The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

(Front-paged [with applause] by Lisa)

Assassin's Creed III - Silent Extermination - Fort Monmouth

Finally, here it is, the last episode in my massive AC3 stealth saga. Due to what is some bad design in my opinion, as well as some sloppiness on my part, it's imperfect, but I'm proud of what I've achieved.

This Fort is completely, absurdly impossible during the day, so there's just a night run, but that doesn't make it easy. The entire squad of soldiers with their Captain looking at them near constantly presented an obvious challenge, but the other two overlooking them on the catwalk proved even more troublesome. I think you'll be impressed with how I finally managed to deal with them.

One note I couldn't fit into the annotations: there's normally a horse drawn cart that patrols in and around this Fort when the gates are open. They open after the alert from the powder reserve explosion ends (since Forts go back to their default state in that case, as you may remember from my Complete Guide to Fort AI Mechanics; the gates default to their daytime state despite the fact that it's night, likely an oversight), but for some reason the cart didn't appear. That's actually slightly beneficial, since carts are insanely unpredictable and if this one does stay on its proper route there's a good chance it'll end up pushing one of the soldiers lined up in the ranks out of position. Basically, carts are a cool concept, executed horribly. Using one is one of the two ways this Fort was clearly meant to be infiltrated stealthily. Unfortunately, guard dogs will completely ruin that strategy with no recourse. Guard dogs are another cool concept with awful execution, of course. I don't think I need to explain why.

Anyway, this seems to be the final end for the Silent Extermination series, and my videos for Assassin's Creed III in general. They were maddening at times, but they pushed me to go beyond anything I thought was possible in the game. Through all the relentless criticism this game has received, I think it has surprisingly strong fundamentals. Freedom within well designed parameters is the great strength of this series, and even of video games in general, and I think the navigation systems this game has as its foundation are remarkable, and far better than its predecessors. Those, combined with the stronger open mission design the Forts provide make it much more interesting than it usually gets credit for, despite its many rough edges. I think my way of pushing the boundaries of what's possible within its normal rules has proven that. This "open within boundaries" design is what I hope to see more of in the series' future, and if it ever reaches its full potential it will be truly spectacular.

And for you, viewer, thank you so much for watching. Who knows, perhaps we'll see each other again soon... in the past.