One of the most fun things to do in any of the Assassin’s Creed games is to climb some of the tallest buildings and enjoy the stunning vista, before spreading your arms and then taking a “leap of faith” into a bale of hay hundreds of feet below.
In Assassin’s Creed 3, Ubisoft Montreal has put more emphasis on the “leap of faith” as a strategic move that can help players gain the upper-hand over enemies and assassination targets. In a gameplay demo shown to journalists at an Assassin’s Creed 3 event last week, new protagonist, the half American, half English Connor, was shown climbing a tree and perching on a branch where he waited for the precise moment when his target and his entourage passed under him before diving into a pile of hay on a cart at the back of the pack.
He could, of course, have faced his enemies head on, but this stealthy maneuvre allowed Connor to then leap from the cart and make a quick execution of his target without the need to tackle his guards. In previous Assassin’s Creed games, the “leap of faith” has purely been used as a fun means to get down from a viewpoint in the fastest possible way, but in Assassin’s Creed 3 it now adds a new dimension to the gameplay, one in which tree climbing features quite heavily.
Connor hides in the tree-tops waiting to pounce
In the footage we saw, Connor will still run and leap across rooftops in typical free-running fashion, but the setting in this pre-1800s era is far different than in previous games. Buildings aren’t so closely packed together, so Ubisoft has used trees as a platform so that players can climb and swing from their branches to reach high areas quickly, or hide out of sight of passing targets. The old style “leap of faith” will still feature heavily – in one section we witnessed Connor free-fall from the top of a mountain into a pile of snow – but in Assassin’s Creed 3 Ubisoft has taken it to a whole new level.
Assassin’s Creed 3 launches on October 30th in North America and October 31st in Europe.