The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

We know from past truth puzzles that Washington had an Apple -- when crossing the Delaware maybe?

I didn't know that the Followers of Romulus traveled to the New World.

And shouldn't he be wearing attire that resembles more of an eagle? Meh.

"Connor" means "Hound-lover" and the developers said before the release that he's more symbolically affiliated with the wolf than the usual eagle. It makes more sense to make it wolf skin than eagle-themed.

Yeah...but it just looks...ridiculous. Don't feel like I'm an Assassin if I wear...a wolf's head over my mine. Unless Connor turns into a wanted man in the woods 24/7 and he's hunted down like an animal.

That would be cool.

Like some of us have said about the game before, it doesn't feel like an AC game for many reasons. One of them being that Connor is hardly a dedicated member of the Order. I'm not surprised that he'd break off from it this much.

Also, Native Americans would wear outfits made from animals like this to show their efficiency at hunting and such. It's not necessarily exactly how they'd actually make it look back then obviously, but it's along the same lines.

I'm not 100% sure but that shiny ball in Washington's staff/scepter looks a lot like a PoE.

I'm definitely looking forward to this, already bought by season pass.

http://kotaku.com/5967127/assassins-creed-iii-dlc-gives-both-connor-and-...

In this alternate time-line, Connor never became part of the Assassins. In fact, he never used the name Connor. He just stuck with Ratonhnhaké:ton. Presumingly, he never met Achilles...or his father...or any of the Founding Fathers. I think Charles Lee just smacked him up a bit, then Ratonhnhaké:ton fled west.

I'm just waiting on a release date. GET IN MY HARD DRIVE.

It's always fun playing "What if" scenarios, looking forward to this~ :3

Oh man, I wasn't gonna buy this initially. But now I am. Wallet hurts :/

Don't look at the bank statement, just enjoy the game. I wish I had more free time on my hands. I think it's been about two weeks since I fired the game up and I left off after Achilles told me the fantastic story about the assassins, so I basically have the entire game still to play.

However, the Tyranny of Washington was probably the part of the game that I was most excited about.

So if he never met Achilles, then we can presume that he never received the rope-dart and hiddenblades.

Will he be able to use guns? What about regular muskets?

Lookin' back at the trailer. He has on bracers, could be hidden blades. This is alternate reality so he'll get all his weapons just in a different way...if that makes any sence.

Looks like previous sources were right, then wrong.

Tyranny of King Washington takes place AFTER the revolution, so we can assume Connor does have all his assassin training.

http://assassinscreed.ubi.com/ac3/en-US/news/news_detail.aspx?c=tcm:21-8...

Wait, the events of AcIII were a dream? Is that really how the gonna tie this in....

Wtf.... i must be reading this wrong, i have to be...pllease tell im reading this wrong.

That's not what I took out of it. My guess is that a member of TWCB visits Connor in a dream later in life and he realizes that nothing he fought for came to pass... that's how I took it anyway.

In other words, It's a Wonderful Life AC style.

Reports have said that it's an alternate timeline where he DOESN'T join the Assassins. He's still a badass, just not an Assassin.

Which is why I said it looked like those reports were WRONG. Did you read what I had bolded?

What did Connor do during the Revolution if not what he did during the Revolution?

I slept since then!

Probably what all other guys his age did. Drink, chase women, and blow shit up. If you want to talk about gaining the ability to blend, that recipe above is the ideal way to never become suspected of being up to no good.

That's the point, I think. Washington somehow survived the revolution without him, and never got put in his place by Connor, which is what supposedly kept him from becoming totally corrupt.

Remember how Washington sent troops to destroy Connor's village? I'd suppose that's how Connor gets drawn into the conflict.

I would also suppose that if Washington is alive, Haytham and his Templars are dead.

Also, this is a response to a really old comment and whatever, but AC3 is set in a place where the Assassins have basically been stripped of all influence, and only Achilles remains of the old order. Connor starts to build the order again and gain contacts, but the focus of this game was on him doing what needed to be done before that starts in earnest: destroying the established Templar Order in the region.

I would argue that AC3 is more Assassin-centric than AC2 was, as Ezio doesn't even learn about the Assassins or become one until basically the final act.

The difference in feel is also down to the fact that this is a different era, and these groups operate differently. Different societies change the flavor of stories significantly: imagine your favorite superhero origin story set in the 1800s, or even the 1920s.

I'm sure you guys have discussed this to death, since I only really frequent this site when there is actual new stuff to talk about, or when ideas/speculation for future AC games strikes me, but there's my opinion.

Well, that isn't entirely true. Ezio learns about the (existence of) assassins early on when he's training in the fight ring with Mario. And even though he isn't sworn into the brotherhood until near the end of AC2, some might consider him an assassin before then. I'd say he's a full fledged assassin by the time he kills Francesco (he kills Uberto entirely out of revenge. When he kills Vieri it was partly from defending the city and partly because he and his family might have had something to with the conspiracy against the Auditore family. By the time he gets to Francesco, Ezio now shows respect for the targets he kills, and also he gets into the business of tracking down the target/targets).

Connor on the other hand, he doesn't seem that much of an assassin. It starts out with being told by a hologram of TWCB where to go and who to meet. And he does that because it's what will help him protect his people as well as find Charles Lee. He doesn't care as much about being an assassin.

The Hologram gave him the goal, not of simply killing a few people, but of becoming an Assassin. Connor saw becoming an Assassin as a way to bring freedom and peace to all, including his people.
Honestly, every protagonist of AC wants something before they become a true Assassin. Connor: Freedom, Ezio: Revenge, Altair: Fame.

I suppose Ezio does know about the Assassin order early on, but once Achilles was convinced to teach Connor, he learned far more about the order than Ezio did at his age. And what I loved about his story is that he had to EARN the right to be an Assassin, and he made the CHOICE to be an Assassin. Getting that outfit meant something to him, wheras to Ezio it was simply a strange outfit. Connor had a formal training that he knew was specifically meant to turn him into an Assassin, just like Altair did, so I don't know how anyone could say he cared less about it than Ezio.

What makes you an Assassin is your ideology, and Connor's story definitely deals with the reality of the Assassin ideology in what I feel is a more natural way than has ever been done before, with him actually seriously questioning if the Templars have a point, and not simply being told he's wrong, but deciding for himself after firsthand experience with working with one.

I will agree that AC3 seemed determined to break up some of the typical expected habits of the AC series, such as the fact that Juno appeared so early in Connor's story instead of reserving TWCB stuff for the end, the fact that the Templar leader was not the final "boss", and the fact that there was no actual in-game fight with the final "boss". (which I thought was actually good, since they've never done those particularly well)

But I see those things as an attempt to bring some life and unexpectedness into the storytelling, rather than retreading the same plot beats.

It felt to me like a different place in a different time in the same universe. It was set in The New World, where Assassins and Templars had not been as deeply established as previous settings.

I don't know, there's just something about people in powdered wigs sitting in a dusty room discussing "precursor artifacts" that instantly gave me a feeling of "this is still the series I know, but things have changed in the hundreds of years since Ezio."

At this point, I think I would have to ask what an "Assassin's Creed Story" means to you.

To me, it means secret societies, moral issues, tragedy, murder, psudoscience, and any sort of historical time period or place you could possibly imagine.

To me, that description fits AC3, and it allows for a HUGE amount of leeway in terms of what the plot of an AC game can actually be.

I think I understand when you say it doesn't feel the same as previous games, but I don't get how that is not expected in a series ostensibly about reliving the lives of entirely different people in entirely different places and times.

The ACIII story was serviceable, though I wished it'd intermingle with the American Revolution more. Some major, historical key moments were left out. The highlights were definitely coming in terms of what the Assassin/Templar strive far, and the father/son relationship. However, they were a lot of problems. We don't know Haytham's or Achilles' past, or how the Assassin established themselves in America, or how they got so weak to begin with. We don't know how Connor knew of his father (suppose his mom told him when he was young). Hell, we don't even know what happens to him in the end!

Also liked how each story had different ways of becoming an Assassin. All 3 had formal training, but Altair had decades, Connor had couple years, and Ezio had small, disguised lessons between the Courtesans and Mercenaries. ACIII was more "Assassin-centric" than ACII. The Assassin aspect only gamed up during the beginning and at the end of ACII. Between that time Ezio was just mindlessly assassinating people that played a part of his father/brothers' execution. Oh sure, he uncovered a plot to take over major Italian cities, but that was so underplayed to the point that it was practically invisible.

And since when did Altair wanted fame? He showed arrogance and hotheadedness. Though the Assassin's aspired to be some infamous, terrible whisper around the black market and guards, I doubt that they wanted to be as famous as the Templars did at that time.

We actually do learn all of those things about Haytham and Achillies and the previous Assassin Order from either optional conversations or the database.

Haytham is also expanded upon in the novel.

Haytham was indeed a former assassin, as was his father, until the Grand Master seen at the beginning of the game brought him over to the Templars.

After Haytham established his New World templar order, he began hunting down the Assassins there. (remember how he often made references to how he was doing things that would leave a message for his enemies in the part where you played him?)

Achilles was much different back then, and fought until Haytham destroyed the entire order, and his wife and son were dead from a disease (forget which) and Haytham spared him only after forcing him to promise never to be an Assassin again.

Some of these details are not directly presented, it's true, but I like it when there has to be some searching or inference done for some details. It makes the world feel less small if not everything of importance is directly part of the main plot.

http://assassinscreed.ubi.com/ac3/en-US/news/news_detail.aspx?c=tcm:19-8...

looks like i misinterpreted before... wouldn't be the first time... won't be the last.

What the flying testicle pan is that??

What? Your Assassin brotherhood is replaced with a wolf pack? Sounds cool, but I'm not sure how that's gonna work in the city. Maybe in the Frontier, but people are probably gonna flip out the moment they see wolves in their town.

So it's basically a stripped down Dishonored?

From the sounds of it, it takes place in the frontier. If you check xbox achievements online, they were released recently (by accident?) for the DLC....

You're probably right. Doubt wearing a wolf's head and traditional Native American war clothing is gonna help Connor blend into crowds.

FTFY: no Achilles = no "Connor"

I'm so down for having super-powers LOL.

I'm just going to leave this here...

I'm beginning to think more and more that my suspicion of Ziio being trained as an Assassin is correct. One of the achievements for the DLC is "receive an unexpected gift" and has images of the hidden blades.

Ratonhnhaké:ton can get them in one of 3 ways, I reckon:
1 - Kill an Assassin and take his weapons. (kind of a cop-out... and not really a "gift")
2 - Be given them from an Assassin. (as he did in the main story from Achilles)
3 - Be given them from someone who was once an Assassin, but is not anymore. (most likely, in my estimation)

My suspicion that Ziio was once a trained Assassin who perhaps left the Brotherhood has been commented on elsewhere. It would make since that if she were an Assassin who gave up the fight, she would have hidden blades that she no longer has use for. Her son is now taking up the fight of protection for his people and she gives him all the tools at her disposal.

EDIT: 4 - Be given them from someone who killed an Assassin and took them... but if we count this then we have...
5 - Kill someone who was given them from someone else who killed another who was once an Assassin. ... etc, etc, etc

I dreamt about this DLC.

We start out as Ratohnhaké:ton in a village much like the one in the "real" storyline.

With a twist though - they're cannibals (sounds unlikely, I know, seeing as i have never heard of cannibal native northern americans), but it makes sense considering how we'll most likely have control over a pack of wolves (wolves are carnivore predators), and thus be closely linked to wolves in other aspects as well.

The village is surrounded by traps (that we get introduced to in the first tutorial-like mission) which are used to kill passing redcoats/bluecoats.

So these cannibals have little love for humans, especially outsiders, which explains why Ratohnhaké:ton later (most likely) kills Washington (a symbol for the outsiders - the europeans).

Don't get me wrong though. I don't think native americans are barbaric, on the contrary, in fact. They lived in a much greater harmony with nature than europeans did, and I have great respect for them.

But if they were cannibals, it would be explained why Ratohnhaké:ton is so very much stronger/better/faster than non-cannibals - the native american wendigo myth - Google it (or more preferrably, DuckDuckGo it)

Edit 1:
Wendigo in a familiar position, with familiar colors.

Edit 2:
All of the above seems very unlikely, considering this.

Agreed. Definitely not an AC game at that point. Takes the social and the stealth out of social stealth... but it's a non-canon alternate reality... hopefully the entire idea of this alternate reality was developed by the hacker group you team up with at the end and we don't get more shit like this in the "real" AC games...

oops...

"By the end of the last episode you will see how this relates to Connor and the real George Washington," game director Marc-Alexis Côté told Eurogamer. "This experience is canon."

I personally think it's a little too far fetched that the Animus can project alternate realities. I would have preferred it was the POE. I guess we'll see when the dlc comes out. And speaking of which, there are two questions I have for anyone getting the dlc when it comes out: Is George Washington a main target? And is the dlc worth getting?

Based on newer information, I no longer think this is the case. It is said to be canon, ie, what happens. Sounds like it might be what happens when Washington is corrupted and doesn't give up his power at the end of his second term. :-/

Based on the above video, where George Washington buries 3 bullets into Connor's chest, I'm going to assume that he is the main target.

It's a 3 part dlc, so we won't know everything until part 3 comes out.

Uploading part one of Episode 1 right now.

I liked it a lot. Even with the "superpowers", I felt more like an Assassin than the main game.

Also, bears are fun murder tools.

Part 1

*sigh* Just got playing the DLC. Not bad. Here's my thoughts:

100%ed the first Episode of the DLC last night. Some nice things in there, some great questions to be answered in the upcoming episodes.

I love the feel of the world right now. The devs certainly pulled off post-apocalyptic wasteland colonial America. Everything seems so familiar after playing the main game, yet it all feels so different. I love that dark feeling that is there. The soldiers are everywhere, on horseback, in the trees, everywhere. You really feel like you need to hide and stay hidden at all times... and you really do. Every time a band of soldiers happens upon a civilian, they kill them on the spot, adding to the barren wasteland feeling. They really took a completely familiar environment and plunged it head first into something that feels so... evil. I walk by buildings that are so familiar, yet so different. It's a very eerie feeling. I love it.

One thing I don't like: