Live Magazine September 2014 Volume 9/2014 | Page 46

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ASSASSIN’S CREED: UNITY
For those times when you just need
to do some stabbing, Ubisoft is getting ready to deliver our yearly dose
of Assassin’s Creed. So what will
Unity bring to the table on release in
October? Let’s take a look.
Fans and critics argued at length
about the possible location for t his
instalment, with the final result being Paris, France. You play as Arno
Dorian, a man who is looking to redeem himself for his part in the death
of his father. Some of his ancestors
were assassins and he inevitably
finds himself drawn to join the order,
even though he does not agree with
their entire philosophy. This all takes
place just before the French Revolution, a rich historical era with plenty
of spots to slot the assassin order
right in. Arno is promised to be considerably wittier than his predecessors, though I’d only class Edward
Kenway as having any sense of fun
at all, so that’s not exactly big competition.
But we all know how the story goes
by now: dangerous man becomes
assassin, kills a bunch of people,
gets betrayed, completely derails society by killing some historical figure
only for the Templars to eventually
own the world again in the modern
day.
Where Unity will hopefully set itself

apart is by tweaking the mechanics. Up until now, Assassin’s Creed
games have been almost strictly single player affairs. A multiplayer mode
was introduced in Brotherhood and
continued through the following
games but that wasn’t why people
picked up the game. However, since
the cooperative play in the Wolfpack
training mode for Assassin’s Creed
III was so well received, players will
have the option of teaming up with
others to complete mission’s ingame in Unity for the first time.
Loners rejoice, though, because you
don’t have to do this. The co-op missions aren’t going to be mandatory.
You can even complete them solo
if you want to. I’m glad the option
is open just in case. Unfortunately,
the big disappointment of the co-op
mode (just in case you missed the
online furore) is that there won’t be
a playable female assassin. On the
one hand, it makes sense within the
mode because you are meant to be
playing as Arno even in this mode

games and as playable characters
in multiplayer matches. It kind of
seems like they dropped the ball a
bit here.
Let’s not get bogged down here.
There are plenty of things to be excited about. This is the first entirely
next-gen Assassin’s Creed title
and it really takes advantage of the
power. The game map of Paris has
been leaked and it is HUGE. You
want crowds? How does a crowd
of 30,000 people sound? Plenty
of people to hide amongst. Eagle
vision does even more than tagging targets, as it did in Black Flag.
Now you’ll be able to tell how many
guards are in a building. Those
pesky stalking missions have been
reworked so that you don’t desynchronise immediately if you’re
caught; it simply sends you on a different path to possible completion.
And perhaps the greatest change
of all: a dedicated crouch mode. No
more will you have to gingerly slide
along a wall with no ability to pop up

“THIS IS THE FIRST ENTIRELY NEXT-GEN
ASSASSIN’S CREED TITLE AND IT REALLY
TAKES ADVANTAGE OF THE POWER.”
but on the other hand, it’s just a bit of
a letdown. Female assassins have
been featured as NPCs in previous

from behind a bench. There are no
words to describe how necessary
this feature is.