"Assassin's Creed 4" has just been confirmed from Ubisoft, and it looks like "AC IV" will be the next installment in the series, not "AC III.2."
According to a report from IGN yesterday, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has confirmed an "all-new 'Assassin's Creed' hero, within an all new team and time period [will be] another major leap forward for the franchise."
With the game scheduled to be released sometime during spring of 2014, it looks like this will indeed be the next iteration in the series, which is a saving grace to report.
"Assassin's Creed III" was a very, very good game, and given all of the time and effort members of the development team put into it, they should be praised for the amazing world they created.
However, it is a crucial aspect to note that "AC III" will not have any spinoff sequels coming after it, much like "Assassin's Creed II" did.
It would have been a disaster, and maybe even death of the series, if the industry had to endure another two installments featuring Connor and the American world.
Yes that strategy worked fairly well with "AC II," but there is no way Ubisoft could've gotten away with that this time.
Connor was not exactly a well received protagonist for this series, and some could make the case that he took away from the amazing presentation the rest of this game delivered.
Ezio in the three installments that led up to "Assassin's Creed III" was a viable option to feature in three games. He provided a great amount of grittiness, flash, style and did not need any convincing as to whether or not he was a true assassin.
The blend of all the characteristics that made up Ezio were the sum of a total badass, but with Connor, things just didn't feel natural.
You can't just throw on a cloak, some hidden blades, the "AC" logo and call him an assassin. There was nothing wrong with his back story or any of the early tellings of his childhood. It was simply Connor himself that took away from the game.
One theory is to just plainly say that this game was not as great because it was set in the United States, and the wide open streets of Boston were not as fun versus the closed in, tight streets of Rome, Florence, Venice, Jerusalem and others before it.
The Frontier was nice to look at, but after awhile, fighting off the surprise attacks of wolves was just frustrating and took away from the game. Seriously, those wolves have real bad attitudes.
Everything about "Assassin's Creed III" looked and smelled like an "Assassin's Creed" game, but it failed to deliver on the standard the first four installments set.
If Ubisoft made two or even one spinoff installments with this past game, it would have been utterly annoying and a blatant demonstration of releasing a game just to do so.
But thankfully, proving once again, Ubisoft is a smarter company than that, and they are humble enough to know when is the right time to stop on a certain game.
While they are all the same series, it is not the same with each installment. As painful and costly as this may have been for Ubisoft to say no more with "Assassin's Creed III," it will end up serving the franchise very well in the long run.
Comments