In the Summer of 2011 Ubisoft Montreal began working on a secret project, the details of which have remained a secret until now: Assassin’s Creed 4. Many of you may already have seen the trailer that was leaked onto the internet last week, but there is a whole lot more to it than that.
The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 brought about much joblessness for men in the Navy and so they set up their own towns and villages in the Caribbean, where they had been fighting for the Navy. One of these former British sailors turned pirate is Edward Kenway, our protagonist and Grandfather of Assassin’s Creed 3’s Connor.
Kenway is brash, charismatic and selfish; all the traits you imagine a pirate to have, but he is also a man who keeps his private life private. He stumbled across the fight between the Templars and the Assassins and, as he learnt more about it, he realised there was more to life than being a pirate had to offer him.
This a new era for the franchise, though it will be treated with the same historical reverence as the games that have come before it. According to Jean Guesdon, Creative Director, this is ‘the true story of the golden age of piracy’ and it will shy away from the made up motifs of the Hollywood films and children’s books. Assassin’s Creed 4 will not have any ghost-ships or ticking crocodiles as ‘the truth is more bombastic than fiction’.
The game features a cast of interesting and complicated characters, from the gentleman pirate Ben Hornigold who would never attack a British ship to Anne Bonny, a female pirate with a temper as fiery as her hair, held as an equal to the men in the community. The almost psychopathic Charles Vane and Calico Jack are to be handled carefully, though their obsession with material gain could be an advantage. The most famous name who appears in Black Flag, though, has to be Blackbeard, a pirate whose reputation was so fearsome people would give up their ships without a fight as soon as they spotted his ship.
The world that this cast of uncouth creatures live in is the most varied world ever created in the Assassin’s Creed franchise with 50 unique locations all on the one map. The locations are mostly around Cuba and the nearby islands and the emphasis of the game is on exploration. If you see a place on your map or in the distance, you can go to it. From Spanish feeling Havana to the more English feel of Kingston through to the pirate meeting place of Nassau each location offers something different and new ways to use your skills.
It isn’t just about the towns and villages, though, the map offers many more places each with its own experience to offer. Unlike his grandson, Edward is a man of the seas and isn’t used to climbing trees, he doesn’t find them as easy to navigate at first. The trees will be different to the ones in other games as this time we are in jungles and not forests, bringing new challenges.
For the first time in an Assassin’s Creed game you will be able to swim under the water. This is again based on historical fact and will feature the diving bells used by pirates to salvage underwater wrecks.
And what of the present day? Without Desmond who can do his work? The answer is you. The first Assassin’s Creed game had the future set at December 2012, so now the game time and our time has crossed over, we are living in the time of the Animus. So, as part of Abstergo Entertaiment, you will take the place of Desmond. Interesting.
The one thing that Ubisoft repeats with this game is that it is open world and everything will be seamless. From climbing out of a small boat, heading up the walls and attacking a fort, the action will all be one continuous thing. Guesdon says they are ‘making a game for gamers’ and with everything on one map you can do what you want to do. Using the spyglass function on the boat, you will be able to look into the distance and see islands, shore or boats and decide what you want to do. You can head off to land, go find smugglers in a cove or attack the boat. Everything that you can see, you have the ability to head to and interact with.
There will be no cinematic played when you board a boat in AC4, as there was in AC3, this time you will control the action and decide how you and your crew will attack the vessel. You can order the crew to throw out the grappling hooks and pull the boats together and then head over to fight the other party. How you get to the other boat is up to you too. You can choose to free-run across the masts of the two ships once they are close, or you can jump into the sea and swim over.
The seafaring aspect of this game is a big thing and Ubisoft are calling it the ‘first Naval open world game’. The second main character in the game is your boat, the Jackdaw, and it is yours to kit out as you wish. As you progress through the game you will be able to fix up and improve the Jackdaw with full control of its customisation and upgrades. When you first set off you may see a large ship that you would like to attack, but if it’s a galleon with 100 cannons on it, you may be best to wait until your ship is a little more suited to take it on.
Assassin’s Creed 4 will be a ‘challenging experience’ and will push exploration further than before. They have taken aspects from each of the previous games and brought them together to make a better and ‘totally fresh experience.’ The open ended assassination set ups from the very first game, the tease/teach/use/challenge philosophy from AC2, playing with systems and content in the world from Brotherhood, the artistic director of Revelations will bring the same environmental beauty and the historical accuracy of AC3 will be there.
Multiplay has been confirmed and will have new characters and maps available to play, to push the pirate setting even further.
Looking to be full of action and history, ‘Assassin’s Creed 4 will redefine and challenge the perception of piracy’ and we’re quite excited about it.
Assassin’s Creed 4 will be out October 29th for Xbox 360, PS4, PS3, WiiU and PC. It should be noted though that the leaked trailers state this game will be out for next gen consoles, plural, will we be seeing the new Xbox soon too?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdkm9TKSxyI[/youtube]
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