Retrospective: The History of Assassin’s Creed — Part 3

Where’s your hookblade?

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations E3 Trailer

Okay, no, Revelations wasn’t bad. It wasn’t half-bad. It wasn’t the plague, the blight on the name of Assassin’s Creed that many say it was. In fact, it was amazing. It’s job was to tie off the stories of Altair and Ezio and continue the story of Desmond in a proper and satisfying way, and it did that job almost perfectly.

But you have to admit, the game had its fair share of problems. Brotherhood and AC2 had worked hard on building what had become a likable and memorable cast of characters- Machiavelli, Da Vinci, Bartolomeo, Mario, Claudia and others, and with Revelations, Ubisoft decided to go ahead and ditch them all. Sure, it was important to do so to be historically accurate, and because there was such a big time leap between Revelations and Brotherhood (and, of course, Mario was a little busy being dead), but fans who had stuck with the series for the past two years missed those people.

Revelations still had a pretty good cast of characters. It wasn’t nearly as big in size or as memorable as what we had seen in the last two games, but characters like Yusuf, Suleiman and Sofia turned out to be really, really interesting, and we got attached to them as the game progressed. I’m still mad at Ubisoft about Yusuf.

The star of the cast, though, as usual, was Ezio Auditore. Though definitely mellowed and more relaxed compared to the ruthless and ambitious assassin we saw in Brotherhood, Ezio, now a Master Assassin and head of the order, was definitely way more efficient and badass than we could have imagined. Seeing our favourite assassin cope with old age was extremely entertaining and perhaps the main draw of the game.

Altair was also very well handled. While the Middle Eastern assassin from the 11th century barely had a background to himself for him to be called a real character, in Revelations, he got an excellent story just to himself. Told in the span of five mere 10 minute long segments, Altair’s story was tied off perfectly in a very poignant and satisfying moment. The scenes that juxtaposed Altair and Ezio haunt me to this day.

The third main character of the series and the game, though, wasn’t handled very well. We got to see a lot of Desmond in Brotherhood, but that wasn’t the case here. We saw very little of him, and when we did take control of him, it was  in confusing, clunky sections that tried really hard to be Portal.

Even Desmond’s story didn’t progress much, except for one really exciting scene right at the end of the campaign.

But the first person platforming sections that Desmond’s story focused on weren’t even the worst part of the game. The most baffling addition to the game was tower defense. Yes, tower defense in Assassin’s Creed. And no, it wasn’t like the multiplayer in Brotherhood, which seemed out of place but actually worked pretty well. No, tower defense in Assassin’s Creed Revelations absolutely did not work- the camera angles were restrictive, the options were limited, and it just felt contrived and forced.

Bomb making wasn’t so bad, though. Sure, it wasn’t a huge addition, it didn’t change the game a lot, but it was entertaining, and it worked well.

Revelations didn’t make a lot of changes, and most of the ones it did weren’t even for the better. It improved on plenty of stuff- the combat, the brotherhood system, the multiplayer. But it didn’t innovate as much as Brotherhood or AC2 did. The sad part is that it turned out to be a very controversial game, which is what made me say it was more impactful than Brotherhood was.

But the game had a lot of strengths. The story was great, the characters were interesting, Ezio was awesome, and the personal stories of both the old-time assassins were tied off with perfection.

And now, Ezio and Altair and done and dusted. With Assassin’s Creed 3 comes Connor, the all new assassin in the series’ arsenal of trained killers. It sure looks promising. But will the game live up to its hype?

We’ll find out soon enough.

In Part 4 of our series, will will take a look ahead at the looming release of Assassin’s Creed 3 and talk about whether or not it will live up to all the expectations. Stay tuned, and give us your feedback below!