[DAZ Thinks] Combat of the Past vs Stealth of the Future
The major improvements made to Assassin's Creed each year up until this point have been to the Combat system. This is even true of Syndicate; although Syndicate does target good changes to Stealth. The vast majority of players play Assassin's Creed like a brawler. There's nothing wrong with that, that's fair. As we've mentioned before, Combat seems to have always been the way Assassin's Creed was intended to be played, from a Design perspective. Unity somewhat changes that, but the Combat isn't so much challenging as it is dull and boring. Part of this is because of how much free reign you have to use practically limitless ammo reserves.
On this forum we often talk about how the future of AC should be more grounded in the Stealth. Stealth is an inherently grounded method of interacting with a game world - that's because as Tom Francis (developer of Gunpoint) says in his video "why is Stealth cool?" all good drama comes from the tension that Possibly Failing brings. To Paraphrase, in a room full of guys with guns, you would want to remain hidden because if they saw you, they'd shoot you dead. To Tom Francis, action games where you mow down squadrons of dudes feel artificial compared to the authentic tension of being Strong in Stealth and Vulnerable in Confrontation.
Question: How do we reconcile this? How do we reconcile what AC has been, with what we want it to be? What I mean is, previous hardcore fans of the franchise, millions of 'em, have enjoyed Combat as a primary means of progressing through the games' stories. AC's story is the main reason most people play these games, because their core Gameplay isn't particularly magnificent once you've played two or three of them. With Combat becoming more engaging, but also more challenging, what's a possible answer to this question? Both desires have a common base of wanting better combat, so that's one thing, but it's not enough. How do we unite these two groups of players - some who want more Stealth and punishing but engaging combat, and others who would just like to forget about sneaking around and enjoy carving their way through entire platoons of the opposition? This is an extremely important question to answer, because if Ubisoft can't, we'll never see the AC game we've always wanted to play.