14 DAY TRIAL // After being officially revealed at the end of last week, Assassin's Creed: Revelations has now received its first batch of details about story, gameplay and how it will fit into the wider Assassin's Creed narrative.
Ubisoft announced Revelations with the bare minimum of details, limiting itself to saying that it will once again feature Ezio Auditore, returning from the second game and the most recent Brotherhood iteration, as well as Altair, the protagonist of the first Assassin's Creed game, and, of course, Desmond, who controls the two characters from the present.
Now, courtesy of a post on the NeoGAF forums, we can check out the first actual details about Revelations, as they appeared in Game Informer magazine.
First up, it seems that the new game is going to be a lot like the movie Inception, as players are going to control Desmond, who is controlling Ezio, who, thanks to special seals that he will find in Constantinople, will be able to control Altair during crucial moments of his life.
Constantinople is going to be split into four "huge" districts, Constantin, Beyazid, Imperial, and Galata, but Ezio is also going to visit Cappadocia.
Speaking of the main character, Ezio is going to be 50 years old in Revelations, but he'll still be able to fight off armies of Templars alongside his own disciples.
For Revelations, he'll also learn a few new tricks, including abilities like bomb crafting, through a special new system, or the new Eagle Sense, which is an evolution of the Eagle Vision from previous games and now shows you patrol paths for guards or other targets, allowing you to go ahead of them and set up bombs or traps.
Ezio can also get around the big city 30% faster, according to Ubisoft, through a special zipline system and a hookblade that can attach to them.
The Borgia towers concept from Brotherhood will return, as Ezio needs to clear out Assassin's Dens, which are patrolled by Templars. Once under his control, Ezio can upgrade nearby buildings, add things like ziplines or make guards neutral to his deeds.
Side missions have been eliminated in Revelations, as Ubisoft has added random encounters that will allow Ezio to engage in different sorts of events as he is traveling through the city.
Desmond, when he isn't controlling Ezio, also has a few new gameplay moments, in the form "narrative-fueled puzzle sequences," where, by manipulating the geometry of the game world, Desmond "seeks to reintegrate the splintered layers of his subconscious."
Multiplayer is going to be improved over the online mode seen in Brotherhood, but, this time around, it is going to have a bigger role in the narrative of the series.
Expect more details about Assassin's Creed: Revelations as we approach the E3 conference next month.