The next game in the AC series is, somewhat, announced by a sneak peek video on Ubisofts youtube channel.

The video is quite short but depicts a few scenes from the midst of the french revolution, a fun era to be sure.

Not very many details is specified yet, but one could imagine that our protagonist is on the revolutionary side to start with, if the games go on long enough the conflicts with a certain rumoured templar and future emperor will be interesting.

If they manage to make the story as compelling as Black Flag, I'll continue to be the rabid fanboy I've turned into after the last game.

Oh, and also relevant... release date: Holiday 2014.

 

The french? Meh.

 

I can see this going the way of AC3. If I'm going to be honest, being a pirate and captaining a ship was why I loved AC4 so much - it had very little to do with the AC elements.

They've also said they have no intention of shoehorning in naval combat if it makes no sense, which is admirable, but unfortunately, it's also what most ppl loved about AC4.

Basically, I'm not expecting much from this. I AM eagerly awaiting a pirate game should they go ahead and make one, like the survey they conducted suggests.

 

I'm curious if they'll put some effort into fixing their fake and clunky stealth gameplay. The traditional AC gameplay feels outdated compared to their 10 year old Splinter Cell franchise in that aspect.

 

I admit I liked the naval combat quite a bit, though it became quite dull since once you got the grasp of it it became too easy - the major point of attraction to the Black Sail game for me was the intriguing story though. All the previous AC games had been the then relatively new concept of stealthy assassin gameplay with a partly bland backstory about chasing templars and mysterious objects. Black Sail was a clearly humanised storyline about a person, it really showed and paid off in my opinion.

Spoiler

When Mary died I goddamn teared up, and the closing scenes with Edward and his daughter tugged on my heartstrings beautifully. The story made me care, and that's really rare in a game.

If they manage to create a similarly good story, I'll love the shit out of it.

On the topic of the game taking place in France, it's during a very fascinating time from a historical point of view and there are multiple angles that could be taken - can't say I'm even remotely sceptic about it.

What I, on the other hand, potentially am worried about is the relatively close timeframe - if they continue to speed up the production of games in order to maximize profit it could lead to the degeneration of quality and the eventual death of the franchise.

 

AC has been annualized for a long time. Each of them at least two years in the making.

 

Oh, seems I have a failing sense of time - might've been since I didn't really count ACIII as a proper game and that one year seemed like a close timeframe.

So in conclusion, as long as they manage a good story, I'm not worried at all (;

 

I honestly didn't mind AC3, Connor's character could have used a bit more fleshing out, or at least some humanisation. But the game was still pretty great for me, I rated it above AC4 in terms of Gameplay, I loved Edward to death though so for me it goes

AC: Brotherhood
AC4
AC2
AC3
Assassin's Creed
Revelations

Is the French revolution based on a new assassin or continuing on with Connor?

 

While possible in timeframe, I doubt it in terms of relevance.

Spoiler

They might just continue with the outside-animus thing of harvesting memories through DNA rather than actual descendants.

Though it's fair to say, all currenly known info is in that 1 minute Alpha build trailer - not much to go on outside of 'lore' and logic.

 

True but

Spoiler

Isn't the player character now providing the Assassins the data they need? So the assassins will be able to collect these articles as well.

I wouldn't mind a new character, the Abstergo part was so meh, outside the animus without a mission to perform. :/

 

Spoiler

As far as I understood it, you are simply an analyst at Abstergo entertainment. You have no genetic connection to the Kenway line - you're simply controlling the Animus that is based on Sample 17 - The sample taken from Desmond Miles dead body (Previously Subject 17).

The key info to that was in one of the videos in one of the first hacked computers outside of the animus. Hence I drew the conclusion that they no longer need to follow the same ancestral line, as long as they have genetic samples from assassin descendants in 'relevant' timeframes. Such a direction would eliminate the needs of applying one genetic line to the major points of conflict through history - they still might but it'd eliminate the need.

On the outside of Animus experience, I actually quite liked this approach - I always found the previous Desmond missions to be dull and wierd and just wanted to get back into the animus. This time it took very little time and if you wanted to you could get additional cosmetic info with very little effort.