The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

A series of vids:

• First
• Second
• Third
• Fourth

Preface:

Just out of curiosity, I went to Arsuf early on my save (memory block 4). This was done by using a glitch to get through walls. Everything was quite empty there at this point, but I took the opportunity to do some glitching and sightseeing while at it. For example trying to find more locations for going through walls in hopes of perhaps even skipping fights here later on memory block 6...

But it still remains to be seen if these discoveries helped break Arsuf down!

Some more info:

If you go outside bounds ("OOB") in Assassin's Creed, you'll find that there's usually a lot of room to roam around. The angled surfaces of the mountain ridges can be traversed by normal attacks ("mountain climbing") and you can see a lot of the scenery better than what is normally possible. It's actually fun to explore outside bounds in Assassin's Creed precisely because there's so much detail and room there... however, the ground can also be treacherous, giving way to infinite pits, or having you end up in collision pitholes from where you can never get out from. It's not like the developers made everything work properly since, after all, the player was never supposed to even visit there.

The outside bounds areas are typically divided into smaller sectors by invisible walls, and that's pretty annoying. Another thing is, once you're outside bounds, you're stuck there for good. Unless you can do another wall breach somehow, like jumping in a hay stack or on a horse from behind the wall. Counter kills are technically another thing that allows you to get through a wall, but it remains to be seen if they can be used when Altair is out of bounds.

I use two different tricks for going OOB in these vids, and I believe they both rely on the same physics glitch that unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) was fixed from later games in the series. First is creating an acute angle against a corner using your horse. Jumping towards the created angle gives Altair a surprising amount of momentum and he "zips" for a bit after he gets past the horse. This zip can land him through walls and outside bounds. The second method is simpler: just do an angled jump against a smooth wall that suddenly gives way. Or alternatively, against a smooth wall where the ground rises heavily up (like at staircases). During the jump Altair again picks up some extra momentum that makes him zip past obstacles as the wall ends. It's a bit tricky to actually use this technique for going out of bounds, but the main point is that it does work... eventually.

I recorded this footage on PS3. Never tried Assassin's Creed on PC yet, and so I can't guarantee that these glitches work in a similar way on that platform. I guess that's all... enjoy. Some more info is found in the speedrun topic.