First thoughts: The next Assassins Creed

This week we were finally introduced to the newest setting and assassin for the next instalment in the well known Assassins Creed franchise. For the last few weeks we’ve been calling it Assassins Creed Victory but now we know the official title is going to be Assassins Creed Syndicate. Now that we have some true confirmed details on the game here are my personal initial impressions and thoughts.

First off it’s about time we got Victorian London as a setting with the exception of feudal Japan it’s easily been the most requested and talked about setting for an Assassins Creed game for years, it’s been a long time coming and whether or not it’s just been done to appease fans after recent grumbles following some of the newer releases won’t matter to the fans they’ll just be happy to finally have it. Our main characters this time round (yes plural) are Jacob and Evie Frye siblings within the Assassins order who seem to lead one of the titular Syndicates, which are basically well organised gangs.

Gameplay wise we were introduced to a couple of interesting new features chief among which was the carriages that we can drive ourselves now leading to some interesting variety with chases and new places to hide. The other main thing we were introduced to was the rope grapple attachment for the hidden blade gauntlet. With a more modern city we have more open areas and bigger gaps between buildings as well as much taller buildings, this new attachment speeds your scale to the rooftops and allows you to set up a zip line across the wide industrial streets of London to keep you on the move. We also got a quick look at how combat will work, the main difference will be that the weaponry will be much more stealth based on the whole, with more modern times came the need to use more concealable weapons like throwing daggers, brass knuckles, kukris and concealable but not very quiet modern day revolvers to give you a quick edge in a fist fight. Hopefully the need to be far more cautious in the main streets means that the game will emphasise stealth far more than some of the previous instalments have. The game also seems to be harking back to the brotherhood systems from Ezios era of games. This time though it will be using the aforementioned Syndicates there will be several enemy Syndicates ruling other regions throughout the game and it would seem that you will be saving like minded people from said enemies, grow your own Syndicates strength and lead them in showdown wars against your rivals.

All in all what I saw was pretty convincing and has me pretty excited for the game right now but I will certainly be watching it closely to see if my assumptions come to fruition or if  I am totally wrong. On top of that after a bumpy launch with the last couple of titles in the series I will likely be waiting to see what reviewers with early copies have to say about the games stability before jumping straight in with it myself but so far so good thumbs up from me don’t disappoint us Ubisoft.

By Scott Maynard