ASSASSIN’S CREED IV: BLACK FLAG has just been announced and it won’t be long until we get our hands on Ubisoft’s new adventure under the guise of a new assassin named Edward Kenway.
Hitting selves this year, Oct. 29 for the U.S., players will be immersed into the world of the Caribbean during 1715, a time period where pirates ruled the seas of the New World.
Edward Kenway is a rebel pirate assassin who is feared and respected throughout the seas and has even garnered the respect of Blackbeard himself. Father of Haytham and grandfather to Connor, the protagonist of ASSASSIN’S CREED III. Ubisoft has come to call this lineage the “Kenway Saga.”
A mix of naval and land-based combat, BLACK FLAG will allow players to visit 50 different islands that will make up the Caribbean. What players will encounter will vary island to island, some islands could be wilderness jungles while others may be developed cities like Havana.
Ubisoft has ambitious plans for this project, as it has for all of it’s Assassin’s games, and aims to make BLACK FLAG more of a seamless experience where players can be fighting on a ship one minute, then before you know it you dive into the water and are swimming to an island. They want to give players this experience uninterrupted by load times and segments: just one fluid experience.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvJcxrAj49Y[/youtube]
After watching the trailer I’m more excited about this project than I was when I first heard about it. What the Assassin’s games have always brought to the table is ambition and interesting settings. Those two qualities have always got me excited for the Assassin’s games but after ASSASSIN’S CREED III I’m more skeptical about Ubisoft’s capability to deliver on their ambitious projects.
ASSASSIN’S CREED III had so much potential, was stunning and had everything going for it, it looked like an easy candidate for game of the year, but it was dull and lacked depth in my opinion. Connor was boring and lacked the charisma that ASSASSIN’S CREED II’s Ezio charmed players with, he was a step backwards in terms of character quality. Its other flaw was that the gameplay was redundant and too linear to really keep your interest for 30 plus hours.
In short it was a disappointment.
It seems that Ubisoft is addressing those issues in BLACK FLAG. Edward is rough around the edges, he’s an outlaw but also an assassin for justice, he likes the ladies and is set in a time frame fairly untouched by the video game realm. They are taking a darker, griddier approach to the pirate culture we’ve come to know from Hollywood and are trying to create a dynamic world that gives players more ways to decide how Edward’s story unfolds.
It has all the the makings of an amazing game but we haven’t seen any gameplay yet – just a trailer. That leaves me skeptical – ASSASSIN’S CREED III had the exact same effect on me and in the end it couldn’t deliver what I wanted.
ASSASSIN’S CREED IV: BLACK FLAG will be available for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U, PC and next generation consoles.
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