The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

No one is the good guy. Ubisoft has said this many many times. There's no good or evil. Just shades of gray.

For all intents and purposes, there is a "good guy". The "good guy" in this case is whoever is aligned with Desmond and wants what's best for him. Those Who Came Before might not want that. The Templars might not want that. The Assassins might not want that. So I guess for now, there is no true good or bad guy, but that's only because we don't know enough about the plot. Hopefully Assassin's Creed III changes that.

This isn't about what's best for Desmond, it's about what he's meant for. He's been given a path, and TWCB aren't evil if it happens to lead him into dangerous situations or end badly for him. Desmond's purpose is the thing that should rightly be fulfilled, and the Templars are standing in his way simply because he happens to be on the other side of the war. He's a good person, but so are many people affiliated with the Templars.

I can't see any possible interesting thing they could do with the TWCB being "evil". They've already admitted to enslaving the humans back when they were in power, but post-war they seem to have changed their ways. I don't see how the evil element could be introduced, seeing as it seems only Minerva, Juno, and Jupiter have the ability to speak into the future through the tech in the vault. How could a remnant of the opressive TWCB show up to influence Desmond if they're all dead? I guess one could be alive... that would be a pretty insane final assassination target. But I would prefer for it to be the Abstergo big bad.

Guys, there is no good or evil. Just different opinions. No, you can't argue otherwise because my proof is any interview conducted about the multiplayer portion of the games. They ALWAYS stress how it's from the Templar point of view, and ALWAYS say how the Templars aren't evil. This would go along with TWCB as not being evil. No one is even "good". Just because the game makes the main character be a part of one side of a war doesn't automatically make him the good guy and everyone else a bad guy.

You're all silly noodles. SILLY. NOODLES.

Nothing is true, Everything is permitted.

Dunno about Megan Fox, she's hot but she's nothin compaired to Kristen Bell. Katee Sackhoff on the other hand...

Can't beat RDJ.

RDJ may NOT play Lucy.

Emma Watson, on the other hand...

I wouldn't put it past Ubisoft to give us a "Greek tragedy" twist, where Desmond takes the steps he thinks are necessary to save the world, but they turn out to be the very things that ensures the end of the world.

Not sure what to think about that if so.... If they go that route, it had better be legitimately mind-blowing (not brain-farting in the sense of "Killing you won't bring my family back").

ETA: [deleted due to boringness]

I seriously doubt hell lose. They want to keep making stories in the ac univers after his story is done, remember.

Correct. And what better way than for Desmond to save the world, only to lose it to another power... Thus the need for another assassin's story to be told cleaning up the mess Desmond couldn't.

Well, since history is Ubisoft's playground, they could easily use any of the other Subjects' story lines in sequels. Imagine Being one of the first Subjects to be put into an Animus. A vastly different-looking machine decades before Desmond came around.

Yeah. I don't know if a game would go backwards in "present day" time though.

Unless it was more of an Animus Chronicles type thing in the "present day" of late 1990s - early 2000s...

If they have to go forward in "present" time, it would make sense for Desmond to leave something unattended to... ie, he can't kill off all the Templars. (then again, you can't kill a creed... even if you kill all the templars, the order could resurface).

Um, because that would mean that 5 games were spent leading up to the main character failing and dying? They're not stupid enough to pull that. It doesn't matter if you argue that it's realistic and a subversion of expectations, it means that all previous games were pointless. Desmond has one main task, and if he fails it, there won't be a world for a future assassin to put back together.

As to going back to using older subjects, I am entirely against that. That would mean a ton of excuses as to why the animus works better in the past than before, and would take away a lot of the mystery of it's inception. I'd love to see how the modern assassin order changes going forward. Too many games finish the main story and get mired in prequels. I don't want that to happen to AC. New main character, a nice balance between being a modern and historical assassin, and this series could be something great. If we must see the old animus it should be through the new animus.

I think you're over-thinking it. They wouldn't have to make a 1980s Animus perform better than the 2012 Animus just because it's a new game. Just let us act out ancestral memories of the subject. It's a game series for Christ's sake. If it has a new engine and different features, so what?

It sounds simple when you say it like that, but if you really think about it, the kind of UI and feature improvements that are supposed to be animus improvements (ie not stuff like the graphics getting better) would all have to be scrapped if they went back to the older models. So while that would be fine for a mission or two seen through the lens of the new animus (or maybe even a test of an archaic model) it simply doesn't make sense to do that.

The animus is their way to avoid the "it's just a game" argument as much as possible. It explains invisible walls, death, fast travel, loading screens, targeting highlights, hud, control displays, the database, menu screens, ect.

So when something new gets added to the game visually or mechanically, it's the animus. If they continue to add new features while taking steps back, they're going back on that original vision, which is something people around these parts don't want, I thought. It would mean forcing all the UI artists who have been making more elaborate and interesting designs to go to a more basic and primitive computer interface style.

How about putting the animus in the storage room for just one game .

That's a dangerous idea. I don't want them to go down that path. A decent amount of modern assassinating is fine, but there needs to be an ancestor in every game.

I understand what you mean. A modern AC game would probably be a lot like Watch Dogs is looking to be.

I don't get why people keep saying that. Watchdogs has a more cyberpunk style than conspiracy. The organization the protagonist is fighting doesn't seem anywhere near as ubiquitous as Abstergo. In fact, the protagonists seem a lot more like Templars than Assassins. Not to mention the fact that the movement and combat system seem a lot less extensive. I think that a modern AC would be unique, but I never want to see a whole game that is entirely that.

Cool story bro.

Oh, right because I was giving you commands. I know full well I was only expressing my opinion. If I told you I wanted this series to change in ways you don't approve of, you would defend your reasoning why it should not, wouldn't you?

That's what I'm doing.

Keep cool people. We're all super-awesome THB members here.

I thought we had got past the times when people got angry at me for defending my opposing agrument. >.<

I wasn't trying to sound mad. At all, actually. I was just looking for an excuse to use "cool story bro" sarcastically. Sigh. Now it makes me look like a dick.

Cool story, bro.

why are you guys thinking that it is going to be an story before ac one picture this. desmond has saved the world the templars are almost gone but not all the few remaining templars have still one hope to send one of their agents into the animus to find the last poe. During the sessions the new subject is seeing the flaws of the templars creed and is questioning his loyalty and at the end betrays the templars and joins the assassins. the ancestor would be an french soldier one of napoleons soldiers who leaves the army after napoleons defeat in Russia and sees that napoleon is an bad templar and tries to undo his sins by fighting against napoleon.

Going along with this idea, we can assume that the Templars don't really know much of anything about the solar flares that are going to happen. Even after we save the world from burning, they'll still probably want to take over. I doubt that Desmond's story would actually stop the war. So we can keep going after AC3 easily.

Hurray! We all have different opinions (obviously). It's almost amusing how we argue about some things we see in a game demo, and when the game comes out a lot of it is forgotten. The point is we can say that a certain new element won't work in a game, but only when the game comes out will we know.

Remember what Shaun said in AC2?
"If your not careful, Desmond, you won't need the Animus to visit your ancestors."
Just imagine a game where the protagonist can relive memories in his/her mind with no control over it. In other words, during the storyline he/she randomly passes out (it would be cool if it happened at certain points, such as visiting a famous landmark where the ancestor assassin did something). That could work well if done right.

You know. This was already somewhat done. Have you ever read Assassin's Creed The Fall #1?

Believe me, I don't think you look like the dick in this situation...

Soooo...... getting back to Desmond being in upstate New York..... what do you think he's going to be doing there (besides sitting in an animus)? I'm with EA on Desmond. I've been fairly bored by him and the few Desmond portions of the games so far are ones that I always want to end as quickly as possible. But for AC3, I think I'd like a lot of Desmond gameplay.

Just because Desmond's heading there doesn't mean he has to stay there. Hopefully he will find something worthwhile at the vault mentioned above, which, combined with the apple he has, can stop Abstergo and/or the flare.

I think I've read somewhere that there will be more Desmond in this game. Also, although the three animus places in the game are New York, Boston and Frontier, Hutchinson has said that "there are key events that take place in Philadelphia." Who knows if these are Conner events or Desmond events, or if we even get to play them.

Where is Abstergo Industries's head of operations? Is it IN Philadelphia? In The Fall, Subject 4 returned to an Abstergo research facility, in Philadelphia, and provided the location of Assassin training camps across the world leading to the Great Purge. So, we know that there is A facility there, but is it THE facility.

I'm guessing, from all this, that Desmond must confront the head of Abstergo at their facility in Philly.

How he battles his other enemy, the flare that is going to wipe out civilization, I don't know. Maybe, after the confrontation, he convinces Abstergo to use their satellite to stop the flare, not control mankind.

--

They (ubisoft) aren't talking about Desmond for the same two reasons they aren't showing Conner fighting colonials:
1 - it's confusing to the average gamer they're trying to bring in.
2 - it'd be spoiler-ific. (along this line, I'm guessing Charles Lee is a Templar on the colonial side of things)

Most likely. He died the same year that the game ends; in Philadelphia, no less, which will appear in the game but not as a full city (Philly's grid layout made gameplay boring). Combined with the real-life story of him fathering a half-Native son, the picture of a Colonial general grabbing young Connor by the throat, and the parallel of Desmond having to confront his father as well, you can get a decent picture of what the story might be.

Love you too!

Anyways, I do hope that Desmond gets to travel around a bit. It would be interesting if we finally get to see what a major Assassin base looks like, as the hub where the animus is located. Hopefully no more memory-scouring on the road in the Mystery Machine with Shaun and the rest of the gang.

Sometimes you're right... sometimes you're wrong.

Right:

Wrong:

It's interesting just how coincidental TheHiddenBlade members' predictions are to what happens in the actual games. Yes, only some of it is true, but that's still a pretty big deal. Some of it is TRUE. There is no way that the developer does not at all read this forum, I mean we've certainly made a name for ourselves. Killing the Pope and now George Washington? Templars won't stop us, even if their name is Ubisoft

This, for example.