The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

Like this, of course:

http://www.thehiddenblade.com/ac-summer-love

Must have missed that episode. Looks like the Black Flag team threw that in as a reference to the above Simpsons episode. Good on them.

Slightly offtopic, but i guess related to a future location, do you think the game set in ancient egypt will include the hidden blades? Im pretty sure the first recorded use was much later, and since it will be before assassins and templars even existed, that would be even weirder.

I speculate we will be seeing the formation of a proto assassin and proto-templar group in that game, so perhaps that will bring with it the actual first version of the hidden blade? Or perhaps they're going to start getting away from the rigid standards of iconography that have become associated with AC games, and start letting each ancestor's character design and weapons be entirely influenced by their era, environment, and personality?

The recent movie made a compelling case for keeping the iconographical link, but i wonder if they'll make an exception with regards to the hidden blades, in order to make things feel more ancient? Although the existence of TWCB is a good excuse for any assassin at any time to be shown a vision of futuristic stabbing technology.

I feel like their next game could be used without the hidden blade if it is officially in ancient Egyptian times. I assume just a small dagger would take its place with the same type of mechanics. For some reason, it's in my head that Al Mualim studied the Apple and came up with the design for the hidden blade for his Assassins, but I might be remembering incorrectly. Regardless, the famous Assassin weapon probably wouldn't be around that early on in human history, like you said.

Or they'll resort to more of a brute force battle game without much stealth.

All i know about the origin of the blade is that the first known user had a statue in the secret villa chamber in monteriggioni, but the description goes to great lengths to clarify thats not necessarily the inventor.

Using two normal daggers could make for some interesting fighting animations, and perhaps not having hidden blades could differentiate the animus sections from any potential modern day ones. (I hope they finally give us that hidden taser-blade from the ac2 concept art)

I suppose the third option is that our protagonist just uses a single weapon contextually to do both combat and stealth stuff, but i doubt it. The early leak made reference to The Witcher inspiration, which makes me think more secondary weapons, not less.

I hope they keep stealth in, but i also hope they arent afraid to create situations where different approaches are more effective. I don't want it to always be easiest to stealth, just like i don't want it to always be easiest to fight. And personally i dont mind if im forced to do it one way or the other, as long as it's thematically appropriate. Though that should be rare

What I think might happen is that for most of the game we'll roll with just a simple dagger, then during the final 1/4th of the game the Hidden Blade will be developed as like, a kind of prototype weapon, and we'll field test that for the last sequences. The Hidden Blade's animations are significantly faster than the Dagger and it attracts much less attention, allowing you to literally murder people right in front of their allies with no suspicion.

In doing so the game might show us just what a game-changer the Hidden Blade actually was for the Brotherhood.

Or so I hope.

Honestly im ok with the main utility of the hidden blade just being that it remains unseen until you actually strike, at which point everyone sees what you're doing. Id honestly like low profile hidden blade kills to be more like the final assassination in the Assassin's Creed movie. Obvious, but quick and efficient and out of nowhere.

I get where you're going though, it would be nice to see that element of surprise reflected in the mechanics more.

I'd be cool with this, but on the condition that it makes sense to me, mechanically. And the only way I can think of for that to make sense to me, is for the player to have to "prepare" a weapon before using it for a Stealth kill. Otherwise, it would be way too contextual and the player wouldn't actually feel it as much.

Holding the Prepare button makes the Attack button Assassinate, or strike with the weapon. (Dagger or H.Blade)

Not holding the Prepare button makes the Attack button Knock Out, or strike with your Fists.

If you "prepare" your Dagger by holding a button down and you do it too early or while you are being looked at, people will see you holding a huge freaking knife and freak the hell out, yelling for guards and getting you Detected.

If you "prepare" a Hidden Blade by holding the button down, it's completely unseen, you are invisible until the moment you slit the enemy's throat, and THEN people will freak the hell out, because that subtlety is the Hidden Blade's purpose.

That would be cool, that I can live with. I would appreciate it a lot, since it would accomplish everything I set out to get done with my comments, but while leaning heavier toward your preferences for Stealth kill visibility. Actually, when I think of it, I'd like that system much, much more than my original ideas. The power of community discussion.

Friend:
I like this. On the other hand, mechanically why would you use any thing else to assassinate if it's just going to drag you down? Leo K challenge videos & flavour aside. Maybe a dagger is better for armoured targets or something.

Me:
Maybe you wouldn't. You could still have a Dagger in your inventory to use as a combat weapon when outnumbered if you find H.Blade too hard to use for fighting. But largely, the Dagger would become redundant after acquiring the Hidden Blade, and that is exactly the point. The Hidden Blade is just superior to the Dagger in every possible way. That's why the Brotherhood all swapped to that weapon as soon as it was created. To show that mechanically, that would be f***ing sick.
The only person I can think of that would have the balls to do that would be Kojima, or maybe Fumito Ueda. Because why can you pet Agro? Oh, no reason. Just that you can. (Actually I think it does something but y'know.) But yeah, that's what I would do. In Combat, H.Blade is better and more deadly, but way tougher to use, so Dagger remains in the player's toolkit because it's what they're used to fighting with, and it's something to fall back on if they're comfier with it. In Stealth, H.Blade makes Dagger entirely redundant as a massive message of how much it helped the Assassins with its invention. There's merit in the armored enemies idea, so I would repurpose it to be purely applicable to combat.
Like if you mess up a Hidden Blade Stealth kill on an armored enemy, fighting him with your Dagger is actually better/faster than trying to stab him down with your Blade. Or something.

yeah i basically think you shouldnt be able to attack with a normal weapon unless its unsheathed (which would result in detection before you strike (provided you're in the line of sight of any nearby npcs (like even civillians, cause they would shout a warning right?))) and whenever its sheathed you just use the appropriate hidden blade based interaction.

We should probably just make a "how to make the hidden blade(s) feel useful" thread