Assassin's Creed Unity announced

[Atomic Playboy]

Ubisoft has confirmed rumors that the next Assassin's Creed game, dubbed "Unity," will take place during the French Revolution. It's next-gen only (Xbox One, PS4 and PC), so hopefully we won't have to deal with resources intended to run on last-gen equipment. The alpha trailer was posted earlier today, and it's looking pretty good at this point. It's like an HD version of the Ezio Auditore da Firenze games.

Joystiq
Kotaku
IGN

Still, I have to ask, is anyone a little upset that they're abandoning the pirate theme from Black Flag so abruptly? AC4 was a breath of fresh air in a series that had been starting to feel a bit stale; would be a shame to lose the great new additions like naval battles. Maybe they'll make a standalone pirate game to compensate.

 

[zerocool84]

I hated Assassin's Creed one, didn't play any others because of that. Throughly enjoyed 4 as like you said, because of the naval stuff. I still didn't like the assassin part of the game as its extremely repetitive and you're always getting stuck in places where you didn't intend to climb. I'll definitely look at this though.

 

[Skel]

Personally I have a hard time getting excited about any game that seems to have a yearly update. I'm hoping it'll be better than the last few.

I doubt they're going to get rid of the navel stuff. That's been in two games now, so I'm sure they'll have it in there. Might not be the focus of the game, but that's not a bad thing. You're supposed to be an assassin after all, not a navel captain.

 

[Aikouka]

What I don't like is that they're not just releasing one game; they're releasing two! The game that they showed off is a next-gen-only game, but the other one is only for the 360 and PS3. At least make them both for the PC or something!

Also, I'd prefer to see the rumored (and later refuted) feudal Japan stuff, but that's probably not hard to see given I'm the whitest of white boys with a Japanese forum name. :sneaky:

 

[Fulle]

No, I agree. Paris France is a BORING location pick, after we had so much of the series in Italy. I'd much rather have Japan or China.

 

[Aikouka]

No, I agree. Paris France is a BORING location pick, after we had so much of the series in Italy. I'd much rather have Japan or China.

To be fair, I think AC3 is a good example of how a change in scenery doesn't necessarily mean a good game we will get! I think Paris could be okay. What I think is really important is that we get a good set of characters (Ezio was a huge part of what made AC2), and maybe some long overdue gameplay adjustments (assassinate, counter, counter, counter, counter, done!)

Although, thinking about it... I wonder if Japan might be a bit of a daunting task for them. There are two things that came to mind. Similar to the colonial America setting in AC3, Japan wouldn't really have very many high buildings, which was a huge aspect of AC1 and AC2. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, as at times, I would get annoyed with trying to find the one thing that I could actually latch onto while climbing a random vantage point. That made me think of the second thing. The game would probably include a lot of stealth on the ground, or low-level rooftops, which would make it similar to games like Tenchu. Maybe they don't want to try to live up to games like Tenchu?

 

[Madia]

I haven't played any games in the series but AC4 looks interesting to me. Would I missing out on much by starting there?

 

[Atomic Playboy]

I haven't played any games in the series but AC4 looks interesting to me. Would I missing out on much by starting there?

Not at all. In fact, the game is more enjoyable if you sort of gloss over the nonsensical Assassin lore that tries to be deep and comes off as stupid. It's a phenomenal open-world pirate game with some assassin bits in it.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Not at all. In fact, the game is more enjoyable if you sort of gloss over the nonsensical Assassin lore that tries to be deep and comes off as stupid. It's a phenomenal open-world pirate game with some assassin bits in it.

The previous AC games made good use of the assassin lore. The 4th game did not.

 

[ghost recon88]

Not at all. In fact, the game is more enjoyable if you sort of gloss over the nonsensical Assassin lore that tries to be deep and comes off as stupid. It's a phenomenal open-world pirate game with some assassin bits in it.

I really enjoyed Black Sails, could never really get into the earlier titles.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I really enjoyed Black Sails, could never really get into the earlier titles.

Not to nitpick but you mean black flag. Black sails is the television series on Starz.

 

[zerocool84]

The previous AC games made good use of the assassin lore. The 4th game did not.

I think they shouldn't have had ANY of that modern day crap in it. It really took you out of the game. It felt out of place.

 

[mmntech]

I think they shouldn't have had ANY of that modern day crap in it. It really took you out of the game. It felt out of place.

The Desmond story arc was okay and made sense to a degree. I hated how they

Spoiler

killed him off at the end of ACIII.

I really thought they were leading into a a game that took place in the present.

The modern day stuff in AC IV was ridiculous, nonsensical, and should not have been there.

A lot of Assassin's Creed fans do want a ninja themed game set in feudal Japan. Though maybe they're worried about making something too much like Ninja Gaiden. Maybe they should just remake AC1 so it doesn't suck.

 

[Fulle]

I don't like Assassin's Creed's lore/plot at all. I mean AT ALL. I think it's terrible, and hate how they pull you out of the time period into the present day with the whole animus stuff... and don't let you do much of anything fun in the present day.

I also hate the eavesdrop quests, an insane amount. And the swordfighting mechanics have always been pretty bad.

Thinking about it, maybe I don't really like Assassin's Creed very much. I just liked AC4 because it was the best pirate game I've played in ages.

What I really want... is for Ubisoft to take all the things they learned in Assassin's Creed 4, and make a bad-ass new pirate game, without any Care Bear Assassins or Abstergo ruining it.

 

[Anteaus]

Everything I have read points to a dedicated pirate game outside of the Assassin's Creed lore. This is perhaps why it seems the best part of AC4 was purposely left out of the sequel or perhaps minimize it.

It is well known that the pirate portion of AC4 was beloved whereas the AC part was loathed and I think Ubisoft is aware of it.

This doesn't count as proof of anything, but it just shows that even then they were contemplating a real pirate spinoff.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/new...ing-Pirate-Themed-Assassins-Creed-IV-Spin-Off

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/12/06/ubisoft-surveying-fans-on-assassins-creed-5-pvp-naval-combat

I predict two games...a straight forward AC game and a naval themed pirate game much expanded on what was in AC4. In any case, it's doubtful Ubisoft will officially announce a new series until it was a bit farther down the pipe. After all, assuming they only recently started development (if, that is), we are talking late 2015 or 2016 until release at best.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I think they shouldn't have had ANY of that modern day crap in it. It really took you out of the game. It felt out of place.

That's not what I mean...actually though the parts with Desmond and the end of the world stuff was well thought out. At the end of 3 though it was as if the team making the games originally wanted to give an ending but Ubisoft wanted to monetize it forever and they dropped it entirely which made all of it have no impact.

Then in 4 they throw in characters never once referred to or mentioned in previous games as if they are supposed to be some missing link. They totally screwed up the entire franchise with two games. They tossed years of story, buildup, and development of characters aside like yesterday's lunch.

 

[Oyeve]

AC was great until 3. I lost interest after that.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

More info coming out from E3. Kotaku has a couple new articles up with a brief preview and a video showing 7 minutes of gameplay. Some quick takeaways:

Lots and lots and lots of NPCs. The crowds are actually crowded now. But there seems to be a fair amount of palette-swapped and model duplicate characters, and that's not going to be good for immersion. Hopefully that's not the case in the final release.

Apparently it's large; reportedly, Paris will be larger than the combined island landmasses of AC4. I'll believe that when I see it, but they have recreated Notre Dame on a 1:1 scale, so that should be fun to climb around on.

You can crouch. Huzzah!

No competitive multiplayer; who cares?

Honestly, it looks like more of the same, just with better hardware behind it. If you don't like Assassin's Creed, this doesn't seem like the title that changes your mind. I'm skeptical they can keep things feeling fresh by returning to Europe, but it does look pretty.

 

[Lil Frier]

Honestly, it looks like more of the same, just with better hardware behind it. If you don't like Assassin's Creed, this doesn't seem like the title that changes your mind. I'm skeptical they can keep things feeling fresh by returning to Europe, but it does look pretty.

I am actually in the minority, then. I was rather bored with the franchise about halfway through the second game, because of how slowly it played, particularly the combat. This game seems to have you climbing things faster, and the combat seems more offense-based than just blocking forever, and it's a bit more fierce.

The co-op is also great, because it'll break the travel monotony by chatter, I hope. I'd love to see them remake them all with co-op and release that collection on the new consoles.

 

[Bateluer]

http://wccftech.com/playstation-4-run-assassins-creed-unity-native-1080p-resolution/

WFFtech claims Unity will likely run at 720p on the PS4. Given that its Ubi Soft, this could be just them being lazy and downgrading it to match the XB1 version.

 

[KentState]

Either deal with lowered resolution or potentially poor PC performance.

 

[cmdrdredd]

They also said that the game engine supports crowds of 30,000

 

[Bateluer]

Either deal with lowered resolution or potentially poor PC performance.

Its Ubi Soft. They still don't know how to properly dev PC games.

 

[mmntech]

http://wccftech.com/playstation-4-run-assassins-creed-unity-native-1080p-resolution/

WFFtech claims Unity will likely run at 720p on the PS4. Given that its Ubi Soft, this could be just them being lazy and downgrading it to match the XB1 version.

Well, AC IV was 1080p, mind you the world was far less crowded than previous games. I'm not too bothered with it since the TV I game on is only 720p, but really 1080 should have been the baseline for this generation.

 

[smackababy]

1080 should have been the baseline for this generation.

I am the opposite of opinion. Sacrificing gameplay and ambition because you can't hit a resolution target is not the way I'd go. I understand the compromises have to be made somewhere, and I am more than willing to "suffer" with 720p upscaled on a TV a few feet away for more features and a better fleshed out city. I am not saying that is what they did, just that is a better compromise IMO. It is nice to have everything (1080p and the game additions), but that isn't the world we live in; at least, not on the console side.