The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

Question, do the radiant contracts circle back around? I lost a race on one of them and want to win it. That said, I swear the game gave me all the rewards even though I lost the race...

They don't unfortunately
You can create a manual save at the beginning of a contract, so you can reload that save if you want to get the optional objectives after finishing it. If you don't have a manual save you can look for the most recent autosave before you tracked the contract.

Haven't heard of that kind of bug before, but it doesn't seem like a problem. It'll be more of a hassle trying to find a save before the contract and redoing it, as well as losing the progress you made after.

Nah. It was just some money and 2 merchant tokens. Not worth re-running it. But now I know for future ones. Thanks!

I'm pretty sure all missions reset in new game+.

I was so upset with the Al Ghul assassination. I explored the area, unlocked doors, killed archers that would be in my way.... but then they all respawned when he walked out, and two big brutes were behind the unlocked door, so I ran into them. Anyway, I just ran to the perch and got Al Ghul anyway... but then when he was gone, the story put me back into a stealth situation, totally ignoring the bells and everything I had already set off. Lol

Been playing the heck out of this game. I like the gameplay loop and some of the mechanics. I'm REALLY hoping for more/any connection to present day or TWCB or Isu or anything.... but I'm not holding my breath.

I returned all the mysterious shards to unlock all the isu shit and really expected a vision of sorts to explain something, anything, about what it was or why it was there. Nothing.

There was a passphrase at House of Wisdom mentioning Those Who Came Before. Nothing else.

The game started with William Miles voice. Nothing since then.

I miss the codex/journal entries and anecdotes written by Shaun Hastings instead of just being a real life encyclopedia.

So far, I'm missing the story of Assassin's Creed in my Assassin's Creed game.

Only done the two main assassinations Al Ghul and Fazil, off to Karkh I think next. Loving exploring the world. The contract quests are fun. Lots of fun assassination setups...

It mentions desynchronization all the time on death or killing civilians.... but doesn't even attempt to explain what that means.

the game just has no soul.

They have corrected one of my biggest complaints about AC Origins though.... starting with a street thief, at least there's a character reason to loot and pickpocket.

Bayek was literally charged with protecting tombs, then one of the major gameplay loops in Origins was looting tombs. Made no sense.

I'm certain this glitch has been discovered.... but you ever break the Assassination target AI to where they think they are a boat and swim down the river?

I didn't edit this at all so it's a lot of boring stuff to watch. I blew up some fire pots that the target investigated, then at the beginning of this video he just swam down the river.

I was hoping he'd drown to satisfy the "environmental kill" condition, but threw a fire vase in his face instead.

Question: Having trouble getting the "Ambush" trophy for getting enemies to trigger traps. Is there a max distance on these? I threw like 15-20 traps off the green dome to guard patrols all in that area tripping them all. Hasn't triggered the achievement. So I'm wondering if I have to be closer to the trap when it gets tripped for it to count. Anyone know?

Just finished the main story, and man, is it disappointing as an AC game to an AC fan. If you were to look at this game as a standalone game, so much of it is weird:
- who was the William Miles voice at the beginning?
- what's with all the weird futuristic tech?
- why does the game say "desynchronization" instead of "you died"?

There were like 20 minutes of cutscenes to watch in the end there, but none of them tried to explain what the hell was going on or add anything to or even acknowledge the "present day."

It's just really disappointing to have a game where the main gameplay loop goes back to the roots of the series, and includes some good aspects of other games, but shits the bed so badly on the other half of the game and any real worldbuilding.

It triggered the next time. Lolol

Just 5 achievements left. I saved the enigmas to the end, so I'll be treasure hunting those to polish off the map. Then I have collapsing structures, assassinations from blend groups, and a hidden achievement, this will earn the platinum for my final one. I'm just guessing that the final hidden one is something like killing one of the high level assholes that shows up at high notoriety.

The "10 minute open conflict" one is so easy. Walk up to a snake, but stand just outside their strike range. Then they just stare at you for 10 minutes in a strike pose ready to get you.

Got the platinum trophy today.

Man, this game could have been so good.

I was planning to warn you about a couple of "missable" achievements in Mirage. Looks like you didn't need my help.

You Snooze, You Lose: Pickpocket a guard affected by a blowdart
It sounds easy but most guards can't be pickpocketed because they don't carry anything. You must find a guard who is carrying a key or a mysterious shard. In my case, I had essentially locked myself out of this achievement by pickpocketing every key and shard in the game (even the key on the roof of the Bazaar which isn't part of any mission). Fortunately, I was able to restore a manual save from mid-game, acquire a blowdart gun, and complete this achievement.

Scholar: Bring all 7 lost books to Al-Jahiz
There are 6 lost books on the map. I recommend collecting these 6 and returning them to Al-Jahiz before putting in any effort for the Explorer achievement. Al-Jahiz will say something like "Keep an eye out for one more book" but there's no clue where to find it. This secret book is located somewhere you would never go during the normal course of a game but will find when doing your Explorer achievement. If you've already turned in the first 6 books then the last one will make its presence clear when you're in the right area.

Blade in the Crowd: Assassinate 10 guards while blending with the crowd
This is the only achievement I still don't have! My progress has been stuck at 5 out of 10 for weeks, despite efforts to farm another 5. Doing Assassin's Focus from a blend group netted me a big fat zero. Yesterday I went to Damascus prison, blended with the inmates in the courtyard, and whistle-assassinated all four guards. Again, zero. This was while wearing Initiate Robes with no Costume or Talisman (some folks say this is important). Next I will try removing Dye and hard restarting the game (not Quick Resume). Did you have any trouble with this one, Cheese?

I read about blade in the crowd being glitched on some platforms. Fix is to equip starting gear (initiate of Alamut dagger, sword, outfit, no dyes on outfit). Damascus gate has a blend group to hire and 5 guards there you can focus kill. I did all that, but got it on the first guard, so I guess my game wasn't glitched and I already had 9 kills from my actual playthrough.

I cheated on the last book.

I used sleep dart and knives for everything in this game. Any time I had to pickpocket a shard or a key or anything, sleep dart meant easy collection. That achievement unlocked during a quest for a minor target in the docks to get something, i don't remember. I didn't even unlock noisemakers or traps until about hour 35/41 when I started achievement hunting.

Is the book in the green dome missible? I searched for it for way too long after final assassination before leaving since the area was previously locked before finally finding it.

Also. The no penalty to skill reset meant that any time I wanted to pickpocket something without my sleep trick, I could just activate master pickpocket... at least until I earned enough skill points to make it permanent..... then I found out there's a setting in the menus to revert to old school auto pickpocketing to skip the mini game. Lol

Remember when this series was fun, engaging, mysterious, and had a coherent direction? When they treated the players with respect, didn't insult their intelligence, and made the games a full experience instead of the next money grab? Then they ditched the lead developers and started squeezing the IP sponge for every little drop they could.

Use this thread as a reminder of a more interesting time when the series was fun and THB was hopping: https://www.thehiddenblade.com/head-cloudpost-game-spoilers

I got Blade in the Crowd today! It turned out that I had already downgraded to Initiate of Alamut outfit and dagger with no costume and no dye (because only my costume had been dyed). The only thing left to downgrade was my Rostam sword. That did the trick. Thanks for mentioning the sword, Cheese. I picked up the last five kills with one Assassin's Focus at Prince's Palace.

Awesome.