Official Assassin's Creed III thread

**Cyklops** · 03-03-2012

There's actually way more info in the latest GameInformer Magazine. All credits for this extensive info goes to Nirolak of NeoGAF.

-Want it to be a jumping on point for new players without losing touch with what longtime fans cherish most.
-New hero called Connor/Ratohnhake:ton (pronounced Ra-doon-ha-gay-doo). He has an English father and Native American mother.
-More details about the protagonist/scenarios: You will experience Conner's childhood on the American frontier as he is raised by the Mohawk. The Mohawk eventually clash with white colonists who burn their village down, causing Connor to dedicate his life to confront tyranny and injustice.
-A new traversal approach that has players leaping and climbing trees and mountain cliffs.
-Uses a new version of the Anvil engine that can "depict thousands of troops engaged in bloody battle" along with highly detailed face close-ups. They later imply that if they used version numbers, they would be like going from Anvil 1.0 -> Anvil 2.0 or something of that nature.
-Judging by the images, the faces really are quite good.
-Combat is focused on putting you on the offensive and based on speed/momentum.
-The main character has thousands of new and unique animations (no carry over from other titles) to support the new combat system.
-Character details:
-George Washington: Interacting with Washington is one of the core relationships of the game.
-Benjamin Franklin: He's not a convenient inventor a la Da Vinci.
-Charles Lee: His role is a mystery.
-The game is set between the years 1753-1783 and is centered around the cities of Boston and New York.
-"It's not just going to a historical building now; it's going to a historical event."
-Event examples: "You will see the great fire of New York. You will visit Valley Forge as a location that is currently occupied by Washington's forces. You will visit these places in the moment that they were important, and hopefully, experience the reason why we know where they are today. That's the goal."
-Connor is in the heart of major battles, and they can now have a couple thousand guys on screen, whereas before it was capped at about 100.
-The overall story is still centered around the Assassins versus the Templars and Connor's journey.
-Not all the Colonists will be cast as good people, and not all the British will be cast as evil oppressors. They're trying to focus on how both the Assassins and Templars viewpoints exist in a gray morality as the Templars really believe they're saving the world.
-The French and Native Americans will also feature in the game, as was probably really obvious.
-The modern day stuff relates to that location in New York at the end of Revelations.
-There will be all sorts of wilderness in the game referred to as the Frontier.
-The map of the Frontier is 1.5 times bigger than the entire map of Brotherhood.
-The Frontier is not empty like in Assassin's Creed 1, but features a third of the game's missions and gameplay content.
-The Frontier also includes colonial settlements like Lexington and Concord and Connor's Mohawk village.
-You can hunt animals for resources, and how you kill them effects your reward. A one hit kill on a bear gets you a much more valuable pelt than stabbing it eight times.
-The wilderness traversal plays a big part in the gameplay in the Frontier, allowing you to use trees, cliffs, ledges, and more to set up kills and combat.
-Connor does have a hidden blade.
-The world changes as time passes, so a field where a battle happened in one year may just be a series of empty encampments a few months later.
-The entire world will change with seasons, so the cities and the wilderness will all exist in both Summer and Winter settings.
-In the winter, soldiers will move slowly and stumble about in the snow, and lakes and rivers will freeze over allowing you new terrain to work with. This gives Connor an extra advantage since he can still use the trees and wilderness pretty effectively during this time of year.
-There are all sorts of clubs and groups who want you to join and give you quests. These are separate from the mission system. These clubs will contact you based on what you do in the game. For example, hunting a lot will get you an invitation to the hunting society.
-There will be a goods based economy, a new property system, and more Desmond stuff.
-There's going to be some new puzzle thing like the first person Tetris.
-There's a new GUI known as Animus 3.0.
-There's a new Animus database written by Shaun Hastings, who makes snarky comments about the British perspective of the war.
-They're not unveiling anything about the multiplayer yet.
-There will be more platforming levels.
-Full synchronization returns, but with major tweaks. Missions have checkpoints, You also get significant rewards for doing these tasks instead of a 100%. "Imagine a leveling system in an RPG, except there's a finite amount of XP to find. The more in-sync you get, the more you fill your sync bar. Within each mission, each activity you complete has a value". You can replay everything to increase your score.
-They imply there is something resembling the Brotherhood system of picking up fellow assassins.
-Aligned groups are gone, but something new is replacing them in regards to factions. They don't say what.
-There's a new notoriety system that is more hidden and doesn't penalize you for exploring risky areas.
-The game has fast travel because the game has more traveling.
-Don't expect more tower defense.
-You can upgrade Connor's gear and costume as the game goes on in an attempt to make it feel more authentic.
-The cities have a lot more subtle detail now in terms of ambient things that happen.
-You can now leap over wagons or slide under obstacles, including navigating over and around moving objects. The free running stuff also has you jumping through windows to trees and then on top of church roofs. Basically, expect the free running stuff, but more fluid and presumably generally closer to the ground.
-Connor enters battle with two weapons. The game uses the same controls in and out of battle.
-The tomahawk and knife are a "constant presence" in battle. They also let you do double counters and multiple takedowns, and you can chain kills.
-There's no more target locking, it just automatically detects your target. Counter/defense are the same button to prevent turtling.
-You can use human shields and other context sensitive moves.
-They want you to constantly move in battle.
-There are lots of secondary attacks like the one shot pistol on the Y button.
-There's a new dynamic camera to track the action and make it look as cinematic as possible.
-There is a new sprinting system also, so you can hold the button to instantly turn around and start fleeing from combat. They also let you kill people while still moving so you can keep chasing a target. They kind of imply you can even leap off of them after you kill them, though I'm not sure if that makes you faster or just doesn't impede your movement.
-They really, really, really want you to constantly move. I mean like they say this every four sentences. Not just in battle, but in every section of the game.
-They also try to keep you more in control of the combat than ever before.
-Game Informer really loves their animation system.
-There are around 2.5 hours of character scenes in the game that are fully acted and recorded. They mean this in Naughty Dog style where they have the actors being mocaped while performing on a set that resembles the scene in the game.
-They're aiming for accuracy by having historical dialog consultants and actual Native American actors.
-This game has the longest development cycle since AC1, and has twice the production capacity (in terms of work hours) and budget of Revelations.
-They want the game to feel like AC3.5, and the game will have its first version complete in just a few more weeks, at which point they're going to spend the rest of their time refining it.

Blacksite, you might wanna add all this in the OP. =)

The game's surely shaping up to be the best in the series. Hope the 3 years of development time pays off by creating an AAA game, and a possible GOTY.

**MGSfan** · 03-03-2012

Originally Posted by Cyklops

There's actually way more info in the latest GameInformer Magazine. All credits for this extensive info goes to Nirolak of NeoGAF.

-Want it to be a jumping on point for new players without losing touch with what longtime fans cherish most.
-New hero called Connor/Ratohnhake:ton (pronounced Ra-doon-ha-gay-doo). He has an English father and Native American mother.
-More details about the protagonist/scenarios: You will experience Conner's childhood on the American frontier as he is raised by the Mohawk. The Mohawk eventually clash with white colonists who burn their village down, causing Connor to dedicate his life to confront tyranny and injustice.
-A new traversal approach that has players leaping and climbing trees and mountain cliffs.
-Uses a new version of the Anvil engine that can "depict thousands of troops engaged in bloody battle" along with highly detailed face close-ups. They later imply that if they used version numbers, they would be like going from Anvil 1.0 -> Anvil 2.0 or something of that nature.
-Judging by the images, the faces really are quite good.
-Combat is focused on putting you on the offensive and based on speed/momentum.
-The main character has thousands of new and unique animations (no carry over from other titles) to support the new combat system.
-Character details:
-George Washington: Interacting with Washington is one of the core relationships of the game.
-Benjamin Franklin: He's not a convenient inventor a la Da Vinci.
-Charles Lee: His role is a mystery.
-The game is set between the years 1753-1783 and is centered around the cities of Boston and New York.
-"It's not just going to a historical building now; it's going to a historical event."
-Event examples: "You will see the great fire of New York. You will visit Valley Forge as a location that is currently occupied by Washington's forces. You will visit these places in the moment that they were important, and hopefully, experience the reason why we know where they are today. That's the goal."
-Connor is in the heart of major battles, and they can now have a couple thousand guys on screen, whereas before it was capped at about 100.
-The overall story is still centered around the Assassins versus the Templars and Connor's journey.
-Not all the Colonists will be cast as good people, and not all the British will be cast as evil oppressors. They're trying to focus on how both the Assassins and Templars viewpoints exist in a gray morality as the Templars really believe they're saving the world.
-The French and Native Americans will also feature in the game, as was probably really obvious.
-The modern day stuff relates to that location in New York at the end of Revelations.
-There will be all sorts of wilderness in the game referred to as the Frontier.
-The map of the Frontier is 1.5 times bigger than the entire map of Brotherhood.
-The Frontier is not empty like in Assassin's Creed 1, but features a third of the game's missions and gameplay content.
-The Frontier also includes colonial settlements like Lexington and Concord and Connor's Mohawk village.
-You can hunt animals for resources, and how you kill them effects your reward. A one hit kill on a bear gets you a much more valuable pelt than stabbing it eight times.
-The wilderness traversal plays a big part in the gameplay in the Frontier, allowing you to use trees, cliffs, ledges, and more to set up kills and combat.
-Connor does have a hidden blade.
-The world changes as time passes, so a field where a battle happened in one year may just be a series of empty encampments a few months later.
-The entire world will change with seasons, so the cities and the wilderness will all exist in both Summer and Winter settings.
-In the winter, soldiers will move slowly and stumble about in the snow, and lakes and rivers will freeze over allowing you new terrain to work with. This gives Connor an extra advantage since he can still use the trees and wilderness pretty effectively during this time of year.
-There are all sorts of clubs and groups who want you to join and give you quests. These are separate from the mission system. These clubs will contact you based on what you do in the game. For example, hunting a lot will get you an invitation to the hunting society.
-There will be a goods based economy, a new property system, and more Desmond stuff.
-There's going to be some new puzzle thing like the first person Tetris.
-There's a new GUI known as Animus 3.0.
-There's a new Animus database written by Shaun Hastings, who makes snarky comments about the British perspective of the war.
-They're not unveiling anything about the multiplayer yet.
-There will be more platforming levels.
-Full synchronization returns, but with major tweaks. Missions have checkpoints, You also get significant rewards for doing these tasks instead of a 100%. "Imagine a leveling system in an RPG, except there's a finite amount of XP to find. The more in-sync you get, the more you fill your sync bar. Within each mission, each activity you complete has a value". You can replay everything to increase your score.
-They imply there is something resembling the Brotherhood system of picking up fellow assassins.
-Aligned groups are gone, but something new is replacing them in regards to factions. They don't say what.
-There's a new notoriety system that is more hidden and doesn't penalize you for exploring risky areas.
-The game has fast travel because the game has more traveling.
-Don't expect more tower defense.
-You can upgrade Connor's gear and costume as the game goes on in an attempt to make it feel more authentic.
-The cities have a lot more subtle detail now in terms of ambient things that happen.
-You can now leap over wagons or slide under obstacles, including navigating over and around moving objects. The free running stuff also has you jumping through windows to trees and then on top of church roofs. Basically, expect the free running stuff, but more fluid and presumably generally closer to the ground.
-Connor enters battle with two weapons. The game uses the same controls in and out of battle.
-The tomahawk and knife are a "constant presence" in battle. They also let you do double counters and multiple takedowns, and you can chain kills.
-There's no more target locking, it just automatically detects your target. Counter/defense are the same button to prevent turtling.
-You can use human shields and other context sensitive moves.
-They want you to constantly move in battle.
-There are lots of secondary attacks like the one shot pistol on the Y button.
-There's a new dynamic camera to track the action and make it look as cinematic as possible.
-There is a new sprinting system also, so you can hold the button to instantly turn around and start fleeing from combat. They also let you kill people while still moving so you can keep chasing a target. They kind of imply you can even leap off of them after you kill them, though I'm not sure if that makes you faster or just doesn't impede your movement.
-They really, really, really want you to constantly move. I mean like they say this every four sentences. Not just in battle, but in every section of the game.
-They also try to keep you more in control of the combat than ever before.
-Game Informer really loves their animation system.
-There are around 2.5 hours of character scenes in the game that are fully acted and recorded. They mean this in Naughty Dog style where they have the actors being mocaped while performing on a set that resembles the scene in the game.
-They're aiming for accuracy by having historical dialog consultants and actual Native American actors.
-This game has the longest development cycle since AC1, and has twice the production capacity (in terms of work hours) and budget of Revelations.
-They want the game to feel like AC3.5, and the game will have its first version complete in just a few more weeks, at which point they're going to spend the rest of their time refining it.

Blacksite, you might wanna add all this in the OP. =)

The game's surely shaping up to be the best in the series. Hope the 3 years of development time pays off by creating an AAA game, and a possible GOTY.

+rep

Awsome

, can't wait for this ! I'm so hyped right now.

2012 is shaping up to be as awsome as 2011

**Rapture** · 03-03-2012

I'm so incredibly hyped right now.

**Blacksite** · 03-03-2012

Originally Posted by Cyklops

Blacksite, you might wanna add all this in the OP. =)

Added most of what hasn't already been mentioned. I also decided to tidy up the OP. I really like what I'm hearing about the game so far.

**itachi73378** · 03-03-2012

Seems like this senior team at ubisoft always likes to go one step further. They took a HUGE step from the original and basically set the foundations of the franchise. Now they are doing it again. Most probably this is the last AC game so they want to go out with a bang.

**Ghost-Rhayne** · 03-03-2012

Originally Posted by itachi73378

Seems like this senior team at ubisoft always likes to go one step further. They took a HUGE step from the original and basically set the foundations of the franchise. Now they are doing it again. Most probably this is the last AC game so they want to go out with a bang.

Assassins Creed 3
Assassins Creed 3: Revolution
Assassins Creed 3: Something

Assassins Creed 4

The end

My prediction.

**itachi73378** · 03-03-2012

Originally Posted by Ghost-Rhayne

Assassins Creed 3
Assassins Creed 3: Revolution
Assassins Creed 3: Something

Assassins Creed 4

The end

My prediction.

The whole premise of Assassins vs Templars must end before 21 december 2012 so any new games will be prequels

**Ghost-Rhayne** · 03-03-2012

Originally Posted by itachi73378

The whole premise of Assassins vs Templars must end before 21 december 2012 so any new games will be prequels

If you're worried this means 2012 is when we'll have to say goodbye to the assassins, don't fret. Ezio and Altair's cycle may end with Revelations, and Desmond's cycle ends with Assassin's Creed 3, but there's an endless amount of cycles at Ubisoft's fingertips.

"Assassin's Creed is all about cycles - we have the Ezio cycle and the Altair cycle, and both of those are set to conclude in Revelations and we have the Desmond cycle, which is set to end on December 2012," said Amacio. "But there's many cycles within the brand - that's the whole point. History is our playground."

Source. Could be post 2012 cycles, or pre, but they aren't done with the series in any case.

**Blacksite** · 03-04-2012

The official Assassin's Creed 3 website has begun a rather short and mysterious countdown, set to expire in a little under two days, which also happens to be when the 2012 Game Developers Conference begins.

The countdown hovers in front of a snow-covered field, potentially of the "battle" variety, which is stylistically consistent with the terrain and locations seen in purported screenshots that leaked yesterday. By the time the clock reaches zero, we expect this field to be filled with soldiers in formation, lead by a cowled assassin riding a moose, armed with a smaller, wrist-mounted moose.

Source

**Fraser28** · 03-04-2012

Originally Posted by Blacksite

Source

Yeah, that's a pretty cool way to do a countdown. Apparently, it's for the game's first trailer. They're promoting it on IGN.

**Inzane2050** · 03-04-2012

I take back what I said. I'm now psyched for this game! Nice info up above regarding the game!

**Cyklops** · 03-05-2012

Keeping it in a separate thread than the official one for some time, until momentum dies down.

IGN says the trailer is all in-engine.

Hype levels MAX!

**Yuuichi** · 03-05-2012

Yep never played any of the other, but will pick this one up. Will prob play others over summers during gaming drought.

**Cyklops** · 03-05-2012

Originally Posted by Yuuichi

Yep never played any of the other, but will pick this one up. Will prob play others over summers during gaming drought.

The thing about the AC series is that all the 5 games (1, 2, Brotherhood, Revelations and 3) are all interwoven very intricately plot-wise. Even the story-related DLCs of Brotherhood and Revelations give a lot of story. I recommend playing all the 4 games before you get into this.

**ps3freak18** · 03-05-2012

The forest is going to add a much needed new aspect to this game! Can't wait.

**itachi73378** · 03-05-2012

Its probably like The Last of Us trailer.
In engine BUT pre-rendered

The game will be badass

**MGSfan** · 03-05-2012

The new setting looks very interesting, I was getting tired of climbing buildings

I have a feeling this game will give the series a big boost

**Duff-MaN_** · 03-05-2012

Game of the year

**Mael Duin** · 03-05-2012

Meh, boring trailer. Oh well, meant to be teaser anyway.
I just hope it won't be "AMERICA FUCK YEAH, we are the good guys and Britain are the bad guys!!!" kind of thing, especially when natives were against colonists.

**Locomotive** · 03-05-2012

These games are almost identical in play with eachother. They are worse than COD.

**mooninites** · 03-05-2012

This looks pretty awesome. I just hope he doesn't jump in directions i don't point to anymore. So annoying

**Morganator** · 03-05-2012

Originally Posted by Mael Duin

Meh, boring trailer. Oh well, meant to be teaser anyway.
I just hope it won't be "AMERICA FUCK YEAH, we are the good guys and Britain are the bad guys!!!" kind of thing, especially when natives were against colonists.

I don't think it's gonna be like that. Sure, it's a fight over ideologies and principles but neither side is inherently good or evil. And yes, the native Americans were definitely against the colonists. There's a lot to tell in relation to the natives and the British. Hopefully, the history will be portrayed accurately.

**Blacksite** · 03-05-2012

Added the announcement trailer to the OP.

**ToXiCNiGhTMaRe** · 03-05-2012

This one's setting intrigues me! Love the setting. I haven't played any since the first game but I have no idea if i should get this one. I couldn't even finish the first one because the repetitiveness of the game mechanics got boring to quick.. (has it been improved on since the first one?) so im not sure if I want this one unless its not so repetitive

**Blacksite** · 03-05-2012

Originally Posted by Locomotive

These games are almost identical in play with eachother. They are worse than COD.

You should read up on the gameplay details in the official thread.

And no, they are not worse than Call of Duty. Assassin's Creed III is a title that has been in development for three years now and it's shaping up to be the best title in the series, given all of the gameplay elements being added, as well as its unique setting.