With the onslaught of games released on a yearly basis without fail (Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, Forza), there’s been a lack of any real revolution in the gaming space among those titles.
The latest instalment in the Assassin’s franchise has been widely regarded as an excellent game, and while we really enjoyed it, there was something underwhelming about it. Something that didn’t quite feel next-gen.
We’ve got a few ideas as to how to reboot the franchise and go in a direction that will really excite fans.
Each year, we see a new Assassin’s Creed game hit shelves (and digital marketplaces), and while it’s not horrible to have a release in the franchise, it shouldn’t always be a major one. Titles like Brotherhood and Revelations do a lot to temper the gaming community’s thirst for new games but keep the yearn for a real sequel nice and high. Between Assassin’s Creed II and III, two games came out, did remarkably well, and the third in the franchise was widely regarded as the return to the franchise. That’s what gamers want.
The Assassin’s Creed universe is based around reliving some of history’s biggest moments, even though the characters within them are sometimes fictional. It would be possible to do the same thing in the past by going forward in time to, say, 2500, and going back in the Animus to the year 2400, for example. It would give Ubisoft an excuse to keep the story plausible, not to mention be able to write Earth’s future story without the guise of a Tom Clancy title.
Plus, how badass would it be for the developers to create an Assassin’s Creed game where historians don’t tear it down for not getting everything exactly right?
Climbing buildings and reaching their rooftops for that classic eagle eye’s view is great, but Ubisoft should switch things up a bit and introduce new mechanics, too. Climbing could be a facet of the game – a major one even – but it shouldn’t be the only thing. Assassin’s Creed III introduced ship battles and muskets, and that should really just be the tip of the iceberg. Ubisoft has such creative teams that they could be harnessing to deliver new gameplay that become mainstays in the franchise.
Assassin’s Creed is far from dead, and we love the franchise as much as the next gamer. But seeing the way Call of Duty is going with such incremental changes year after year, we can’t help but worry about the fate of the Assassin’s franchise if it follows suit. The team at Ubisoft has tons of talent, and their combined experience puts almost everyone in the industry to shame. However, they really need to be able to see it and understand that resting on its laurels is not the way to continue making games, no matter how successful they may be.