The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

from interviews: yes, you can swim the whole way across the map if you want

You seriously think that in a game with so much killing no-one is going to maybe think they have to kill a bunch of dudes who attack them? Do you really think that hasn't probably been a problem with other similar sequences in the series? They can track player data, and one bit of important player data is when people got game over screens. I doubt this choice is a shot in the dark.

Although it is presumably dangerous, yes? It seems like there are a lot of pitfalls in the sea that might make trying to navigate the whole thing unlikely to be done.

Thanks for the great debates and reads, guys. I don't have as much down time to sift through all of what gets released, so I trust everyone here to both keep me informed of new gameplay footage and then thoroughly dissect what comes out.

Much like Calvar, I'll be going next gen with this game (PS4), so I can't WAIT to see how everything looks graphics-wise throughout the course of the game. This is partially driven by the fact that my videogaming gets done on the weekends and I'll be away on two of the first three weekends following the 360/PS3 release date, so I might as well wait around.

Just to weigh in on a few things that have been discussed:

1) I definitely love the notion of exploring underwater and that Edward has to (a) shed his weapons and (b) has an air gauge for holding his breath

2) I love the assassination contracts returning, if for no other reasons than that I found them to be a relatively nice side missions from the actual storyline. I am also hoping that you are "more" rewarded for remaining undetected and killing your target up close than just from merely remaining undetected

3) I agree that the most likely course of action for a guard hit with a berserk dart is to eventually pass out, a la Ronald Reagan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvdB6EG844o

4) Mostly I'm just excited to play the game! Please continue to debate.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Fantastic.

I wonder if swimming in the ocean has the risk of being attacked by sharks and stuff. Kind of like in Far Cry 3, that first attack from the shark freaked me out.

I went to, and returned from FanExpo today. I played the ACIV: BF Demo they had running, got my free inflatable Edward sword and took pictures of a few Assassins cosplaying.

I found out no Story information beyond what was shown at the Gamescom demo, and the Gameplay Demo was the same one. However, I tried to think outside the box as much as I could. The demo wasn't on a timer, it simply finished when I completed the mission.

Ubisoft told me that the mission as it was exactly seen was not in the full game, but the Fort I conquered and the Objectives I received WOULD be (just attached to different locations etc.)

PlayStation 4 Impressions/Feelings

NOW! THE IMPORTANT PART!
Gameplay Impressions Below;

I also ended up buying Assassin's Creed: Subject 4 (The Fall + The Chain in one book, UbiWorkShop Employee said that it wasn't sold online.)

I ALSO got the Assassin's Creed Timeline, which they gave me for 5 dollars when it's normally 30. I'm happy. I also got an AC4 button for my backpack. I will post photos and video of me playing the game soon - as well as being held hostage by a Ratonhaketon/Connor cosplayer. His gun was against my head and it was awesome.

SHOUTOUTS TO MY FRIEND DANIEL "NATTYDREDLOCKS" STERLING for getting me into FanExpo and spotting me some cash with which to buy my Assassin's Creed stuff. You're absolutely epic and the first guy that borrows this game after I 100% it in a week!

Nice demo review, DAZ! It sounds better than I thought!

Only skimmed your impressions because of wanting to avoid spoilers, but it sounds like gear progression/customization is going to be tied to combat performance in a major way.

One question I have to ask is did you feel like enemies pressured you with their attacks more often? They have mentioned that the frequency and speed of enemy attacks was increased in the game.

Overall, it sounds like a lot of the things I liked about AC3's naval and land-lubbin' combat are being improved upon, which is great!

Actually, this whole game sounds like all of AC3's potential and additions concentrated into a more cohesive whole, along with new things and better connective tissue.

I'm not totally sure that it would be connected (this speculated Attack Speed upgrade for example) but it would make sense: It's always neat to upgrade your character's combat to unlock new moves - not necessarily make them easier. That's the impression I got with the Multiple Pistol Kills, the different Swords etc. It looks to be more qualitative rather than quantitative (much like the rest of the game so far)

As for the enemy pressure... Well, let's just that even Boarding a ship with your crew is no pushover, you will feel the need to be alert, but imagining doing that without my crew... Well, it's a long shot. You see, most of the combat strategy in AC4's on-foot segments seems to come from getting the enemies distracted while they fight your pirate crew, while you as *Edward derp, I'm really tired. I saw no Haytham gameplay, unfortunately* weave stealth and combat together and assassinate key enemies you want to kill. Naturally if you kill one, the pirates will continue their assault. It seems like the friendly AI in this game actually DOES stuff, in comparison to others. I hope I'm not wrong, but time will tell. It's very weavy and dodgy.

I'm only assuming that's how they crank up their combat difficulty and stealth reliance in Jungles. The deal is, in Jungle and Temples, you have no Crew. So they can't go into battle with you. Enemies will pressure you hard because they only have you to deal with. Essentially it's the kind of thing where, you have the killstreak system of AC3 and B, but it doesn't make you an instant god - you're slow when you start out, so your reactions need to be methodical.

The combat in AC4 is meditative at the same time as it's visceral. You gotta go slow and precise, but the killstreaks still matter etc and some of the kills are appropriately brutal. I don't know if I'm doing it justice trying to explain.

Those were the words I'm looking for. But again, I got a distinct AC1 vibe from it. I can feel Ashraf's words come to life - When he said that he wanted it to feel welcoming to fans of the classic while filling it with innovations but not easy buttons.

Nothing I used in the demo was an easy button. There was nothing that made me feel OP, it made me feel very capable to take down my opponents WITH MY CREW. Alone, I was more scared to fight as more enemies surrounded me.

I think Counter Timing windows may be tweaked to be shorter a little bit as well. <- This is one of the biggest differences between classic AC and new ones. Combat was just appropriately skillful. The best Assassins were sometimes the worst combatants, the best combatants the worst Assassins. But sometimes, just maybe, the Master Assassins (THBers etc) become skilled at both.

Black Flag feels like it'll reintroduce that feeling of "mastering both." Except now there are four things to master. Ship Fight, Ship Stealth, Edward Fight, Edward Stealth. And oh is it awesome, from what I've experience so far.

Sounds good. One thing I've been thinking about is that you mentioned you were fighting with the hidden blades. I found that even in AC3, using the hidden blades resulted in a far slower sort of fight, since you couldn't combo kill guards as fast as with other weapons and had to break off your assault to counter an incoming attack. It especially made fighting enemies that required block breaks very difficult. (And Jaegers become endlessly irritating if you fight them like this)

I felt like this was to discourage combat with the hidden blades, and make the player use them more as stealth tools. So it may be that the combat feels much different when you're fighting with swords. We'll see!

Man, this is one of the reasons I really like the iterative nature of this series. Even if I never read an interview, simply playing a new AC feels like the developers are speaking to me through their changes and fixes.

I saw people fight with swords, and the combo speed was no different.
I'm not simply talking about combat being slower-paced (it is) but the ANIMATIONS are also slower.

Wasn't expecting that.

http://youtu.be/SHI2CwFQo7E
This is the Demo I played.
I went through it VERY similarly to what happened here.
It almost looks like they straight-ripped my footage haha.

Differences;
- I actually DID board the second ship.
- I was aware of the lift, but I chose to Classic AC chase him up the stairs - which led to an EPIC running assassinate at the VERY top of the final stair landing

I actually think it's a bit more epic to just see the guy you're chasing running away, you slow down to a walk and your like "yea, it doesn't matter, he's dead anyway." Walk up to the lift, take it, then running assassinate the poor man.

While you were boarding that ship, was anyone staying on the Jackdaw to defend it from the fort?
Also, when you say the combat is like AC1, do you mean to say that it's timing-based? As in, you need to wait for an enemy to let down his guard before melee-ing him, or simply that Edward feels slower than Connor?

From what I've seen from demos (I'm not DAZ, so I'm not sure about his personal gameplay experience), it looks like counter/attack windows are much smaller and you have to calculate more of your attacks, much like AC1, but you are still rewarded with kill streaks. So I'm guessing you can't just button-mash anymore.

https://twitter.com/DarbyMcDevitt/status/372315182720376832

OK, so Darby McDevitt continues to read this forum. I didn't really doubt him but it's still so cool to see that he picked up on something like your impressions, DAZ.

And yeah, I got that the animations were slower, but I felt like that was the same for the hidden blades in AC3 as well.

I actually felt that AC3 was a good step toward discouraging mashing, as the attack frequency of enemies and general length of animations on all weapons meant that guards could sometimes catch you with no time for you to spam counter. I'm really happy with the way the combat system is evolving. AC2 added more variety, and Brotherhood added flow, now timing is becoming more crucial.

Oh, and I really like the look of that Templar in the walkthrough. A lot of the things said in that conversation make me curious as to what's going to happen with him, and what happened when Edward met him previously.

EDIT: side-note, the presentation and production values in that demo look great. Everything is smooth, UI isn't glitching out as AC3's sometimes did, no weird hickups with transitions from different types of gameplay and the different stages of the fort assault, plus all the UI elements are clear and stylish. I'm getting a REAL Brotherhood vibe from this game, in terms of its polish.

I remember when I first played Brotherhood, and I started the first Monteriggoni mission before the attack. Right then, it really hit me how beautiful and well-done the cutscenes were. Everything looked smooth and awesome, and that level of quality was reproduced in pretty much all of the games' cutscenes, even the more non-essential ones.

A stable basis for cut-scene quality wasn't really there in Revs and 3, just because of how freaking many there are.

3 probably did it the next best behind brotherhood, and I hope that the Black Flag Team's stated desire to increase the level of seamlessness allows them to not rely on cutscenes as much. I think they even said as much, that they wanted the player to feel in the moment more, with cutscenes there only to flesh out story and set up/end missions, for the most part.

We'll see how well they do on that.

What Joey said is spot on. More methodical, but rewarded with flow when you get it going.

Edward also feels slower than Connor in terms of combat. He's more defensive and predatory in the sense that he waits until an opportunity arises, and then he absolutely TEARS them apart. But in combat, he just feels more patient. He's a faster free-runner though. He's the fastest so far, except for Ezio w/Hookblade (everyone is slower than Ezio w/Hookblade).

It's wonderful to see that Ubisoft pays attention to us! That means that they can see the things we like (stricter timing, nice visuals, animations, higher difficulty etc.) and have opportunities to work them in/keep them in properly.

I found the timing of the intro cutscene to that demo to be very nice when I played it. I laughed heartily when Adewale said he's from Trinidad, and that he can't go back to a land he's never been to. I really felt connected to him and my whole crew when he said that we live on "this country called Jackdaw!"

As for the transitions between Water/Fort/On Foot, it almost feels scripted, how smooth it is. BUT IT'S NOT! It's all free form and open world and just ugh, beautiful... Getting a scripted gameplay experience in terms of polish, WITHOUT the lockdown from actual scripting is going to be awesome.

Edward climbs faster than Connor? Ugh, I already felt like he was too fast.

Eh, I feel like the free-running speeds they've shown look good. Going slower doesn't really add anything to gameplay except a feeling like your enemies are all just as fast as you. I assume he's not talking about run speed anyways, which is just going to seem faster because Edward is smaller than Connor.

Remember the ACIII naval mission where you had a bunch of small teammate boats and you had to limit your losses to four of them (The Sea Wolves, maybe?)? The AI did stuff there. It was called sailing directly in front of the Aquila and killing themselves, making the mission incredibly frustrating. Ubisoft, if you want me to limit my allied losses, don't make my teammates kamikazes.

I'm glad we've now established that I'm the best ACIV player. Sorry Aurel, Joey, and Stabguy, this one's mine to dominate.

It sounds to me that this game is going to give me the continuation of dat AC3 combat zen feel.

The increased guard pressure in AC3 naturally means you mash less and time counters more, and it's boosted in AC4. increased attack animations are going to add to that, and I can conceivably see a scenario where an experienced player might be best served to drop a combo rather than continuing it the whole fight.

And then there's that whole lovely rock paper scissors aspect, which I really think is so much better than necessitating weapon switches to counter some enemies.

The UI is MUCH more cleaner and more smaller, which is a good thing. I could never understood as to why they added the updates and info in AC3 on a BLOCKY textbox on the upper right hand side. Completely ridiculous, if you ask me.

Combat has slowly been increasing in terms in flow and variety over the years. Hopefully, the guards can actually do some damage this time.

I didn't mind that dialog thing so much. It's not much different than the hint pop-up that's been in the game for ages. But it's nice to see it be made more discreet.

Confirm that guards do DAMAGE (sharp inhale of pleasure.)

Related to viewing space, has the FOV been increased compared to AC3? The camera was far closer to Connor than it ever was to the previous protagonists. Not that it was a particularly bad thing, previous games always had too much space dedicated to what's above your ancestor's head IMO. But AC3 did feel a little claustrophobic when I was first getting used to it, and a slightly bigger FOV would help with being aware of what's on top of a ledge, or what free-running path the building you're climbing necessitates without moving the camera.

OK, so Ashraf confirmed that there will only be scripted instances of costuming yourself, not an actual free-switching system. (well you can change outfits but it won't affect stealth)

The problem he stated with the free-switching system is that it made detection rules very complicated and unclear.

There was mention of the costume you're wearing always being what you see in the cinematics, which is good. there have been some weird glitches with wearing a different costume in AC game cutscenes or mission replays over the years, I hope this game has less of them.

Oh yeah, and Ashraf confirmed again that since AC1, Desmond's story had been planned to end more or less the way it did in AC3.

So Patrice had a hand in it too, just sayin'.

I think I remember FOV pulling back slowly as you hold Sprint/Free Run.
Also, the higher the speed of your ship is, the more the camera pulls back.
The ship actually looks tiny at Travel Speed (unable to fight, purely for traveling).

Oh, good. I loved how it pulled back when you held down high profile in previous games.

And cool news about travelling speed!

Patrice probably didn't have that much story input, it was probably mostly Corey May.

Also, the way AC3 ended was perfect for the story. My problems with the modern-day in AC3 stems more from the actual missions we played as Desmond (three to be exact).

Agreed. There needed to me more. And they could have actually made him bad ass like they promised.

They trained him to be an Assassin. To gain all the skills. And the only ones he ever utilized was some free-running sequences.

Well, I thought the story for those three segments sucked too, not to mention the way they were designed (except the first one was well-designed for a free-running segment.

They didn't even really need more than 3 segments, they just should have made each one have an assassination target and have them be longer.

Or maybe just have the 2nd and 3rd ones have assassination targets: Cross and Vidic. And give them both death speeches.

I don't think they really needed a target. since when has Desmond been about doing actual assassination work? His goals have always been relating to uncovering mysteries, so having him hunt for artifacts was a good fit.

The first mission was basically an Assassin's Tomb, which was fine, but it could have used some sneaking sections and guards after the base jump. The second mission was awesome. A convenient way to make it easy to play stealth sections without the HUD, and an actual choice about how you wanted to complete part of the level!

Ideally, Vidic's death would have been an assassination mission. But I think it was clear that the team working on the desmond missions were sorta time constrained, and a lot of things probably got cut. The most important stuff, namely the mystery-hunting and feeling of exploration, was bigger in AC3 than it's been in any other AC game. Tons of Juno segments, you get to explore most of the Great Temple, lots of great conversations...

Pretty much everything I wanted. The actual missions were more of a bonus, really, and while I'd have liked a stealthy final mission and/or one more stealth mission before Abstergo, I felt OK with it. I can see how some people might have wanted more.

Why train desmond in the art of stealth, combat and assassination if you don't plan to use him that way? Just send him to a parkour gym to train with the American Ninja Warrior course runners.

Daniel's death was more a mercy kill than anything else. I felt bad for his character and was happy to see him finally at peace. I wish we could have heard him finally at peace through a speech/thank you/confession thing.

Vidic's end was so terrible though. You built this guy to be the main antagonist to Desmond's assassin cell for 5 games. And that was it? That was how you ended it?

Totally proved that the devs cared less and less about stealth in the last few games when they couldn't even give Desmond a stealth assassination mission. Give him a gun and the Apple. That's stealthy.

They didn't care about Desmond, period.
Those of you who know how I feel about the Modern Day know how I feel about this.

Desmond used most of the skills he learned quite a bit. The second mission was a great stealth one, and he would have had to use a bunch of them in the cutscene transitions between parts of AC3.

And once again, I really don't think the final mission was so overtly open-conflict for any other reason than time constraints. Designing a stealth mission is far more time-consuming and costly than a normal mission, and the modern day cutscenes clearly show less polish in most cases, especially those that happen during missions.

There are obvious beginnings of stealth environments in that level, such as the trees over the courtyard that could technically let you get past the guards, but they auto-detect you if you try. Those things weren't randomly placed there, someone was trying to design stealth elements and their work wasn't removed simply because it looked good aesthetically.

In giant games with tons of content, shit gets cut, especially when the real gameplay is supposed to be in the animus.

But the point of the game franchise was to train a modern assassin to use old assassination techniques using a futuristic technology. (And to gather information from memories, which they did).

They lost sight of that and cut the wrong things, (if they did cut them because of time).

Everyone extensively used the crafting and trading parts of the game though. So I'm glad that made it in.

I'm still hoping the next game is a Connor sequel with better missions and I hope that it's also as good as Black Flag. I heard that Ubisoft Toronto is the main studio (or at least the co-main studio along with Montreal) working on the next AC game, and Blacklist has been getting great reviews.

Really hope it's a Connor sequel covering the Northwest Indian War, the Quasi-War, and also dealing with Templar presence in Canada. Seriously, I'm surprised they didn't include the Niagara falls in AC3, so it has to be in the Connor sequel if they make one. Also, if they want some naval stuff (besides the Quasi-War), it would be awesome to explore the Gulf of St. Lawrence and find some Viking artifacts.

^ This.

That's been my feelings for it ever since I finished that part. Ubisoft screwed the players that actually enjoyed the modern storyline. If you go back and read our predictions for "Desmond sequences" in the final game, we were expecting what we were presented with in AC3, but only at first. I think we all enjoyed each Desmond mission, except the last one; it was a serious let-down.

The first mission highlighted his parkour abilities he learned, the second showed off his social stealth, and the final mission was supposed to be fighting/assassination, but all we got was the former. Vidic deserved so much more than what was given to him. Once I pressed the "kill button" and saw the result, the first thing I thought was, "I feel really bad about the actor playing Vidic." He had to come in, build this amazingly layered villain for 5-6 years, and he's just tossed away in a cinematic.

Because the same people who do crafting and trading are the people who do mission design? Developers are not an amorphous mass that can be allocated to a million places at once.

And as I said, Desmond DID learn to use combat, stealth, and free-running skills. In fact, the first mission in AC3 is based around free-running, the second is stealth, and the third is combat.

That's weirdly fitting, now I think of it.

Once again, I totally get how stuff like Vidic's death would have pissed people off, but honestly, he'd been yelling at us over the speakers for the whole damn mission, and I've heard enough of his deluded moralizing and justification over three games and one DLC. I didn't really feel like Desmond needed to say anything to him, I found using the apple in that context far more interesting than stabbing, and I liked the moment Desmond had with his dad instead.

There are things that Desmond's story COULD have been, but if he was always planned to die in the third game, even when they knew there were probably going to be more games after that point, I doubt that they were ever really going to go in that direction.

I also felt like people take the whole supposed premise of Desmond being trained to be an assassin a bit too seriously considering that was pretty much just a cover Lucy made up to get Desmond to find her the Apple.

If you consider the story as having gone in the "wrong" direction, then of course you're not going to like it. But looking at it for what it is, I feel like it has a very unique tone and averts a lot of the tropes of similar stories.

I knew as I was playing the game that it would piss a lot of people off, pretty much at the exact moments you guys mentioned. But I was fine with it.

EDIT:
"and he's just tossed away in a cinematic."
every AC villain is. No matter if the setup is walking up to a door, killing some dudes, or going through a stealth sequence, they all die in a cutscene. : P

I get what you mean, but I think Vidic deserved to be tossed away by this point.

I think what they meant by 'tossed away in a cinematic' is that it was just a single moment where you press a button and he dies. The Daniel Cross assassination was more engaging than Warren Vidic's death. To be fair though, I expected things to be a little different;

- Desmond kills Vidic with a Stealth OR Combat Assassination (we are given the ability to do this freely)
- Desmond saves the world and stops the apocalypse
BUT THEN!
- Daniel Cross comes out of the shadows; built up to be a Templar with Assassin abilities, the Final Boss of the Entire Assassin's Creed Saga!
- Epic showdown between Desmond Miles and Daniel Cross. Both suffering the Bleeding Effect and gaining skills from all of their ancestors, using it to strike at each other, flashbacks aplenty (MGS4 style) when finally... Desmond is killed. Daniel Cross was too great of a challenge.
OPENING THE DOORS TO
A new series, Erudito is the main playable character, digging through Memory Data to find information on Cross and the Templars, while free-roaming around various cities. Each city has a distinct Major Viewpoint. The map reveals as you climb buildings. Gaining access to the Major Viewpoint reveals Icons (otherwise, they need to be Eagle Visioned). Toronto (CN Tower) among other places etc.

But none of that happened. Still, it was cool.

Daniel Cross at least deserved more though. I had more issues with that than anything else.

Ehhhhhhhhh, I don't know. I don't think it would have made any sense for Daniel to be a big boss, seeing as The Chain already established that he was kinda washed up, and totally subordinate to Vidic.

And if you wanna get REALLY nitpicky about it, usually in assassination missions all you do to kill your target is press the X button. And I did make it clear that I was joking by being so literal about that, right?

I forgot about the "killing Daniel" element. there was actually a main assassination mission in AC1 (Talal) that had that exact same sort of setup: you are forced down a linear path you do some fighting, and then you have to chase and kill your target. There are even more parallels actually, since Daniel had a ranged weapon and so did Talal.

But I'd wager some of you probably became a little sick at hearing me compare the Abstergo mission to Talal, so I'll stop.

I think they are done with Connor in the Americas.

All the other esoteric clues in the game, however, point to a potential for Connor in the French Revolution of 1787-1799.

Also, Niagara falls was way too far away to be in AC3. It's (just guessing here based on my driving to everywhere involved) twice the distance from NYC to Boston and in the other way. It's like, 5x the distance from NYC to Valley Forge. And I don't even think the Mohawk Indians were native to the Niagara falls area.

Yea, I can't see Connor leaving the Homestead and it's people behind for the French Revolution. I would much rather see the French Revolution from the eyes of a different Assassin.

And I was thinking based on the fact that the geography of the Frontier is screwed up anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eWJqytj_kts#t=75

Darby tweeted that this is one of his favorite interviews he did at Gamescom!

I was thinking today... Surely Edward can hold his breath for longer than some enemies... maybe he can kill enemies by pulling them underwater with him until they drown. hahaha

More creative kills!

It's probably a bad thing that most of us are okay with this.