Assassin's Creed

I also love how Rogue not only outright ignores Connor's existance, aside from a throwaway comment the he had a shitty end to his shitty life, actively retcons important background stuff about his character (namely, it had Native American Assassins prior to Connor).

edited 17th May '15 10:56:51 AM by TheAirman

Has anyone seen that Photoshopped image where Syndicate's cover art has been changed to "Assassin's Creed: U WOT M8?"

http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/963827-u-wot-m8

It's a better title than Syndicate for sure. You know I wish they kept VICTORY as the title.

I wonder if The Frye Twins are Jewish? Ubisoft at least likes, in theory, a little diversity and Victorian London was a time where you had a lot of immigration of poor Jews to London. Some famous types became crime bosses (which Dickens made into Fagin, an unfortunate stereotype that he later tried to correct, halfheartedly in Our Mutual Friend). Besides, let's not forget that the game is set in 1868, one year after a certain German immigrant published Das Kapital Part 1 while studying in the Reading Room of the British Museum.

edited 17th May '15 2:37:19 AM by JulianLapostat

I rather like Syndicate. It fits with the game's in-universe goal of unifying the various gangs into one organization. Victory has more of a "Last game of the series" feel, for me.

Why would whiteboy gamers complain about Connor being Indian when he's half white and we previously had a half Arab character and a dark Italian one?

I'm going to say it's a vocal minority. Even then, not really all that vocal. Most of the complaints I've seen about Connor are that he's stoic to the point of being boring and flat. Which I personally disagree with (if you look through the thread I'm sure you can find various essays I've written about how good ACIII is), but there you go.

As for the theory that Black Flag, Unity, and Rogue have white protagonists because people whined about Connor being Native...I respectfully disagree. Even if the racist minority was more vocal about their displeasure at having a non-white protagonist, ACIII is the bestselling game in the series. Ubisoft can afford to ignore the crazy fringe when a game sells over 12 million copies.

First of all, when I say whiteboy gamers I don't mean actual gamers or Ubisoft developers but rather the shareholders and marketing people who have a bigger say than we think on the product.

The thing is Ubisoft have given a good illusion of being more diverse than they really are. You had Altair in AC 1 but his face is that of Desmond, he has an American accent and Malik and Al Mualim are more Arab-looking and Arab-sounding than him (to say nothing of the Saracen Templars). It's essentially the Disney's Aladdin trick (the hero and heroine look way less Arab than everybody else in the cartoon). I don't want to sound too bitter, AC 1 is a great game even with that limitation but there is that manipulation there.

Connor was much different than Altair because he was recognizably and visibly a minority (yes he's half-white but that didn't matter to the Mohawk tribe he grew up in), he spoke English in a way that was different from all the white characters in that game and most gamers today (hence the whole Connor is Dull and Stoic thing). But even then he has to share three pointless sequences with Haytham, all of them linear missions and then the final half of the game where it becomes this father and son story is also linear story sequences. Add that to Forsaken and ROGUE (made for Haytham man-crushers) and AC 3 is Haytham's story with Connor as a Satellite Character. So Connor doesn't even have a full game of his own partly because Ubisoft were a little timid (as the Market Analysis video in Black Flag acknowledged). Then we get Shao Jun and that Arbaaz Mir guy in Chronicles and as a result, you have them going squarely to a white-centric narrative.

UNITY is even worse, mostly by omission. The historical inaccuracies, the Napoleon love-fest clashes strongly with Assassins Creed Initiates and Eseosa's Codex. Why does Arno support Napoleon (in the coda of UNITY set years after Dead Kings and in 1808) when Napoleon killed fellow Assassin Toussaint Louverture? So its like Eseosa's story isn't getting say a single acknowledgement in UNITY.

There's not really anything new, but eh.

edited 18th May '15 11:15:02 AM by rmctagg09

So this was hidden in Black Flag's files.

The Abstergo Employee Handbook

Part 1

Part 2

Interesting stuff.

Syndicate's tie-in novel was just announced. It's called Assassin's Creed: Underworld, and is from the point-of-view of Henry Green, Jacob and Evie's mentor, and leader of the London Assassins.

So...he's not going to survive the game?

Mostly like.

He had a 90% chance of dying anyway because he's nonwhite, but this almost definitely seals his fate.

This has more info

It would appear that it'll be at least partially a prequel.

edited 9th Jun '15 2:11:22 PM by rmctagg09

I think it might've been mentor as in Mentor, the Assassin title, not mentor as in The Obi-Wan.

Still like a 90% chance of dying.

Well, if we want to consider the actual odds... :P

• Assassin's Creed
  • Al Mualim — evil; final boss, so...dead
• Assassin's Creed II — Not sure who to count for this one. Uncle Mario, maybe? Sure, let's go with that.
  • Mario Auditore — good; survives, but dies in the sequel
• Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood — Again, not sure who counts here. Probably...
  • Niccolò Machiavelli — good; survives, and is replaced by Ezio near the end of the game
• Assassin's Creed: Revelations
  • Ezio Auditore — good; the player character; survives
• Assassin's Creed III
  • Achilles — good; dies of old age
• Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
  • Ah Tabai — good; survives
• Assassin's Creed: Unity — Couple options here, so I guess I'll list both.
  • Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau — good, I suppose; assassinated by Belleq
  • Pierre Belleq — not "evil" per se, but definitely goes bad; dead at Arno's hand

I'll confess to not having played Liberation, Freedom Cry, Rogue, or China yet, so I don't know the deals there, but mentors in this series actually seem to have a slight tendency to survive as long as they're not the bad guy. Mario survives his tenure as mentor, only dying once Ezio no longer needs him, Achilles is basically Yoda, and Mirabeau is from Unity, which is pretty much an outlier in every possible way.

I'd call it even odds until we know more about the twins' character arc.

But the protagonists of the books, more often then not, end up dead.

Elise, Edward, Haythem, and so on. It should be noted I'm talking about the newer ones that take on a narrative of their own instead of retreating the game beat for beat.

I would argue that Haytham and Edward shouldn't count. Haytham is the game's villain, so of course he's going to die during the game. As for Edward, his death (if I'm not mistaken) actually takes place in the ACIII tie-in novel, not the game or novel he's actually the star of.

So your argument is balanced on a pattern of one instance, which is Unity, which again I think we can all agree is an outlier in pretty much every way.

Not saying he's definitely going to survive, but I don't think being the novel's POV character is indicative of anything.

I don't see why it shouldn't count. The criteria is characters who die as part of the story (rather than dying of screen like Connor presumably does). Edward and Haythem are both protagonists of the novels and die as part of the plot of their installment(s). Edward dies inbetween IV and III, but it still sets the stage for III to even happen. And Haythem dies during III, even if he is the main villain. The Rodrigo Borgia was the main villain of AC 2 and his death is outright defied so the main villain's death or survival is entirely up in the air.

Unity and Forsaken also have a similar trend in that it follows the main protagonist of the respective game (AC 3; Connor and Unity; Arno) finding and reading the journal of another important character of the game (Haythem and Elise) and experiencing their own adventure, perspective, and opinions on different events which is then followed by the respective main character's reaction to this.

There is a clear trend with this books and, if anything, Black Flag's book is the outlier.

edited 10th Jun '15 12:59:00 AM by InkDagger

Oh yeah, I forgot to say what happens in Unity in here for the books for where I last stopped. The main reason I didn't is because it overall aligned with the game well enough. For the time Elise was away, first she was kept in hiding for a while and going crazy from that. She ultimately decided to sneak out upon believing there was any allies left, which lead to her reunion with Arno. It's about that point when they were reunited and all she really came to forgive him for things, with her having been bitter for some time and not wanting to admit at the same time she did miss him. Blah blah blah, their team ups, going to the assassins (her keeping track of the tiles and such was just her doing that to be an ass), the fight, etc. One thing to book skips over since Elise summarizes it, the entire part that ended in the blimp ride. Elise really didn't want to jot down what all happened there. Their continued pursuit, etc. Oh and her feelings about shooting what's his face in the mouth. She actually is shocked at herself for it at the same time and feels like more that side of her is something she shifts into at times and less control over. Really, the entire thing portrays her fiery elements as part of her and really her Fatal Flaw given the number of things it got her wrapped up in. Blah blah blah, was last reading the final part with the final boss fight, which Arno wrote in there what happened and his reactions, regrets, etc. There is a bit more, I just forgot to finish it since I had other things to take care of.

edited 10th Jun '15 7:01:52 AM by Prime_of_Perfection

Highlights:

• Jacob and Evie are meant to represent the two most common visions of the English in media.
• You can hijack carriages mid-ride.

"Two most common views of the English".

So a likely lad bruiser "Wotcher Guv'nor" who likely has a Gukri for being part of the Gurkha Regiment, which implies he was an officer, which runs COMPLETELY COUNTER TO THE SOCIAL ACCENT.

And she's the Femme fatale, Bella from Supernatural, Lara Croft expy.

Wow.

The games really are calcifying now. Not exploring new ways of doing things - where's the social side, the mingling in parties and doing the whole Lizzie Bennet / Courtly thing and making the ability to BLEND into that a new way of playing?

That said, i'm glad they've got a good mix of enemies and that we seem to have more of a choice. And yes, the fighting looks good. But I feel we're getting a "Dishonoured" style vision of Lahn DAAAAHN versus what they've done previously with the other games that gave us some beautiful city scapes.

And the gang warfare thing still doesn't sit quite well. Having industrial magnates and maybe work unions etc would be a better fit. Then you could have Isembard Kingdom Brunel involved as the Assassin designer / patron and Disrali.

Will wait out for more details but I think they're going for style over substance.

Taking bets on the Sister dying halfway through to motivate the brother, with her only being playable during "key story missions" to get us to "bond with her".

I do like his hat though. A bowler would be better.

Black Flag was their last real game. Rogue and Unity is user-generated content. S'all.

Having not watched the video, so I can't comment on anything, but Couldn't he have a Gukri because either the Assassins gave him one or he looted it from a guy he killed?

Additional:

Coarse and brash and the Stiff upper lip types, would be my guess.

edited 11th Jun '15 7:32:44 AM by GethKnight