Assassin’s Creed III Preview

Set in 18th century North America, Assassin’s Creed III will be another fresh take on a franchise that turns five years old this year. We’ve seen the series evolve from its beautiful but rough roots in the 11th century with Altaïr during the Crusades, continued through the 15th century Renaissance Era with Ezio and now the Animus will take us to the American Revolution, covering a thirty-year time period, 1753 – 1783.

Most of us in Britain know little about the American Revolution. I’m not surprised, what with being the losing side and all that. Ubisoft are continuing their tradition of rooting the story in real history, so we’ll be treated to the epic sights and famous speech from The Battle of Bunker Hill, as well as learning about George Washington, Charles Lee, Gilbert du Motier and Benjamin “Inventor of Electricity” Franklin.

Our new protagonist is Connor, also apparently known as Ratohnehaké:ton. With half-British, half-Mohawk ancestry he can conveniently blend into both cultures, wielding firearm or tomahawk as he chooses. Poor Connor’s village was burned down when he was a child, shaping him into a noble figure who is out to bring justice to the world by way of stabbing key figures in the neck. He also kills bears.

Yup, with approximately 30% of the game’s missions happening in the wild frontier, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to kill the wildlife and tear off its skin for profit. Where the previous games were exclusively populated by humans and horses, the new “Anvil Next” engine for Assassin’s Creed III expands the repertoire to include wolves, bears and elk. You can hunt these in various different ways – a clean kill with a tomahawk will gain you a nice whole skin for trade (or whatever it is you can do with a pelt) while a distance shot with a musket will pepper the hide with holes and render it almost worthless.

As you may have noticed from the video, Connor spends an awful lot of time in trees. The New World in this game covers a space that’s 2km by 2km, approximately 1.5x the size of Rome from Brotherhood. So far, our intrepid assassins have been limited to climbing buildings, swinging from lamps and jumping on and off the occasional half-submerged pole. This game introduces a much more complex range of movement.

Thanks to his upbringing, Connor is just as comfortable leaping between swaying branches as he is scaling the walls and lamp-posts of 1775 Boston. Fallen trees will provide obstacles that Connor can free-run over or under and sheer cliff faces are no longer an unsurmountable challenge. As a result, movement is much less restrained and demonstrates the natural feel of parkour much better than the repetitive tower-climbing of the most recent games.

A new weather system has been introduced as well, making the ports and streets of New York City feel much more realistic. NPCs will hunker under their umbrellas when it rains and attempting fancy footwork when fighting soldiers on an icy dock can be treacherous.

Out in the frontier, the terrain is no longer limited to a choice between rock and rock with a light dusting of snow. Massachusetts is known for its harsh winters and Connor struggles with snowdrifts just like the rest of us. Walking up hills, he leans forward to maintain balance and when tracking blood trails through knee-high snow, he’ll have to pick his way through it slowly. Much faster to stay up in the swaying branches overhead.

Another reason to stay up high is that, as always, the repertoire of brutal assassinations has been expanded. One of the new weapons we’ll get to play with is the rope-dart, an old Chinese invention that you may have seen used by Hit-Girl in 2010’s Kick-Ass.

We were shown this being used on an unsuspecting patrolman below, giving a lovely hanging execution and using the body of Connor’s hapless victim’s as a handy counterweight to descend from the treetops. Once he’s down on the ground, Connor will automatically crouch if there’s foliage nearby. Forests and Mohawk villages tend to have a considerably more sparse population than the bustling streets of Rome or Venice, so blending into passers-by or hiring nearby hookers isn’t really an option.

For those who love the whole sci-fi feel of the modern-day concept, the graphical design has been ramped up to be more in keeping with the Animus concept. The frustrating glitchy fog obscuring buildings at a boundary in the earlier games has been replaced with a much more dramatic shattering polygon effect as you approach an out-of-bounds area.

On low health, the traditional red mist and desaturation is gone. Instead, you get a digital interference effect. The large mission overlay screens will be familiar to all who’ve played an Assassin’s Creed game in the past and the inventory menus have been much better integrated into the game’s look and feel than Revelations’ awful dual radial menus.

I’m really looking forward to this one. Fingers crossed it won’t have any towers that need defence.