The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

Is it Arno's official voice? if so, I'm extremely glad he doesn't have an exaggerated accent. It was okay for minor characters like Norris and Stephane in ACIII, but it would be weird for a main character to speak like them throughout an entire game.

I know trailers are not meant to delve too deep into the story, but I really hope the scenario has more moral ambiguity than this trailer implies. IMO there's a lot of potential to make this game more in the grey area like AC.

I was hoping for the typical music video style one. I'm not as big a fan of stuff that gives too many hints as to the actual plot :/

also I hope arno's in-game expression changes from time to time, bc his constant madface looks a bit silly in that trailer.

Are they pulling an Altair-AC1 on us and not giving him an accent? He sounds English, not French. I've heard some badass dudes with French accents, let me tell ya. It can work.

I think I speak for everyone at this point when I say that Ubisoft pulling "an AC1" on us in general is exactly - EXACTLY - what we need.

Pretty much every other element of AC1 to be used in ACU: Good
Giving the protagonist an American accent that sounds super out-of-context: Bad

I don't think Arno's voice in this video is too American, though. It sounds posh to me, but not posh like Haytham's super-British posh voice. It's definitely not French either, and I agree with Joey that a badass French accent is possible and that's what I'd prefer. Just don't give it too much French or the entire internet will be making jokes like "honhonhon, I wheel strike you down, wheat my baguette! Oui oui!"

The idea is that since everyone is in france speaking french to each other, there's no need for them to speak with an accent to make it clear they're french. It also doesn't make sense for people supposedly speaking their own language to be struggling to speak clearly (day pope haz dey papahl stahff)

So main characters/guards and other important NPCs speak english with a british accent and occasionally use a few french words or terms (pronounced relatively well, from what I hear), like in this part of the singleplayer demo: http://youtu.be/wzBJPOcmke0?t=3m54s
"Palalis justice, the executions!" "You should leave this place." "merci monsieur, merci"

But all non-important NPC dialogue, like when a crowd member notices you climbing a building, is ALL in french. Which is cool, because that dialogue can be reused for every language setting now, and make every version still feel like france.

I've come to realize that the Ezio trilogy's approach, while endearing, was really kinda silly, and could be seen as pretty offensive with characters like Connor. It's nice to see them continuing to move past it.

But I'm also glad it's not as dissonant as AC1, where Altair sounded extremely western and everyone else sounded like they were from the Ezio trilogy. There's a clear and unified rule going on here.

You are correct about the accents, but I don't think ubi has a definite rule for translations. In AC, the patrols are talking in their native languages but the civilians are translated, Al mualim says the assassins' motto in arabic before he dies, Ezio and Connor often say some words in their native language to their dying targets, etc. They're not really sticking to the whole "the animus translates what's important" concept.

Yeah, there's always been a bit of lapsing into the native language, but it's always been that combined with "ok when they speak english they do it with an italian accent" or "everybody has an arabic accent when speaking english except Altair, to match Desmond's accent since he's the one viewing it"

They play fast and loose with it, but they're still rules. the way it works in Unity is a whole lot less confusing imo, and the choice of accent matches up with recent depictions of france like Les Miserables (different revolution, I know)

I like to think of the rules as similar to Valkyrie, which starts out with german voiceover and gradually shifts to american english over the course of 30 seconds, clearly setting the tone and translation rules.

The valkyrie example is spot on, maybe the modern day character will have an explanation in game, like when Lucy and Rebecca used to tell Desmond about the workings of the animus.

(I tried to watch les mis but didn't last more than 10mins. can't stand the singing.)

Meanwhile in the AC fandom;
"DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SYNC"

Optional objectives:
° Look down
° Don't look'em in the eye