The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

I haven't played the game yet, but from what I hear most of the assassination targets are on a ship. It would be nice to hear discussions from others.

Yeah, most targets are on a ship.

TBH I haven't really looked at it yet because my Elgato is broken.

If it's possible to hit a target with a sleep dart and then carry him somewhere to wake up, I think it will be a nice tool for setting up cool assassinations. I'm not sure if that's possible though, could be the only option you have when standing next to a sleeping dude is kicking his face in.
Again, IF it's possible, you could perform 'hangover assassinations', where the target wakes up in a complete different place and before knowing what's going on he has a blade in his back. Maybe it's even possible to put the body in a place where if he stands up, he falls from a cliff/building. I've seen that happen when hitting gunners with sleepdarts. After they woke up, they immediately fell down their watchtower. Blew my cover because suddenly the guards spotted a body.

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Tried it and it's NOT possible to carry a sleeping body. Only options are to knock him out, rob him, or take his weapon. So much for hangover assassinations.

I wouldn't say that "most" of the assassinations are on a ship, 3 out of 8/9 targets or so if I remember correct. Though it's a shame that the developers didn't realize that having the same environment (not even 3 different ships, the same layout every time) on 3 assassination targets is not very creative/imaginative. After the horror that were the AC3 assassinations I'm just glad I don't have to kill them in a cutscene or forced combat.

I also tried to check if sleeping npc's could be moved, sadly not, although this would of course make some things too easy imo.

There are a lot of targets on ships, but there are more who aren't.

One of the great things about this game is that the side assassinations are almost as well designed and set up as regular assassinations. They even include unique dialogue for each target to say, and sometimes they have conversations with guards or something.

Only problem is they're not replayable, but they're still really good for creative gameplay, and all pretty unique, since there's a whole lot of game world for them to make use of. The only other AC game with comparable side assassinations was AC2. But those weren't nearly as good, and I think there are actually more in BF.

If they made the assassination contracts replayable, this would be a nigh-perfect game to me, but of course they couldn't get that in (among a few other minor gripes). It's probably a good thing they made the game how it is, because you can enjoy the main story for fun and mixed-up missions as well as interesting story twists, but then you can continue all the side content (and possibly dlc) and it's an entirely new game. I felt like this was a good balance for a modern game. The assassination contracts offer the most creativity, so it's a shame that we can't enjoy them more than once.

I've noticed when an enemy is close to a campfire, he will catch fire and eventually die. Could this be used in assassinations somehow?

How close do they have to get in order to catch fire? and how would you propose on getting them close enough/in the fire? possible ways could be subtly pushing the target (though not every target is pushable I think. or blasting them into the fire using a explosive powder barrel, they should survive the blast of 1 barrel if they're in the right range. Or you could drop a body in the fire in their line of sight, they inspect it, catch fire and die.

I just did some testing on the assassination with the two targets, haven't discovered anything special yet. Both brothers do however engage you when you whistle in their area which is a shame. And they aggro you when you use sleep dart on them, no matter how faryou are or how hidden. Though killing one does not instantly aggro the other if I remember correct.

What I had in mind was gentle pushing, but maybe body luring will work as well. Honestly, I don't even know if there's a campfire near any of the targets. Maybe the one you kill at Principe?

Merry Christmas everyone!

On another slightly less jolly note, the 2nd assassination target is boring as hell.. There are almost no possibilities foor cool/varied assassinations (If there are, I didn't see them at least, hope I'm proven wrong).
He doesn't respond to whistling/dead bodies, when he detects you all he does is get down on his knees and beg for his life (this is a realistic reaction though ) and when I berserk dart him he doesn't even throw a punch!

Been messing around with the sequence 12 memory 1 assassination target, the one in which you cannot use any weapons except for the hidden blade. I discovered several things:

- The maximum distance you can be from the target when he appears is 75 meters, when you reach that you will desync.
-However, when you obtain the ambassador clothes but haven't entered the party yet, you can go anywhere you like. I for instance tried to smuggle a powder keg inside in order to do something fun, but since I have to go all the way to a plantation in order to get it its a lot of work and you desync when detected, I haven't managed to try anything at all
- There is a rifleman on the rooftop of a building nearby, if you kill and loot him you can take his rifle + 6 bullets. I used it to kill the target from the rooftop at the party and stay undetected (except for the yellow SSI).
- If you start the memory and instead of heading towards the italian ambassador you go the the location of the party, you can kill all the guards there so that when you arrive there later all the guards will be gone, but you will still have the civilians present.
- If you hire dancers to distract the Target, they will take him for a walk around the town, though the direction isn't pre-determined and I'm still trying to figure out how to determine their route and how to make them stop moving for a moment in order to try things like eagle strike for example.
Also if you get too far out of range, or hire another group, the dancers will dissapear and the Target will start running around aimlessly, u can tackle him for example and he won't engage you. Also here the route, or how to stop him from running I haven't figured it out yet.

Hope anyone can/will use this to do something awesome.

Thanks, Sandwich, that actually really helps.
I had played around with that mission myself a little bit, just Air Assassinating him.
I'd posted a video of me clearing out every guard at the party - but I did that DURING the actual party.
Knowing we can do it beforehand to set things up is very interesting, and we might be able to use a Powder Keg + The Rifleman's gun to do something fun, as you mentioned. It is a lot of work, but that just makes the payoff more satisfying ;]

I got a fun one on an assassination contract target where I was actually fighting him along with a guard (one of the big guys that throws bombs). Guard tossed a bomb that I ran away from, but the target blew himself up running after me and being on top of it as it exploded. That one was mostly luck, though.

Bit of an update on (potential spoilers for those who havent reached sequence 12 yet) the Woodes Rogers assassination:

- I've managed to figure out how influence/determine the route that the dancers will take Rogers after you send them to distract him. It works best when you only use 1 dancer to distract so you only have make 1 NPC change direction so you can direct them to the location where you want to kill Rogers.

- Something else notable was that after I used a gun (picked up from a random guard) to try and kill the dancer who was escorting Rogers (I missed though ) he searched for the shooter for a while and then when his SSI bar dissapeared again he would walk back and just stand still, no longer following the dancer. In this state you can push him using the fast walk button to whatever location you liked.

I managed to push him to the nearby viewpoint and I performed a miniature version of the eagle strike (though not very fluently) and killed him.

Hope someone can use this for something extraordinary.

I haven't made it all the way through the game yet, so I avoided Raccoon's posts above, but is it possible to kill a target in this game via human shield?

I know we were unsuccessful in AC3, mostly because all of the target assassinations were scripted.

Good idea about human shield. I'll try that if I get a chance.

Yesterday I nearly killed a main target with grenades thrown by a Brute. It was a neat setup: Edward was standing in an elevated doorway (in some ruins) with a Brute and the target just below his feet. They were unable to climb up so the Brute kept throwing grenades which would bounce off the wall and land on the target! This happened about five times but the target didn't die. Either he was immune to the grenades or just had ample health.

I've tried to use Human shield on two different targets (Laurens Prins & Commodore Chamberlaine) but in both occasions it wasn't possible for me to use it when a gun was being aimed at me.

Another thing I found out was that the dancers apparentley will drown after they enter the water

One obvious target in S12M3...

I used spoilers because I know TMA is only in S6.

I don't think it's possible, I recently played that part again and I didn't recall a "Human shield" prompt popping up.

I've got a question for you guys:
If I use whistle one time to lead a guard away from his post so that I can kill a target without being seen does that still count as a ghost run? (Not killing anyone besides the target and not being noticed by anyone)

The purpose of a ghost run is minimum interaction with enemies, so if using whistle is the only way to kill the target without being seen it might count. Then again I'm no expert. Jack Reacher did some ghost runs for MGS games so he should know more about the rules.

Well to be fair there is an easier way to kill the target unseen but seeing as that method/area is used for the optional objective I wanted to do another/more difficult way for a compilation that I am maybe doing.

Update on the Human Shield on targets. Cockram and Burgess (well, at least Burgess) CAN be killed via human shield.

Nice find!

Only "nice" because he got to throw it in here because it was a mistake that prevented a double assassination... if I had to wager a guess.

I have to say, even with all the freedom we have with the targets, my favorite kill of this game so far was on a howler monkey.

As I was going through the "kill animals with the rope dart" I got around to killing one. I'm not sure if these guys are always this epic, but I happened to be on a branch about equal height off the ground with the one the monkey was on. As you know, when Edward grabs a guy with the rope dart during combat, he yanks the rope back and causes the enemy to fall down, leading to an easy kill. As you may also know, howler monkeys weigh far less than human beings.

The latter fact is key, as Edward's yank of the rope resulted in the monkey being removed from its perch and flying towards Edward, then right past Edward's head, and directly into the camera. If you're familiar with it, think back to playing "Turtles in Time" for Super Nintendo and throwing a foot soldier. He was thrown towards you, the player, and momentarily filled up the entire screen before vanishing. That's what this monkey did. Only I was able to find him about 50m behind where Edward launched him from. Sometimes Ubisoft is the best.

Ughh, the mechanics of the Burgess and Cockram NPC's in the assassination mission are so frustrating. It's like Ubisoft doesn't allow fun/variety.

Open conflict is entered almost everytime something happens to them or to the people around them, and they instantly detect you when something happens, no matter where you are hiding. For instance when I am in a hiding spot and sleep dart one of the two NPC's the other and surrounding guards instantly detect me and walk towards my hiding spot. Another stupid detection happens when you berserk dart a pig that is walking around, the weird thing is that when berserk darted the pig doesn't do anything different, yet normal guards will be distracted by it and the targets will detect you!

I just don't understand why ubisoft includes all these different tools yet makes it almost impossible to use them in a cool/creative way, for what are supposed to be the highlights of the game.

I'm having a very hard time coming up with material for a possible new video.

That's too bad. I was hoping to make an interesting Burgess/Cockram video also. Can you lure them somewhere by throwing money?

While I haven't yet really tried luring/immobilizing them I do know that they detect you/try to escape when:

- You whistle near them.
- They see a dead body.
- When you blow up one of the bigger barrels of gunpowder.

Throwing money has no effect on them if I remember correct.

It is however possible to kill them seperate of each other without the other noticing, for instance when the one in behind was banging on one of the doors I waited around the corner and corner-assasinated him and the other didn't notice a thing.

Their route is also a bit weird/glitchy, I've had several occasions that if I didn't "locate" them they wouldn't start their patrol route or sometimes only 1 of them would be walking while the other would stand still at the camp.

I did notice a lot of gunpowder barrels lying around and it's definitely possible to kill both of them with a line of explosive barrels. I almost succeeded but 1 of them survived because I set it off a bit too early.