Assassins Creed: Revelations, a game which features all three assassins: Altair, Ezio and Desmond as well as new weapons, new locales, a customizable multiplayer game and some explanation on just what in the hell happened at the end of Brotherhood. The game comes out in November, adding to an already crowded buffet of potential gaming greatness.
The PR is below:
Today, Ubisoft announced the development of Assassin’s Creed Revelations, the fourth installment in the critically acclaimed and immensely popular video game franchise. Developed and led by Ubisoft Montreal with the support and expertise of Ubisoft studios Annecy, Massive Entertainment, Quebec, Singapore and Bucharest, Assassin’s Creed Revelations presents the most immersive experience available in the series to date and the culmination of Ezio’s adventure. The game is set to release on the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, the PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system and Windows PC this November.
In Assassin’s Creed Revelations, master assassin Ezio Auditore walks in the footsteps of his legendary mentor, Altaïr, on a journey of discovery and revelation. It is a perilous path – one that will take Ezio to Constantinople, the heart of the Ottoman Empire, where a growing army of Templars threatens to destabilize the region.
In addition to Ezio’s award-winning story, the acclaimed online multiplayer experience returns, refined and expanded, with more modes, more maps and more characters that allow players to test their assassin skills against others from around the world. The latest chapter in the Assassin’s Creed saga also includes revolutionary gameplay, allowing players to manipulate the construct of Desmond’s memories and the Animus to decipher the mysteries of his past and gain insight into the future.
“Delivering the final chapter of the Ezio trilogy is an important milestone in the Assassin’s Creed franchise for us and for our fans,” said Alexandre Amancio, Creative Director at Ubisoft Montreal. “Assassin’s Creed Revelations includes lots of new features and some significant surprises. We can’t wait to show our fans what we have in store at E3 this year.”
Additional details on Assassin’s Creed Revelations can be found in an exclusive feature in the June issue of Game Informer Magazine, available this month.
For more information on Assassin’s Creed, visit: www.assassinscreed.com and www.facebook.com/assassinscreed.
I can’t wait. If the series continues on par with AC2 and Brotherhood, it’s going to be awesome. I really like the idea of having all three Assassins in the game, that probably means lots of temporal jumping around which could be really neat.
Really excited about multiplayer returning. I thought it was brilliant in Brotherhood but it needed a little more fleshing out and some further development so “refined and expanded” are defintely welcome adjectives.
November this year is a _nightmare_. This, Skyrim, Uncharted 3…
I have no doubt the game will sell very well, but there are a lot of games set for release. This could drop the same day as skyrim.
After reading the title, I thought there would be 3 hidden blades and wondered where the third could be
Three Times the Stabby Goodness? Does that mean is is wearing a hidden blade on his winky now?
I can’t say I’m too pleased with this announcement. While I loved both AC2 and Brotherhood, I’ve seen about all I needed to see of Ezio’s story. One of the great things about AC is the flexibility they have with the setting for the games. Yet here we are, the third game in a row with the same character and time period. Where’s feudal Japan, or the French revolution, or Cold War Berlin? There are so many places this series could be going.
This.
I am very much ready for a new spin on this.
Yep, long as the game has views for me to synchronize I am there.
I’m ready for a new spin, but clearly they’re not done with Ezio’s story and I want to see how that ends.
I agree. This feels too related to the yearly release cycle being pushed anymore. Given that you’re not really bound by setting or time, it’s almost unfortunate to see three in a row based on Ezio. Although, I do love the AC series a lot, so maybe it’ll be a good thing.
“November this year is a _nightmare_. This, Skyrim, Uncharted 3…”
Christmas time every year sucks for this reason. I wish they’d stop with the Christmas release schedule.
I agree too, but Ezio is such a strong character that it’s going to be tough for them to follow up with someone just as interesting or cool. Plus, they really do need to bring Altair into the story in a larger way.
I am _all in_ on an AC game set in the French Revolution. Not so much Japan, it could easily become just another ninja game.
At the rate they are going that should be like what 2 years away. I hate when they pump games out like this.
There is a reason good series end up going bad.
I realize I’m a minority view, but my biggest panic about the game is that multiplayer IS returning.
I hate multiplayer with the heat of a thousand suns, generally. This is mostly because I am not good at it. While very different (and better) from shooters in some key ways, ACB multiplayer for me is still very much about getting killed by strangers whose voices have not yet dropped, who have much more time to practice than I have.
I’m hoping Ubisoft splits the difference: Numbered sequels for solid single player, subtitled sequels for whatever makes them cash. I’m perfectly willing to accept that the multiplayer market is huge, and that’s money in the bank. But I’d honestly like to have a few games left here in my single player walled ghetto. Can’t old gamers with disposable income and crap reflexes have a walled ghetto?
I’m actually ready for them to wrap up the series now. I feel less like an assassin the more the series heads towards GTA open-world territory (Grand Thuggery Assassino?) and the game’s stuffed with ‘kill X because Y told you to’ story padding. The body count’s in the thousands now; it all gets totally meaningless when you (incredibly minor spoiler) kill three random guys because some prostitute thinks _one_ of them _might_ have poisoned her, with the mission end suggesting that she might only be hungover after all.
The first game at least had the guise of planning and executing difficult missions against well-guarded leaders; in latter games you just turn up, slaughter everybody in sight (ridiculously easy now with the new execution chain mechanic) and run away again. Or if the mission does have some depth, it is so heavily studded with hints that you can do the thing with your brain turned off. Way to take the gaming out of video gaming guys. I was very much looking forward to tackling the massive castle in Rome, until I discovered there is just one contrived way to climb it, and so many checkpoints on the way up that you didn’t even need to stop to consider the route.
The only hook the games still have in me is the whole global-historical conspiracy mystery sci-fi thing, but even that’s getting weaker the more they try and string it out. I just want them to finish the story now while it still has some power.
I feel the series has lost sight of the things that made it special. Without a doubt it’s becoming more polished and accassible, but I mourn the loss of magic that occurs when they start milking it.
The single player in Brotherhood was amazing, and not too short at all. Why then should you fear another multiplayer installment?
“Not so much Japan, it could easily become just another ninja game.”
Perhaps, but it could also become what Tenchu never really was. Aka, good.
I’m right with you on Revolutionary France, so much promising material to use there – characters, locations, conflict. I’d also love to see an AC based around the Reformation, a period of history that has absolutely everything to offer that any game could need – hope, despair, intrigue, madness, and no end of slaughter. I think there’s a lot of scope for weaving the Templar-Assassin story into the complex, shifting tapestry of factions operating across that period.
Aside from Japan conjuring up too many images of terrible movie and game cliches, which I think it would be hard to avoid, I’m not sure how well the Templar-Assassin story would work if removed from post-11th century Christian history. But if they can overcome that then there are a lot more interesting options out there… Vietnam, 17th century civil war rather than the 20th century, might offer a slightly less cliched alternative to late feudal Japan. Yuan dynasty China could be a better alternative than early feudal Japan, and the Marco Polo story might give an opportunity to link the Templar story. The fall of the Aztec empire also has a lot of hooks for Templars and Assassins, and a very different architectural setting from Europe which might be important, but if we’re going to get an early 16th century AC I’d only be disappointed that it wasn’t the Reformation. And then there’s pre- and early-Christian history… So many options there, and the Pieces of Eden provide some scope for “Templars” pre-dating the Temple.
I agree it was amazing. Here are my buts:
Absolute mission-wise, Brotherhood was a bit shorter – 10 or 20 percent? That seems to be what the big reviews said, too.
The project chiefs admitted that they were already prepping Rome stuff for ACII, but they cut it for time. All that effort got rolled into ACB, so head-start, there. Constantinople (?) is being built from scratch…but has the same development schedule ACB had. QED, they’re going to have to make more choices in ACR about which team (single or multi) gets more manpower to do stuff.
My default setting for online multiplayer is “hate”. So me not resenting a multiplayer add-on would be the equivalent of someone finding Brink’s magical “hybrid experience” unicorn. Which, for the record, doesn’t exist.
But I think the success of ACII makes this inevitable. I loved the pacing and low body count of the first one, even though I acknowledged the spying and interrogation bits needed more meat.
But more people paid sixty bucks the second time around. We’re overruled, it seems.
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