The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

Is this that knight-ish game you were Twitching last week?

Yes. You can also play as Viking and Samurai classes.

Earlier today I watched a friend playing this. Really fun looking fighting game. Ubisoft finally makes a decent combat system that requires precise timing (so no button mashing, hope they take note of that for the next AC). Also the perfect fight at the beginning of this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubN8qYjXZ2s

Quick question. Do you update and unlock new areas of the map by climbing towers? That's a Ubisoft gameplay staple right there.

Wouldn't surprise me if the story mode had that.

The story mode is a linear action-adventure Souls-like that just involves you progressing through a series of levels/missions until you get to the end of each Faction's story (Knights, Vikings, Samurai.) So that's very different for Ubi, just by itself. Since there's no open world, the existence of Towers/Viewpoints a la AC/Far Cry/WD1 is probably not gonna be a thing.

I'm honestly surprised it has a story. I was worried it would be multiplayer-only. My expectations only go up as it gets closer to release.

I saw this the other day, pretty bad-ass play.

https://gfycat.com/DearFlawedAmericancreamdraft

That was amazing.

I knew that drop attacks were in the game, but I never was able to get them to work. Then again, it took me until the final beta day to realize that combo attacks were also available. And here I was just timing my strikes properly.

I'm partial to this clip.

http://i.imgur.com/7DMKdgo.gifv

A coworker almost bought the game but didn't due to bad reviews: Lame story mode (not that we were expecting much anyway), single player doesn't make sense, matchmaking is bad. But what really does it are those pesky micro transactions. There's even one that levels up your character all the way.

1. You shouldn't expect a decent story mode with a game like this, so that reason should be thrown out the window. Besides, if you want a good story, watch a movie.

2. Single player doesn't make sense? You battle as each faction whose stories intertwine in certain ways (no spoilers). Not really any complications there.

3. Matchmaking hasn't been bad in my experience. I think that's a personal issue.

4. Micro transactions are everywhere, so I don't understand how that's even something that bothers people anymore. The base price for a game today doesn't do enough to return the price of creation to the company, so they put in microtransactions and paid dlc to make up for it. How else are they gonna make their money back unless they rely on the rich a**hats that pay to win? I'd be more surprised if they didn't have those in multiplayer games in the future.

The game is a good arcade-style time waster. I had fun with it but it's not worth full price in my opinion. Don't judge something by critic reviews, anyways. You'll never enjoy anything.

I'll pick up For Honor when it drops to like 20 to 30 dollars CAD. (Which is about 15 to 25 dollars USD). My time will be eaten by making Stealth Vids of Horizon: Zero Dawn, and doing tons of write-ups comparing it to Assassin's Creed, as it IS a Creed-like. (Like Shadow of Mordor before it.)

I don't really know what he meant by single player not making sense. And the lame story doesn't bother me either, since it's a pure fighting game.

It's just that when a game company goes as far as to make micro transactions that unfairly give people an advantage over all the others that bothers me. But since the AC series is currently out of commission, they had to find something else to lean on. And the lesson to be learned here is, greed always wins.

Couldn't all those critiques be pushed to the recent Assassin's Greed games as well?

Lame story. Doesn't really make sense. Poor multiplayer matchmaking. Full of micro-transactions.

Pretty much. The only difference being AC's story should be handled better like it has been before.

I played a ton of the Ghost Recon Wildlands Open Beta and there's just something "off" about Ubisoft games starting from Present Day back to like the last three or four years. I don't know, it just feels like their heart isn't in it. They'll make a functional interactive product that works and gives the structured and consistent dopamine hits, but all of their games are basically one step above Skinner-Boxes and that "life" and "vitality" is missing from the experiences. Ghost Recon Wildlands doesn't feel like it has its own identity. It's just MGSV Ubisoft Edition, but it does literally everything MGSV did, worse than MGSV did. For Honor and Rainbow Six Siege are the only two recent Ubi titles that feel like they've got that "spark" again, and they're both multiplayer-centric.

Watch_Dogs 2 aaaaaalmost hits it, it grasps for it, but it's not quite there. I hope AC Empire is a passion project, I really do. I hope devs get the time needed to really go ham, just get in there and be like, "What do we really WANT to do, what are the COOLEST, MOST BADASS ideas that we just weren't allowed to do before, but we'd have a TON of fun with?" That, combined with a respect for what Assassin's Creed Is Supposed To Be TM would be a game I'd authentically find joy in.

I just think Ubisoft let the brands get to their heads and now they don't know what to do anymore, so they're pumping out whatever they can think of. Hopefully they see this soon and put more passion into future projects.

The only Ubisoft game I'm really looking forward to right now is South Park: The Fractured but Whole. But even that has had continual delays and can only fail the high expectations after The Stick of Truth. Especially because all the delays just mean more time for expectations to rise higher just to crash into an unfinished game. SoT felt like one long South Park episode; I'm hoping FbW does as well.

That said, I think SoT was an Obsidian game. So I don't know if FbW actually has that great of a shot to measure up under the perfect circumstances. I just don't know if Ubisoft San Francisco (most of the good Ubi games have been Ubisoft Montreal iirc - Watch Dogs, AC, Far Cry) can build an open world RPG to the same level as Obsidian (Fallout: New Vegas).

did they switch developer or something?

Ubisoft San Francisco is developing it all in house.