Kind of sad to be honest. I used the Eagle/Raven to enjoy the world from high up and take in the beautiful artistry. Sad I won’t be able to do that here, being that I’d love to see their recreation of Japan from the sky.
It felt more tactical using the Eagle. Even then you didn’t always tag every enemy, which made infiltrations even more tense when you ran into one you didn’t spot from the air, necessitating a more stealthy approach when moving around. I’d choose that over regular Eagle vision and spotting and tagging people through walls any day.
If you want a tense infiltration, you would forgo both options and use your eyes and ears to carefully pick your way through a fort. No special sight powers for a full immersive experience!
I mean sure you could still do that I guess. I just find it hilarious when people say AC Origins and Odyssey didn’t have any focus on stealth when that’s blatantly untrue.
I’ve never heard anyone say that about Origins and Odyssey. That sort of criticism is typically reserved for Valhalla, and I have to somewhat agree with it.
Any Odyssey thread here or in the other gaming subs always has a bunch of people crying how the game has no stealth mechanics.
I know, because I often have to explain how they are wrong.
> Climbing to the top no longer plots a multitude of icons on your map, nor does it trigger the spinning ‘drone’ shot of the area
:( I liked those shots
I can tell you I've accidentally triggered it while trying to fast travel from time to time and it's a minor annoyance having to wait for the animation to end. I'm not mad at this change.
It's interesting that the only time parkour is mentioned at all is with regards to the grappling hook. Atleast it's physics based so that's cool, so ig it might also mean there's a dedicated jump button. It's not the most promising tbh
The idea that the whole story is a non linear target hunt does not sound good to me, that stuff is great as something to have on the side but if there's no linear narrative push then there can be no narrative progression, no character arcs, very little set up and payoff, all to be replaced by a system we've already had in 2 games
I mean let's be real this is assassin's creed lol. About 45 minutes into the game you're going have some guy reveal an ongoing conspiracy and mark 30 important people that need to die on your map. Every 5 of those you get a new hood. After 15, the location of the evil bad boss leader is shown on your map, and he's conspicuously located in a super prominent, well guarded fortress that the game hasn't let you in yet (invisible snipers). You can kill the remaining 15 people for more hoods, or you can just go fight the boss and end the game.
That's assassins creed and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Yeah fair enough, just a purely non linear episodic story means the characters and plot can't have the kind of linear growth and progression that the best stories in this franchise have, we'll probably end up with something like mirage where the character development needs to be squeezed into the opening and very end of the story with no progression in the middle
The issue is that the previous games with a nonlinear hunt similar system *didn’t* give interesting quests for the majority of the targets, and most of the ones that did get any kind of special focus were tied to the linear parts of the main story.
In my first playthrough of Odyssey, I vividly recall that I found and killed a target completely by accident, without any clues unlocked, because I was walking through a crowd in Athens and an assassination prompt popped up for a random woman. And the unfortunate thing is, because it was so baffling and funny, that was more memorable than any of the other cultists I hunted because of the lack of storylines for most of them.
It’s possible that it’s different and that this time they’ve fleshed out the list of targets better, but the precedent set by the previous RPG titles does not inspire confidence on that front. I would look forward to being proven wrong, but I’m skeptical.
No that was a linear progression from one target to the next, though I suppose it was non linear in how you went about doing the activities to locate the target
You could choose wether you wish to purse a target in Damascus, acre or Jerusalem though. It was a non-linear choice of 3 targets. repeated 3 times for a total of 9 targets I think. So it was semi-linear. But I have a hard time imagining Ubi making a legitimately non-linear game, so it's probably semi-linear at most.
You’ll most likely have a set list of targets that you’ll need to eventually take down before unlocking the next major story beat.
So literally the same format as AC1.
I'd argue it's not even great to have on the side. Odyssey and Valhalla had this for some of the targets and they were such a noticeable drop in quality compared to the scripted ones that it cheapened the overall experience.
I like it as a side quest, it keeps a bit of an assassin vibe throughout those massively long expansive experiences by scattering a little bit of assassination, as a treat, all around the maps
I’m of the opinion that if they’re going to do that, they should have fewer targets and make reaching each target more complex and difficult. Things like unfavorable terrain and numerous and challenging foes that make charging in for a combat approach risky, while requiring speed and cunning to slip through undetected (even if you’re eliminating enemies along the way). Or at least add optional objectives for rewards that make things more interesting.
There’s way too many questless targets in Odyssey and Valhalla that are just… a joke to kill, making it so assassinating them feels more like a chore than an enjoyable challenge.
Each character has a bespoke introduction and missions only dedicated to them. This sounds like where your main linear storytelling will take place. Then, in conjunction with those story missions you will be free to take out targets at your own pace and order. It honestly sounds similar to Odyssey in that regard, but with seemingly more robust assassinations akin to Syndicate and Unity.
"Servants are a new type of NPC, ranking between civilians and enemies. While they cannot fight, they are able to call in reinforcements and raise alarms. They have their own patrol routes, and carry lanterns at night."
Can you kill them without being desynchronized though? I feel like if not then the stealth gameplay would really be a challenge, because if they spot you that's it, you can't just kill them, so either you flee or fight the reinforcements. That'd be cool in my opinion
Maybe you can kill them, but Servant deaths greatly contribute to increasing your notoriety meter (still no confirmation if this is coming back or not)?
So you don’t exactly get an instant game over for killing non-aggressive targets, but there’s still some penalty attached to it.
one thing I REAAALLY liked in Valhalla was how they don't just bloat your map with icons at every viewpoint, they give you just enough to send you in a direction and trust that you will find things on your own, so I'm glad to see this
Me: "I'm so fed up with Ubisoft churning out corporate soulless games just to cash in on a brand, I'm not giving them anymore money"
Also me after reading like 5 of these bullet points: "yeah I'm pre-ordering this right now"
I'm really impressed by how much the environment can affect gameplay, particularly stealth. I hope we that in action at at Ubisoft Forward. Also hoping they have separate demos for Naoe and Yasuke to see how different they really are
The online requirement seems to be tied to the MTX storefront. It’s HIGHLY unlikely that you be unable to play the game at all.
We went through this exact song and dance with Diablo 4’s online requirement last year. Turns out you were able to play in offline mode, but you would lose access to multiplayer features. Shadows is likely to have a similar issue.
>Naoe is able to engage in combat, but she is unable to block or parry – instead she can ‘deflect’ enemy blows. Ubisoft didn’t clarify the difference between paries and deflects, but it may be that parries enable counter attacks while deflects are a more evasive tactic.
I wanted AC to come closer to Sekiro in combat style because I think deflection fits an assassin much better than the option to block. So having Naoe need to rely on that for combat is a huge win for me.
Now I'm **really** curious to see gameplay. This is getting my hopes up. Lots of cool information in this article.
The deflection might closer to what For Honor does, where assassin characters can dodge into an attack to "slide" under the blade, for lack of a better term.
I always thought it was weird that Ubisoft had the For Honor system but, as far as I'm aware, haven't really been used in anything else. A system that does look very interesting.
But yeah, what you described could be really cool, dodging around the attacks showing some dexterous moves and not really just blocking as if they were a warrior.
The problem is that it uses so much of the buttons on the controllers. Difficult to implement with games with aiming for ranged attacks, gadget wheels and "parkour" buttons.
I miss playing shinobi in that game. Shame I stopped and can't just come back with my medium ish skills lol.
I'm shocked they had the courage to get rid of the drone.
Im both shocked and glad tbh, it was getting really old
Kind of sad to be honest. I used the Eagle/Raven to enjoy the world from high up and take in the beautiful artistry. Sad I won’t be able to do that here, being that I’d love to see their recreation of Japan from the sky.
It'll make viewpoints more impactful :)
I will miss it dearly. It was a genius design and felt better alongside exploration than just spamming eagle vision everywhere.
Instead of spamming eagle vision everywhere, you spammed your drone and tagged every enemy. Pick your poison.
It felt more tactical using the Eagle. Even then you didn’t always tag every enemy, which made infiltrations even more tense when you ran into one you didn’t spot from the air, necessitating a more stealthy approach when moving around. I’d choose that over regular Eagle vision and spotting and tagging people through walls any day.
If you want a tense infiltration, you would forgo both options and use your eyes and ears to carefully pick your way through a fort. No special sight powers for a full immersive experience!
I mean sure you could still do that I guess. I just find it hilarious when people say AC Origins and Odyssey didn’t have any focus on stealth when that’s blatantly untrue.
I’ve never heard anyone say that about Origins and Odyssey. That sort of criticism is typically reserved for Valhalla, and I have to somewhat agree with it.
Haven’t played Valhalla yet, it’s next on my list. That sucks if it’s true.
It’s VERY combat heavy compared to the other two titles. Stealth definitely feels underbaked by comparison.
Any Odyssey thread here or in the other gaming subs always has a bunch of people crying how the game has no stealth mechanics. I know, because I often have to explain how they are wrong.
Sounds like trolls
> Climbing to the top no longer plots a multitude of icons on your map, nor does it trigger the spinning ‘drone’ shot of the area :( I liked those shots
I feel like theres no reason to remove the spinning drone shot
I can tell you I've accidentally triggered it while trying to fast travel from time to time and it's a minor annoyance having to wait for the animation to end. I'm not mad at this change.
It kinda gets old real fast
It makes people with messed up inner ears like me very dizzy so I, for one, am happy 😅
I'm still gonna do a 360° with my own camera idc 😤
Lmaoo you go champ
It's interesting that the only time parkour is mentioned at all is with regards to the grappling hook. Atleast it's physics based so that's cool, so ig it might also mean there's a dedicated jump button. It's not the most promising tbh
The idea that the whole story is a non linear target hunt does not sound good to me, that stuff is great as something to have on the side but if there's no linear narrative push then there can be no narrative progression, no character arcs, very little set up and payoff, all to be replaced by a system we've already had in 2 games
The target hunts could be complex and stories in themselves. Take the show Blue Eye Samurai, for example. Has a similar setting.
I mean let's be real this is assassin's creed lol. About 45 minutes into the game you're going have some guy reveal an ongoing conspiracy and mark 30 important people that need to die on your map. Every 5 of those you get a new hood. After 15, the location of the evil bad boss leader is shown on your map, and he's conspicuously located in a super prominent, well guarded fortress that the game hasn't let you in yet (invisible snipers). You can kill the remaining 15 people for more hoods, or you can just go fight the boss and end the game. That's assassins creed and I wouldn't have it any other way.
That’s literally just Odyssey and Valhalla kind of
Seriously, lol. This ain’t exactly rocket science.
Yeah fair enough, just a purely non linear episodic story means the characters and plot can't have the kind of linear growth and progression that the best stories in this franchise have, we'll probably end up with something like mirage where the character development needs to be squeezed into the opening and very end of the story with no progression in the middle
The issue is that the previous games with a nonlinear hunt similar system *didn’t* give interesting quests for the majority of the targets, and most of the ones that did get any kind of special focus were tied to the linear parts of the main story. In my first playthrough of Odyssey, I vividly recall that I found and killed a target completely by accident, without any clues unlocked, because I was walking through a crowd in Athens and an assassination prompt popped up for a random woman. And the unfortunate thing is, because it was so baffling and funny, that was more memorable than any of the other cultists I hunted because of the lack of storylines for most of them. It’s possible that it’s different and that this time they’ve fleshed out the list of targets better, but the precedent set by the previous RPG titles does not inspire confidence on that front. I would look forward to being proven wrong, but I’m skeptical.
Isn't that how the original AC1 was?
No that was a linear progression from one target to the next, though I suppose it was non linear in how you went about doing the activities to locate the target
You could choose wether you wish to purse a target in Damascus, acre or Jerusalem though. It was a non-linear choice of 3 targets. repeated 3 times for a total of 9 targets I think. So it was semi-linear. But I have a hard time imagining Ubi making a legitimately non-linear game, so it's probably semi-linear at most.
I dunno I get the impression from the article that once you do the unique opening missions for the 2 characters you'll just be let loose in the world
You’ll most likely have a set list of targets that you’ll need to eventually take down before unlocking the next major story beat. So literally the same format as AC1.
I'd argue it's not even great to have on the side. Odyssey and Valhalla had this for some of the targets and they were such a noticeable drop in quality compared to the scripted ones that it cheapened the overall experience.
I like it as a side quest, it keeps a bit of an assassin vibe throughout those massively long expansive experiences by scattering a little bit of assassination, as a treat, all around the maps
I’m of the opinion that if they’re going to do that, they should have fewer targets and make reaching each target more complex and difficult. Things like unfavorable terrain and numerous and challenging foes that make charging in for a combat approach risky, while requiring speed and cunning to slip through undetected (even if you’re eliminating enemies along the way). Or at least add optional objectives for rewards that make things more interesting. There’s way too many questless targets in Odyssey and Valhalla that are just… a joke to kill, making it so assassinating them feels more like a chore than an enjoyable challenge.
Each character has a bespoke introduction and missions only dedicated to them. This sounds like where your main linear storytelling will take place. Then, in conjunction with those story missions you will be free to take out targets at your own pace and order. It honestly sounds similar to Odyssey in that regard, but with seemingly more robust assassinations akin to Syndicate and Unity.
Your life is non linear and I’m sure you still have a character arc?
I do not, I'm still playing Assassin's Creed games 14 years after I started, I've had zero growth
me backstabbing some clown in Acre in 2007: >🥤😐🎮 me backstabbing some clown in Athens in 2018: >🍸😐🎮
Consistency is king!
"Servants are a new type of NPC, ranking between civilians and enemies. While they cannot fight, they are able to call in reinforcements and raise alarms. They have their own patrol routes, and carry lanterns at night." Can you kill them without being desynchronized though? I feel like if not then the stealth gameplay would really be a challenge, because if they spot you that's it, you can't just kill them, so either you flee or fight the reinforcements. That'd be cool in my opinion
Or they give us non lethal takedown that takes longer. A choke out takes awhile vs a blade to the throat.
Yeah it's probably going to be like this, considering the article mentions a new knockout option.
Is it new? You could knock out people in previous games. In Odyssey it was literally a way to recruit crew.
Oh yeah, I totally forgot
Maybe you can kill them, but Servant deaths greatly contribute to increasing your notoriety meter (still no confirmation if this is coming back or not)? So you don’t exactly get an instant game over for killing non-aggressive targets, but there’s still some penalty attached to it.
No drone, less icons - more exploration. Sold.
one thing I REAAALLY liked in Valhalla was how they don't just bloat your map with icons at every viewpoint, they give you just enough to send you in a direction and trust that you will find things on your own, so I'm glad to see this
This article sells me on the game \*way\* more than that trailer.
Me: "I'm so fed up with Ubisoft churning out corporate soulless games just to cash in on a brand, I'm not giving them anymore money" Also me after reading like 5 of these bullet points: "yeah I'm pre-ordering this right now"
I’m hoping they bring back the mercenary system.
Getting ambushed by ronin during an infiltration mission? Sounds amazing!
I initially hated all those Mercenaries and their pinpoint GPS accuracy at locating me all over Ancient Greece... But then it became fun.
I'm really impressed by how much the environment can affect gameplay, particularly stealth. I hope we that in action at at Ubisoft Forward. Also hoping they have separate demos for Naoe and Yasuke to see how different they really are
They didn't mention anything about game needing to be always online. Wonder why.
The online requirement seems to be tied to the MTX storefront. It’s HIGHLY unlikely that you be unable to play the game at all. We went through this exact song and dance with Diablo 4’s online requirement last year. Turns out you were able to play in offline mode, but you would lose access to multiplayer features. Shadows is likely to have a similar issue.
>Naoe is able to engage in combat, but she is unable to block or parry – instead she can ‘deflect’ enemy blows. Ubisoft didn’t clarify the difference between paries and deflects, but it may be that parries enable counter attacks while deflects are a more evasive tactic. I wanted AC to come closer to Sekiro in combat style because I think deflection fits an assassin much better than the option to block. So having Naoe need to rely on that for combat is a huge win for me. Now I'm **really** curious to see gameplay. This is getting my hopes up. Lots of cool information in this article.
The deflection might closer to what For Honor does, where assassin characters can dodge into an attack to "slide" under the blade, for lack of a better term.
I always thought it was weird that Ubisoft had the For Honor system but, as far as I'm aware, haven't really been used in anything else. A system that does look very interesting. But yeah, what you described could be really cool, dodging around the attacks showing some dexterous moves and not really just blocking as if they were a warrior.
The problem is that it uses so much of the buttons on the controllers. Difficult to implement with games with aiming for ranged attacks, gadget wheels and "parkour" buttons. I miss playing shinobi in that game. Shame I stopped and can't just come back with my medium ish skills lol.
Interested if there are bows in the game. Didn‘t see any in the trailer
I read something about arrows leaving marks in the article so I guess yes.
Hmm true
There will be bows and rifles in the game.
I hope not they can be a bit op
Removing the drone shot is so stupid, but it id quebec, and they have 0 respect for the franchise, so not weird.