14 DAY TRIAL // Ubisoft has gone in depth about its upcoming Assassin's Creed Unity experience and how it's been reinventing the core pillars of the series so far, including the freerunning, the stealth, or the combat.
Assassin's Creed Unity was confirmed earlier this year but only this week, at E3 2014, did the new action adventure experience receive a proper gameplay demonstration, confirming its four-player cooperative mode and the improved visuals and mechanics.
Now, on the UbiBlog, Ubisoft has shared some more info about Unity and how the team decided to use the power of the PC, PS4, and Xbox One to reinvent the whole basic mechanics of the franchise, in order to address some underlying problems with the series.
"Because of these new-gen consoles, this is the first time that we can fundamentally change a lot of the core mechanics and a lot of the stuff under the hood in terms of engine, game mechanics and actual game structure," Creative Director Alex Amancio said. "So this is what Unity is. It’s not a reboot. It is a reinvention of Assassin’s Creed for this next generation."
The first thing that was overhauled was the parkour system, which served to differentiate Assassin's Creed from many other franchises at the beginning.
While climbing on top of buildings or running on their rooftops is still possible, the descent from them will no longer be tied to context-sensitive things like leaps of faith.
"We wanted to avoid having haystacks all over the place and doing that special move all the time," Senior Producer Vincent Pontbriand added. "Controlled descent is more exciting. It also allows you to do things that are different each time. This also adds to the sense of joy of being free and doing whatever you want."
The combat and stealth options have also been refined extensively. Unity protagonist Arno has a new stealth stance that features some radical changes, according to Ubisoft, but they haven't been detailed just yet. Enemies will also react in different ways when spotting players and there are going to be new sneaking around options.
When players do get spotted or engage in fights, they'll encounter a slightly tougher combat system, so that they're challenged but still live out the fantasy of being a deadly assassin.
"We actually made combat a little bit harder than before," Pontbriand said. "The Assassin is still a very, very strong fighter. He can easily dispatch an individual or a couple of guards or enemies. But we also wanted the game to be a little bit more realistic."
You can expect to hear much more of Assassin's Creed Unity as we get closer to its October release on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.