The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

I don't think a modern AC game should allow a free-roaming city. It should be free-roaming missions (large-scale areas with limitless opportunities to scout, freerun, and kill). That way, we don't have to worry about "how to climb a modern skyscraper" and all that junk. The arena in Brazil that Desmond infiltrated is a good example of what I'm talking about. Although the mission was very much scripted, with some tweaks, it could be made into a creative playground for Assassins. It could also follow the Dishonored level design; which had a main base where you obtained assassination contracts, and you went to different areas of the land to take out the targets in any way you wish.

I've actually thought a lot about this, and what I feel more and more is that I'd like to be able to see how a modern Assassin WOULD look at a city full of difficult to climb tall buildings, and how they would use it as their playground anyways. Assassins have been shown to have an incredible ability to adapt to different times through technological and equipment-based advancement.

I feel it does them a disservice to design the world around the limitations of the old order rather than show them creatively adapt to it. I would like to believe that Desmond never did that because he didn't have time or access to the Order's weaponry and equipment, and/or their development was halted by the purge and never picked up.

It definitly is harder to make a modern city into a fully explorable environment that would work in the context of AC. But I would love to see someone try to make it work while simultaneously staying true to the roots of the series.

It's always possible that the game could simply ignore high-rises of course, given that it would be easy to make infiltrating one of them an instanced mission, like the way GTAV does it.

So, arguing against myself for a second, maybe the modern assassins don't need to change their methods DRASTICALLY, but the fact remains that modern times bring with it structures that aren't as easy to climb and are often far taller than what we're used to.

Your structure could work, definitely, but I don't think I'd be super on-board if it were a full installment in the series. It sounds like it would work better as a blood dragon type deal: DLC that is its own smaller game.

Sounds like Watch_Dogs meets Splinter Cell...

I DON'T want an AC game set in the modern day. There are plenty of stealth based modern games already. Are they free-roam? No. But the stealth tools in a modern day would be what? Sniper rifles, silenced weapons, night vision goggles, climbing/infiltrating gear and security system hacking to get by silently. There would be no need for anything else.

As you mention, Ubi doesn't need to compete with itself. Let Watch_Dogs be Watch_Dogs and let Assassin's Creed be Assassin's Creed.

"History is [their] playground," remember?

Plus, with killing off Desmond, I don't see a present day character worth the time. They killed off all the character development they had for a Modern Day Assassin. I could not (likely) be compelled to play as anyone else...

I agree with McStab here. The reason I first picked up AC1 was because a friend described it to me as being a game about stealth and killing bad guys, set in an interesting historical period (I like the crusades a lot), and with a world built for free-roaming.

In my opinion the history part of that description is paramount to AC games. If they're going to make more games, they look for cool time periods that they can fit the Assassin-Templar story in, and there are still plenty of those to choose from.

I just want every AC game I play to make me feel really immersed in history. If I want to be immersed in the present times, I can just turn off my computer and go outside... just kidding.

I think one large free-roam map could work. It all depends on the setting. The area just has to consist of both a city and country like all previous AC maps. If they decide to go with any North American location i'd say Philadelphia. Philadelphia is where Abstergo inc is located anyway right?

As stupid and cliche as it sounds, I would love to see a Modern Day Assassin's Creed set in a city like Tokyo and the reason for that is due to the insanely large numbers of people that any given "crowd" contains. Have fun finding someone who blends into a crowd in freaking Tokyo. Modern Day Assassins there don't even need to be obvious. One guy wearing a hood in a crowd of people, a few dozen of which could also be wearing hoods isn't very easy to track.

There are plenty of reasons that you could be required to not use sniper rifles and goggles and such. In the animus stories we've seen, Assassins have killed their target up close to gain information or recover items that they have on their person. There are many forms of media that find reasons for modern day hitmen and assassins to kill at close range. All you need to do is set a scenario where those chiched and expected options obviously don't make sense.

What I want from a modern AC game is to take what you expect, and flip it on it's head. Give us something totally different from a watch dogs or splinter cell, simply by finding a way to make the core tenets of the series translate to a modern open world city, and adding new concepts that both fit with the series and increase freedom and credibility. If they aren't going to try to do that, I'd of course rather they didn't try at all.

OK, so as far as actual reasons that our protagonist wouldn't use goggles and sniper rifles and such, after the great purge in 2000, the assassins lost an incredibly large number of personnel and assets. This not an Assassin who is in contact with a healthy and thriving order, this is one who barely escaped the Templars and has met up with very few Assassins due to the difficulty of contacting them when Abstergo monitors almost everything but the Hephaestus Email Network. They managed to hang onto very litte equipment. things like the advanced hookblade or any other navigation aids might be created by a gadgets-inclined Assassin friend, or they might be among the only things the Assassins in that area retained from their former glory.

You don't use a conventional pistol, but rather two new variations of the hidden one, which needs time to cycle after each shot, and also has limited ammunition in regards to bullets (it would make sense for it to be able to be loaded with smoke pellets and poison darts as well) since they need to be untracable and the hidden guns have limited capacity due to the fact that they were made as discreet last-ditch options for agents who were infiltrating rather than getting into serious combat.

As was mentioned, Tokyo would be a wonderful location, with plenty of claustrophobia, interesting locations, dense crowds, history, and a unique and futuristic skyline. Ziplines would also not seem out of place there.

I really like the idea of travelling around the world and in each place finding an assassin cell that has another piece of equipment that might make previously inaccesible areas reachable, and once-daunting situations conquerable. Of course, it would be important to make sure you recieve the hidden blades and all the necessary navigational equipment at the beginning of the game, but I would like to see the hidden guns be something you need to work for.

EDIT:
By the way, if you don't like my walls of text, this is not the thread for you. You don't even know how much I'm editing down, it could be far worse!

EDIT2:

I don't get why people wouldn't be able to embrace a new modern protagonist just because we haven't spent 5 games with them. If the story is being written well, then one game is all that it should take. We don't need to go through the whole notion of joining the Assassins and slowly learning how to be one, we can just start off with an already capable character who is severely disadvantaged by their situation, and learn more about them over the 30 or so hours we'll have with them. Maybe it didn't work for everyone with Connor, but it worked for me, just like some people really took to Altair or Ezio after just one game.

Your walls of text are fine by me.

"If the story is being written well" ... and there's your problem. Ubi hasn't proven to me that they care to write a good story for a modern world since AC2, maybe ACB. It's the sour taste they left in my mouth of how they finished Desmond's story that makes me hesitant to even try to embrace a new present day story.

Except with proper hacking and possibly a mole on the Assassin's side, you wouldn't need to get up close. Considering this, I don't see many Assassins assassinating as much as they used to. Gaining the information required should be enough. In fact, that's pretty much exactly how Desmond acted as an active Assassin. He never went after an actual living target. He only gathered information and stole objects for the temple. The only time he was out for blood was when he went back to Abstergo for his father (where he assassinated Cross and Vidic).

If they were to actually have to assassinate, it would be because the target posed a larger threat if alive.

If you simply don't trust them to write a good story, you aren't going to be captivated by a new lead regardless of what era they reside in.

However, if you think that's not the case, then again, there is no reason that a new story in a similar time could not possibly engage you. Disliking one Spider-Man story doesn't mean that you will dislike all of them, which is an apt parallel since most Assassin's Creed games are written by different combinations of different people with a new person as the lead writer each time, just as comics are interpreted by many creators.

I still maintain that the ending of AC3 made thematic sense, and was consistent with the tone and foreshadowing of previous AC games. I also believe the Ubisoft devs who say that this ending was planned from the beginning. But this thread is not about that, and I would rather focus on plans for the modern day in the future, which doesn't need to be overly tied to that plotline and can start fresh.
---

Joey, it's both been established that Abstergo has security that top assassin hackers cannot penetrate, and that Assassin moles have always been either discovered or turned. Furthermore, the lack of elegance that is implied with needing to gather information in this way is consistent with the desperation and impotence of the post-purge assassins.

Additional motivation for personal kills could always have to do with artifacts that certain templars might have on their person. Desmond ended up searching for artifacts that were in secluded and lonely places most of the time specifically because that was what his story was about: unravelling mysteries and solving a larger problem, rather than impacting the Templar/Assassin war directly. This new character does not have to be bound by the same purpose.

No organization has ever been so expertly designed that removal of important individuals did not impact it in the slightest. Sure, just killing Vidic isn't completely solving the problem, but if you kill a visionary, you remove that person's guidance and expertise from the equation, which matters a whole lot.

It is true that Abstergo is a far more complex and multifaceted beast than the more individualistic and simply-structured Templars of the past, but it's not far-fetched to imagine our protagonist working to distrupt Templar operations in a localized area by eliminating key individuals and sabotaging essential installations, as well as hunting for secrets that could be used against them. I'm not suggesting this as a story of how one person killed all the templars in the world, but how they might begin to find a new direction and purpose and way for the order to operate. The murder won't bring an end, but it will be how they start working towards that end.

Before the purge the Assassins could have arguably brought Abstergo to heel primarily non-violently. But they are a shadow of their former selves, and if they're going to fight back, they can't be afraid to show some claw. The other side sure as hell isn't going to retract theirs.

False. I will be captivated by the era itself. Why go to New York/Philadelphia/Boston in the present day (in a video game) when I can (and have) done all that myself? Why go to modern Tokyo when I can just watch the Travel Channel to see what's up?

In large part, I enjoy Assassin's Creed because it makes history come alive, even if it's not 100% accurate.

I trust them to write good historical fiction. 5 of 5 games have been interesting in the Animus. 2 of 4 games have been interesting in the present day (I don't count ACR here).

But as this is a "How could they pull it off" thread, I won't comment further on my reservations for it.

I think a likely scenario could be as somewhat described above.

Juno takes out much of Earth. Communication are down, etc etc etc.

Protagonist teams up with other Assassins in a plot to get society back on track.

Ever see the TV show Revolution? Something like that.

In places like europe, most of the things that we climbed on in AC games are still there. But that doesn't mean I ever got the same feeling when I was able to interact with them with the power of an assassin at my disposal.

The way you describe it, it sounds more like what you're really interested in is going to intersting places and doing things that you can't do in real life. And there are plenty of ways that a modern game could replicate that. No-one is allowed to run through the rafters of a sports arena, or infiltrate the colloseum at night.

Besides, my original story idea was for everything to be set in NEAR-modern times. (through the use of the animus) Somewhere in 2000 to 2012, the time when the Assassins were first scattered by the Purge. The world has changed a lot in the last 13 years, and a great many things could seem different. Flip phones and backstreet boys, 9/11 and other important events. It would still be a period piece, but one that people who are alive now could personally relate to and remember parts of.

In regards to Juno, that storyline could be continued or added to outside of the animus gameplay of the game, if they're still on that plotline at the point where a modern game comes into being.

Anyways, I would prefer for us to not dwell on this conversation, since as you said, this is about ideas for how a modern game COULD work, and our opinions on doing a modern game aren't likely to change any time soon. I'm aware that there are barriers, but I'm trying to figure out how to break them!

You talk like someone who has never been to Europe. I assure you, plenty of things have changed.

I said I wasn't going to do this, but I will (now I sound like you sometimes when people missed your points).

If the building are there, the buildings are there. It's not going to be the same ambiance, vibe, feel, what have you. The personal relations will be different, etc.

AC is kind of a historical vacation, if you will. Sure, the buildings haven't changed (hypothetically), but the city and the people have.

If you want a modern day Assassin's Creed, just play Splinter Cell and/or Watch_Dogs. Both are made by Ubisoft anyways and give you almost as much freedom as AC does. If they made a modern day game, it wouldn't be Assassin's Creed; that would deviate from the entire point of the franchise.

#1, I've been to europe.

#2, I mean that many specific landmarks are there, obviously many things wil have changed, but they remain, and so does their historical significance.

#3, the fact that Watch Dogs and Splinter Cell are such different games proves that a shared setting doesn't mean a game can't feel unique.

Splinter Cell isn't much of a problem since it's rarely set in cities or populated areas, but Watch Dogs is obviously a lot closer to AC.

Again, I see the issues, and I sure as hell would not want a modern AC to be released if it were just going to feel derivitive of some other series set in modern times.

However, the AC team has always done a great job of showing the aspects of historical places and times that people might not be familliar with or have expected (or are just plain underrepresented), and I could imagine them applying much the same thinking to this concept.

This thread is an exercise in game design, not me saying that this is totally the direction the series absolutely needs to go. kinda defeats the point of the exercise if you just pop in to say it can't be done

If we're going to look into modern times, we're going to want to create some plausible modern times distractions.

Working in Times Square, I can tell you that if our assassin is in a busy metropolis, he (or she) could cause major congestion problems simply by putting out some orange construction cones. There doesn't have to be any construction going on, just set them up in a way that diverts the flow of traffic (both auto and foot) to an area you want it to. In the present day I imagine it would be very easy to stab someone on the street in Times Square and walk away without anyone knowing you did it.

Likewise, we'd probably want to borrow some of the ideas in Watch Dogs that allow us to mess with the traffic patterns on the streets, such as hacking into the traffic light system. With open game play, this allows us to control where our target ends up for an optimal kill.

I'd like to see more use of costume blending. In a major city, one of the easiest ways to get ignored is to be on the street like a homeless person begging for change. Off the top of your head, can you describe the features of the kids who came begging for change in ACIII? I bet most of us can't. Try to become the people targets would want to forget.

The ability to call in bomb threats or randomly leaving a suspicious looking bag in a crowded area. Once again, you'll be surprised at how easily this clears out an area (and how many idiots decide to linger by and watch) and how much you can distract the authorities by doing so.

Just a few things to mull over in a present-day large city atmosphere.

I'm pretty sure that there is just nowhere to store traffic cones and they get randomly placed between jobs as is, even though there is never any construction going on.

I really don't feel like Ubi higher ups would let any significant hacking stuff go through unless Watch Dogs tanks HARD.

However, I suppose it would be cool to consider streetlight hacks, though it would have to be a command you give to a hacker (maybe with a whistle? that would be a fun callback.) not you directly doing it. just to make it seem different and more of a contexual thing than WD.

I think a decent way to work it would a post-apocalyptic type scenario where all the modern technology isn't available. Secure buildings no longer have security systems and have to again rely on guard patrols, which someone could stealthily take out.

With the way modern security measures are, I find it hard to imagine a scenario without the need for hacking.

If they decided to commit to NOT going full-blown apocalypse in AC3, it would be kind of a slap in the face if they just did it anyways. But I suppose that is an option. (adding to OP)

And I agree, hacking is kinda necessary, but I just think it would be best to have it taken care of by your backup, a rebecca-type person. So like, as you get into encounters it's established that they're shutting off cameras to give you time to escape and stuff. then that could make for tense missions where the security is too good for them to do that.

All I'm saying is if it needs to be there, it might be best if it's subtle, done dynamically in ways that are either implied or visible, and it's justified as an NPC reacting to what the player is doing.

I like the idea of a Rebecca type person doing the hacking for you. This would also set up easy access INTO a building for an objective (steal a file on a guy, find a PoE), but then her hacking is overridden and you get a message from her about full security up and running. You can either sneak out or go out guns a blazing.

It could also be an Animus session similar to the Washington DLC - what would have happened had Desmond let the world be destroyed instead of sacrificing himself? Desmond, Rebecca, Shaun, Will, etc have to put it all back together to a point. That could set up the post-apocalyptic world.

It would be even better if they just made the modern day a co-op story mode, while the singleplayer stays in the Animus. 1-2 Assassins infiltrate while a third player is the hacker across town. Communication would be key.

EDIT: Misread your post, Joey. Yeah, Co-op is an option.

That's a brilliant idea. It allows you to use some of the similar effects of a Watch Dogs-esque tactic without actually having the player be forced to make the decisions. Then having the potential of your partner's hack be overridden is nifty as well.

So considering what was in that computer in AC4, it sounds like the modern era has been completely taken off the table.

"What was in that computer." LMAO. I ACTUALLY LAUGHED.
I love how we're the dudes who are like "Yeah we beat this game. There's creepy stuff guys. Guys, there's creepy stuff hehehehe."

I don't think it's completely off the table. I'd say that something needs to happen in order for them to either fight back.
Either that or;

You always get so excitable when a new game comes out

Yeah haha, I'm like that. It's like one of my most distinguishable characteristics when it comes to AC.
Some new friends I made at university said, "Man, I know it sounds typical, but I have literally not met someone who likes Assassin's Creed as much as you do. You might actually be the biggest fan I personally know." I felt so honored.