Ubisoft has released a new trailer for its upcoming conspiracy fantasy adventure game, which details the weapon choices of the protagonist.
Assassin’s Creed III, the fifth installment in the best-selling Assassin’s Creed franchise, will cover the story of yet another of Desmond’s ancestors, this time moving the player up into the American Revolutionary War to stop Templar machinations during the early days leading up to the Union.
He will of course have the standard wrist-blades, swords, daggers, and throwing knives that have been the tools of the Assassin since the first game, but he’s getting a load of new weapon options in this new era:
The addition of the musket is an interesting one, and I’m curious how it will compare to the speed and accuracy of the rifled pistol Ezio got back in the renaissance. Some of the weapons are clearly influences by Native American warfare as well, like the switch from a crossbow to a short bow for the silent ranged option.
Notably, the gravely narrator makes no mention of the use of bombs. Crafting and deploying the various types of tactical grenades in the last game Assassin’s Creed II: Revelations, was my favorite addition to the basic mechanics. If we don’t get to play with that mechanic some more, I’ll be a bit disappointed, but with the studio claiming completely revamped combat mechanics, perhaps they wouldn’t have been as useful anyhow.
One of the starkest disagreements fans have over the franchise in general is the simplicity of the basic combat mechanics. The protagonist typically wins fight, even against many enemies simultaneously, quite easily, as they come at him only one at a time, and always clearly telegraph their intentions before striking.
This not only represents the Assassin’s excellent combat instincts, but pulls the focus of the game away from melee combat, and redirects it toward sneaking and killing from the shadows. Some loud fans think that the combat is too easy, and thus the game becomes too simple to play if one chooses to solve all of the character’s problems with direct conflict, while others feel it’s appropriate for the character to fight so effortlessly.
In general, the game’s challenges are intended to be tactical, rather than based on button timing and combo memorization, like some other over-the-shoulder adventure games, but it’s part of the nature of the gaming community that players often push for a game to conform to their preferred play style, rather than to simply find a new game that plays more like the way they prefer. Personally, I hope they change very little about the control mechanics. The mechanics introduced in Brotherhood, and retained through Revelations are perfectly intuitive.
Assassin’s Creed III will be on the shelves and download services on October 30th, 2012 It can be preordered wherever you preorder your games, including Amazon. The five expansions, announced previously, will all be available, along with the additional multiplayer content, before the end of Spring 2013.
