14 DAY TRIAL // Ubisoft confirms that its next major entry in the upcoming Assassin's Creed series, Syndicate, revises the combat mechanics seen in previous iterations, with a smaller emphasis on swords and a bigger one on hidden weapons that can be concealed not to attract attention.
Assassin's Creed titles have dealt with a lot of different historical time periods, starting with the Crusades and continuing with the Renaissance, the Golden Age of pirates, as well as the American or French Revolutions.
For the upcoming Syndicate, Ubisoft is taking the action even further, focusing on the industrial revolution and its role in Victorian London.
Syndicate modifies the combat to fit the time period
Besides making all sorts of changes to the franchise's core recipe, Ubisoft Quebec Senior Producer Francois Pelland tells GamesRadar that the new historical setting also had a big impact on the combat.
Previous titles have always focused on swords, even if other elements, like hidden blades, pistols, crossbows, and other such things, have been featured in the arsenal of some playable characters.
Syndicate, on the other hand, dumps swords brandished in plain view for concealed weapons. Protagonists Jacob and Evie Frye both feature items that can be easily hidden, in addition to their trademark blades.
"One thing that we realized right at the start was that we’re past the medieval period, so there could be no more swords. We’ve moved into an age where if there was any kind of brawl on the streets, it was making the headlines. So that’s certainly very different from what we saw only 75 years before this period, with the French Revolution. So we wanted to give the combat a more brutal and visceral feel to it, hence the emphasis on concealed weapons," he explains.
While these are all-new mechanics, the combat system will bring back the multikill multi-finisher from Assassin's Creed 3 so that fans can fight in style against enemies on the streets of London.
Syndicate arrives on PS4 and Xbox One in October and on PC in November.