I don't want to editorialize, but after I read this I started throwing up gang signs and hooting like the 2 Human video.

I'm still a fan of the one that accuses everyone who didn't like AC3 of being racist.

I see they skipped Jack the Ripper in Victorian London and went straight to guillotines.

I would've played that.

Loved finding that exchange. Those internal emails alone more than made up for the disappointments of ACIII. Sure, it is a bit on the nose, but damn if I don't love some meta "take that!"s.

Ubisoft are stupid for not doing a game centered on Genghis Khan. If you want a compelling villain, the guy with a bodycount some say is between 50 and 80 million would make for a prime candidate. However, he also would make for a great complicated character because he did quite a few very smart, tolerant and positive things for those under his rule. And, and this is a big plus for a potential AC game, the way in which he died is disputed to this day! PERFECT!

CUT. PRINT. GO, GO UBISOFT!

How did you get access to that email hacker? I OWN YOU!

I'm not sure what this is...

@mariachimacabre: Subutai = Da Vinci

God damn I really enjoyed Black Flag. Here's hoping Unity delivers too.

I'm replaying AC II right now and I'm pleasantly surprised at how it holds up.

@starvinggamer said:

When the complaints levied at the protagonist are "he's boring" or "uninteresting" or "he's stoic" with little to no cultural understanding of Connor's personality or why it formed that way, yeah, I can kinda see where they're coming from.

I laughed pretty hard at that email as well. My personal favourites though have to be the "market analysis" videos on Desmond's ancestors. They're so fucking smug and rife with errors (like the voice over proclaiming "Enzo Auditory") I just wanted to reach through the screen and punch the fucker.

Overall I really enjoyed Black Flag. It's a shame the game just kind of stops with no real climax or forward momentum for the meta story. I think Unity will be something special though, much in the same way AC 1, 2, and 3 were.

They already did, in a way. In one of Altair's memory keys from Revelations he and Maria return to Masyaf after "dealing with the Mongol threat." It's heavily implied that Old Man Altair assassinated the guy.

If you're saying that we should get a game on Altair vs Genghis Khan then I totally fucking agree. Khan and his Mongol horde is a fascinating part of history and one that I'm personally invested in.

INSTEAD OF BUILDINGS YOU CLIMB ON THE LITERAL MOUNTAINS OF BODIES THAT WERE LEFT OUTSIDE TOWNS AFTER A CONQUEST

GOTY FOREVER

Man AC IV is actually a really weird game.

God yes. The legendary mountain of bones on the road to what's now Beijing would be the prime synchronization point. And it'd be a good excuse to bring back that horse tech.

To be honest, the idea of an Assassin's Creed game set in that time period is more interesting to me than one set in feudal Japan. Similar settings in similar times in many ways but Genghis Khan was such an interesting figure of the time, it'd be a shame not to see him in a series of games all about interesting historical settings and characters.

Also, Assassin's Creed Unity looks rad as hell so far.

I loved how they made a dig at GTA when they were all like "we can't have a game that takes place when cars are prevalent in society because too much time would be spent driving" or something like that. I liked these bits.

There is an email which describes the company BLUME. A prominent company in Watch_Dogs. Love finding stuff like that.

@cerberus3dog: And you can find an email about a dude who went to Chicago on business, who you kill in one of the convoy missions in Watch Dogs. Also the Compass and the Sword in Far Cry 3 are pieces of eden.

@oldirtybearon: Please be my Connor buddy.

@tennmuerti: I can't tell if serious, but I hope so. :(

And in Watch_Dogs one of the computers you hack has footage of a son playing Assassin's Creed with his father asking him why the game is so stupid.

Fully serious. It's rare to see another person around here who has appreciation that Connor works as a well done character, rather then give him shit for not being yet another Nathan Drake wannabe who isn't as "fun".

@tennmuerti said:

There are way too few of us. Probably why there won't ever be another Connor-centric game. Granted that was probably never in the cards (although my personal hope was Connor in the French Revolution), but yeah, I agree. I think the major boundary for a lot of people is that a lot of Connor's character came through in his expressions and body language even more than dialogue. Even his idle animations in the cities were different than in the Homestead. I'm not going to say that AC3 didn't have problems both in narrative and gameplay, but Connor Kenway is/was a character that is both rich in his complexity and subtle in execution. I think some of the fault is ironically echoed in the Abstergo market analysis videos from Black Flag; he comes from a culture and people too foreign for modern audiences.

Another thing I think people forget is that Connor is bilingual. He speaks in a very formal way with people because he has to constantly think about what he has to say before he says it. When he's with his tribe he's very at ease and speaks naturally. When he's in the Homestead he's warm and kind to his adopted family. When he argues with Achilles, he wields truth like a dagger and goes straight for the heart. Connor is complicated. He's young, naive, brash, altruistic, and headstrong. He's also kind and compassionate. Out of all the Ass Creed heroes we've had, I like Connor the most because in spite of his overwhelming adversity he still holds strong to his ideals. To me that's where his strength as a character lies, anyway. At the end AC3 he's lost everything from his people to his father to his disillusionment of men he thought like himself; like General Washington turning out to be an asshole or Sam Adams championing liberty for a few, not all. Yet at the end of his story he still holds on to his ideals.

You know there's a monologue that for some reason was cut from AC3. I have no idea why, but I think it sums all this up perfectly.

Apologies for the gushing. Whenever I'm given the opportunity I feel a strange need to champion this character. I really loved the guy and hoped he'd get a Brotherhood style spinoff. Maybe he'll show up in Unity. I hope so.

@oldirtybearon: @tennmuerti: Connor was alright. I mean he was no Captain Kenway but what can you do, he was better than Altair.

Yuuuup. Super crazy.

@fredchuckdave said:

Having played through Black Flag this past week, I have to ask, what was so enticing about Edward to you? I liked him for the most part, but I really struggled with following his story. Felt under-baked.

@oldirtybearon: He's just a fun roguish character that fits with the setting and doesn't make the game super serious all the time.

That was a great monologue. Thanks for sharing. Probably got cut for that sick burn on the american myth but oh well.

Shh I'm not done but yeah whatever.

I read your other post about Connor and I can't disagree. If I was going to try to reflect and figure out what parts of Connor I didn't dig (and I didn't finish, so maybe the denouement fixes things), I think the main thing would just be the nature of his position, or place. Firstly is just his nature as everyone's gofer; more than Ezio, Connor seems like the useful idiot who people send to do dangerous labor they don't want to do. He keeps making deals with the Americans that they never really honor and he just keeps working because I guess he has to; it reminds me exactly of the Mexico sequence of Red Dead Redemption stretched into an entire game. I hated Mexico, and it made me hate John Marston so.... Second, he's trapped in limbo between two worlds, and it appeared to me that he was gradually being alienated from both of them. Between those two things, I understand he's loaded with pathos, but it's just miserable to play through. I get that Connor is stuck between a rock and a hard place and I feel that way as a player and it's a turn off.

For some reason I feel like if I was just a native warrior trying to take care of my tribe, I would have more fun. Or if I was just a colonial soldier trying to defeat the British, I would have more fun.

I'd also add that the dialogue seemed unnecessarily sterile. It seemed like they did a lot of historical research and decided everyone was damn sure gonna hear about it.

@brodehouse said:

The thing that always puzzles me about people referring to Connor as a gofer, or a "useful idiot" is that they're looking at it in terms of the GTA mission structure instead of the context of the story. While it's true that a lot of Connor's advancement is spurned from information gained by his Revolutionary cohorts, a lot of the "gofering" is done because nobody else can or will do it. If you can think back to the battle of Lexington where Connor storms a battlefield to sneak into the British camp and assassinate the military leader John Pitcairn by himself, or earlier on when he single handedly brings down the naval bombardment of Charlestown from two Man o' War class British ships, it's amusing that people often reduce Connor to a gofer. In both of those instances his Revolutionary contacts both dismiss his ideas as well as tell him he's foolish for even considering it. Then he does it. Then they're impressed, and Connor decides against smugly rubbing their faces in his success.

I mean, sure, you can read Connor as a gofer, but the way he's presented he's more the guy who gets shit done. The revolutionaries are for the most part portrayed as incompetent and it takes the Indian Warrior to actually give them forward momentum. I don't think his story was miserable to play, but, obviously, this is all opinion so we're not going to change each others mind.

In regards to the historical research - well, yeah, that's where a lot of my enjoyment from this series comes from. It's why I still hold the first game dearly. Ubisoft championed the fact that they did a metric fuckton of research into the Third Crusade, ranging from architecture in the region to social customs between the different cultures. It's fucking crazy the amount of detail they pour into these games, and it's something they continue to aspire to. Even with a turbulent and incredibly vague period of history (like the Golden Age of Piracy depicted in Black Flag), Ubisoft - instead of taking great liberties - continue to play within the constraints of history. Acceptable breaks from reality notwithstanding, I hope this aspect never goes away.

Agreed. Wholeheartedly. I really appreciated Connor's character, and I'm a bit disgusted at the general disdain for him as a protagonist because he wasn't "fun" enough for most. I had never come across the soliloquy you linked, but I'm glad I heard it now. How the fuck did that not make it into the game? ACIII had its issues with the buggy stuff at launch, but I thought the story was the best of the series. Regardless of how much "fun" it was to play a character trying to find his way in a world that was being reshaped, I was emotionally affected by his struggle. I think many people missed the point, and maybe that soliloquy could have wrapped a bow on things for those who didn't "get" his character. I'm not typically big on "on-the-nose" stuff because it can be insulting when devs spell out something in crayon, but in this case, it may have been necessary. It's disappointing to see how many people crap on this game and Connor as a character. I enjoyed ACII and ACIV, but I don't need the main character to be as brash as Edward Kenway or have as much flair as Ezio to enjoy the narrative. Apparently others don't feel the same way. IMO, Connor and ACIII are vastly underappreciated.

I'm right there with the Connor lovers. I enjoyed the character.

I keep playing bits of Black Flag and can't get into it. Kenway is just a bland character. Oh he's so carefree and charming... not really. He bores me. Also, I think having to sail between islands which entails swimming to your boat, getting to the wheel, setting sail and then making the trip is really a chore. I feel like I'm just now noticing how much I dislike that after initially thinking the sailing bits were awesome... it takes too long and you spend most of your gameplay time doing it. I think I've given up playing through the rest of the game. I know there is fast travel but only if you unlock them and that still takes time... longer than if you are just on foot like in past games.

Go "Connor is the secret best protagonist in the AC series" club!

Oh I don't mean a gofer in that he's sent to do mindless tasks, I mean that I feel like everyone treats him like a convenience. It's less that nobody can or will and more that I feel like nobody bothers because they can get Connor to do it. I totally agree with you about Connor being effective and the revolutionaries being shitbags. Playing as him I feel like the kid whose dad goes "oh hey it's you, wait, go redecorate the yard, I'm gonna have this beer". Ramirez, Save the World. They just promise him whatever he's asking for, and then when he comes to get it, he typically gets half of what he needs every time. I want him to do what I wanted John Marston to do; say fuck the lemons and bail. You're a certified badass and these people are never going to help you. If you're a cool character you can figure out a better way.

In regards to the historical research - well, yeah, that's where a lot of my enjoyment from this series comes from. It's why I still hold the first game dearly. Ubisoft championed the fact that they did a metric fuckton of research into the Third Crusade, ranging from architecture in the region to social customs between the different cultures. It's fucking crazy the amount of detail they pour into these games, and it's something they continue to aspire to. Even with a turbulent and incredibly vague period of history (like the Golden Age of Piracy depicted in Black Flag), Ubisoft - instead of taking great liberties - continue to play within the constraints of history. Acceptable breaks from reality notwithstanding, I hope this aspect never goes away.

I love the historical research, but I still want it presented in a way I find vital and speaks to me. 3 was too stuffy, both in and out of the Animus. Just very sterile dialogue. I actually kind of miss in Black Flag the amount of landmark and area historical data they used to put across in the Ezio trilogy and AC3. There's awesome digital tourism in getting to parkour across a city and then get a Wiki entry and a challenge to figure out how to climb.

WHY DID THEY CUT THIS?!?!

It sums up the whole Assassins philosophy better than anything in any of the games, and ties together Conner's struggle to save his people with his joining the Assassins.

That game was fucking fantastic up until the point they rushed to the end of Conner's story and then completely fucked the Desmond shit up too. At least Conner's sobering epilogue was well done. Ezio is fantastic, but I've always preferred the tone of the first one, and AC3 was more like that.

From what I've heard of Unity, the gameplay this time around is building upon the first game, so you know, thinking about your assassinations and being stealthy. Hard to say what the general vibe might be at this point. Honestly, there's enough room for both the affable characters and the more serious characters (and anything in between). It is a series where multiple characters from different time periods take center stage. It'd be bizarre if every hero was a Han Solo-type, regardless of their circumstances.

But yeah, a lot of that monologue would've be amazing to hear Connor say to Haytham before a final confrontation of some sort. Conner taking a stand, recognizing that reconciliation isn't always a tenable pursuit. Haytham consequently understanding that for as close as they might've gotten their difference in idealogies puts them ultimately at odds with each other; Conner would not change, he would not change, and sooner or later conflict between the two would come of it.

Granted, their parting was pretty satisfactory. Still, the jump in their relationship from Washington's camp to suddenly boss fight was jarring. And they spent so much of that game humanizing the Templars too, thanks mostly to Haytham. Suddenly falling back to now he's the bad guy trying to kill you was a real bummer.

Whatever, I'm gonna starting playing AC4 soon, and am genuinely looking forward to Unity. AC3 could've been a lot better if they just stuck that landing though. In a way, maybe it's good they fucked up the Desmond stuff. Now I don't give a shit about any outside story, like at all. I just want interesting historical fiction. Well, unless AC4 does something interesting with the outside stuff. But the whole world-ending plot they set up was probably too grand for something they seem to want to keep pumping out and building upon year after year.

I don't know if I'd call those aliens acceptable, mate.

Yup, I'm pretty sure I read all the emails in the game. I'm glad that they acknowledge the realities of the business they work in, even if it's through a jokey thing that most people probably missed.

Also, if the French Revolution thing came true in game form, does that mean next year's is a western? I'd be down for that, if RockStar is taking its sweet time with Red Dead Revengeance.

@pcorb said:

The Precursor Civilization weren't aliens. We were borne of them as a labour force, just a minor quibble but a pointed one.

And yeah, I find the modern day "everything is a conspiracy and trust no one" stuff to be as entertaining as The X-Files. It's fiction. It's allowed to be fictional and crazy and all that jazz. What I was referring to specifically were the historical recreations that go on in these games. Again, Altair ibn La'Ahad didn't exist, but the Assassin Order did. They also had major beef with the Knights Templar (and the Saracens didn't like them either, actually), and while there was no Apple of Eden, all of your assassinated targets in AC1 were real historical figures who died between 1191-1192. Like I said, they took great pains to stay as accurate as possible while still making a great game.

The same can be said for Renaissance Italy, the American Frontier, and, despite the incredible lack of written records (most pirates were actually illiterate sailors who left the navy(ies) due to poor pay and no chance for advancement, like Edward "BLACKBEARD" Thatch.) the Golden Age of Piracy.

So yeah, my point stands.

@oldirtybearon: Yeah, I was being a bit facetious there. I think I'd enjoy the AC games a lot more if they would present their (admittedly impeccably researched and detailed) worlds without the sci-fi bullshit, and didn't feel the need to reduce every conflict in history into a fight over who gets to play with magic toys though.

There is a cool side mission in Watch Dogs where you have to take down an executive working for Abstergo

These games have got so weird. I would find all this crazy meta-textual nonsense so much funnier and appealing if the games weren't totally stagnating. It seems dangerous to be so self-aware about your business realities when the product you are pushing is so cynical and tired. They really need to take a break and work out what this series actually is, but they probably already have games in production all the way up to 2018.

It kind of reminds me of a Simpsons episode I saw a few years ago when the series was way past its peak, embarrassing and unfunny compared to previous series. Half-way through the episode after a particularly bad plot-twist Lisa raised a placard which read "Worst Episode Ever." I suppose it was supposed to be an amusing self-aware joke at the programme's expense. But it just opens the viewers eyes to the poor quality, makes him wonder why he is watching and then makes him feel insulted that the programme makers see fit to joke about wasting his time.

I get the same feeling from this email and the rest of the tone of small amount of IV that I played. Joking about something being a cynical product of a large, profit-driven corporation is dangerous when the person who has bought said product starts to feel that the diminishing returns they are experiencing are being laughed about.

@pcorb said:

Oddly enough I agree. Well, not so much about the sci-fi stuff (I did say I enjoy that), but more that the games shouldn't revolve around magical macguffins. What still stands out to me about the first Assassin's Creed is how neither the Templar Order nor the Assassins are presented in an entirely positive light. Both are clandestine organizations that seek to chart the course of humanity, and both do so by their own means. It's the world-old story of order versus chaos, only Assassin's Creed didn't depict it as good or bad, merely a conflict between ideologies. One is a pessimistic/realist world view, the other altruistic/naive. I really dug that. Under all the robes and insignias, at the end of AC1 Altair recognizes that there really isn't that great a difference between the two groups; only their methods differ, not their goals or aspirations.

I think AC2 and the Ezio saga got away from that. AC2 (as much as I love it) traded in the philosophical quandaries for something more immediately recognizable and modern; a Sicilian Vendetta tale. While excellently crafted and extremely well done, I couldn't help but feel that something was lost in making the Borgias/Templars just pure black hats. I think this is something that they noticed and tried to correct with AC3, but maybe the damage had been done at that point. Considering the reaction to Connor, his story, and the "grey and gray" morality of that game, maybe Ubisoft won't take this side of things seriously again. I mean, Edward Kenway was a personalized narrative in a different manner than Ezio's, but it ultimately did nothing but use the Templar/Assassin conflict as a backdrop and didn't explore the nature of that conflict like I think these games ought to.

People still enjoyed it thoroughly, though, so it's clear someone's getting something out of these personalized narratives. Not to say I don't enjoy them, of course, but I think I like AC more when it's more... thoughtful? Of the hows and whys of these conflicts and why they keep happening.

I know I went off on a tangent there. Forgive me, but Assassin's Creed for some reason brings this out in me.

It's probably one of the better games in the franchise though.

Yeah maybe if I hadn't played the others I would have liked it. But you can't keep putting the same game out each year without diminshing returns. You also can't do what Ubi does and model the same style of gameplay across all their open-world games (FarCry, WatchDogs) and expect people not to get fatigued.

The situation Ubi currently find themselves in very interestingly focuses the problems developers are facing in making large-scale games for the new higher power consoles. The Ubi solution seems to focus on a particular gameplay model they have indentified which means they can put their resources into content creation, without having to worry about creating new modes of gameplay. You could say Bethesda have done the same for their open world games, but they don't release 3 a year.