What is it about the craziness in Assassin's Creed?

[Jeivar]

I recently played Black Flag, the only AC game I've tried. And while I enjoyed the whole pirate business all the stuff stapled onto it left me shaking my head in bewilderment. Examples:

*The awesome pirate fun is broken up by momentum-breaking, immersion-killing, boring silent protagonist first-person trips through an office.

*A subplot about a Tomb Raider-esque precursor super civilization that . . . something something.

*An AI . . . thing who needs a human host. Or something.

*Just the whole "genetic memory" thing in general. Honestly. :smallsigh:

I just don't understand why all this is included in a series about a conflict between two ancient secret societies, and stabbing people in various interesting eras. Why does it NEED the ludicrousness? How is anything about it improved by the stuff I just listed? Because it sure as heck doesn't make a new player feel welcome.

[Cikomyr]

Let me get this straight.

You jump into a series, not at the first, second or third, but the FOURTH GAME. And you complain about the entire series' metastory?


Dude. Just want to tell you if you ever play Warcraft 3 --> it's about orcs and humans. The entire series has been about orcs and humans.

[Narkis]

This has to be the worst reason ever to dismiss a complain. Why does it keep cropping up in game discussions? I've lost count of how many conversations go something like "I don't like this thing about that game." "What?! But that other game that came out ten years ago clearly explained that this thing is essential! You mean you haven't followed this series since before it became mainstream? IT'S OBVIOUS YOU'RE NOT A TRUE GAMER. YOUR ARGUEMENT IS INVALID!!!111!!!!"

Next, seriously, Warcraft is your example about false expectations? The same game that started with "Warcraft: Orcs and Humans" and has an Orc and a Human prominently on most games packaging? How can you possibly compare that to Assassin's Creed, the games where you spend a not insignificant portion of your time not as a badass assassin in a historical setting, as the game's packaging and marketing and everything would have you believe, but as Joe Average in random dystopian future #37?

And the less said about the series' plot, the better. I've seen B movies with a better plot. I've read terrible fanfics with a better plot. It's beyond any man's power to describe the "metaplot" to someone and not have it sound completely stupid.

PS: I've played most Assassin's Creed games. Does the fact that I agree with Jeivar make the complain any more valid?

[Zevox]

I haven't played AC4 yet, but having played the rest of the series pretty recently I have a good idea what you're talking about. And frankly, no, it doesn't need to be there. The series would almost certainly be better without it. And from what I understand, that's not a particularly uncommon reaction amongst people who have played the games either. But they've been doing the silly meta-plot since the first game, and given they didn't take the golden opportunity to abandon it that the ending of 3 provided*, it seems the series is going to be stuck with it.

They killed off the person who had been the main character of the meta-plot segments since game 1, Desmond. Or at least appear to have - again, I haven't played AC4, so maybe they brought him back for all I know. Still, it was an opportunity to just end it there and call it complete, and from what you're saying, sounds like they didn't.

[Winthur]

Honestly OP has a point in that the game could have been much more interesting had it just gone with the settings instead of a genetic memory thing. When I played this game, it was a double letdown: Assassin's Creed made me hope for engaging stealth gameplay and planning my assassinations, kinda like Hitman, and the plot was meant to be in an authentic setting. Instead it's a computer simulation that is about walking around a city and navel-gazing at random cutscenes. That last part is done better and more engaging by Legacy of Kain. Not that it warrants making a new thread.


Dude. Just want to tell you if you ever play Warcraft 3 --> it's about orcs and humans. The entire series has been about orcs and humans.

Except when orcs became good all of a sudden and the series shifted into killing off beloved characters and the threat of the undead hordes. And then Admiral Proudmoore turned out to be right.

[Mobius Twist]

There are a couple of ways to look at the whole thing.

From the perspective of a game designer: You can't claim that parts of the game should be less-fun because they're "META PLOT". A game, even a sequel in a long line of sequels, should stand on its own as a fun experience. Every aspect of it should be scrutinized for a continuous quality of "fun," and the flow and pacing of fun should be maintained throughout. This seems to be where the game has failed you, Jeivar.

Setting aside the issues of pacing and engagement, there are certain conceits that come attached with being a sequel to a series of popular games. The narrative devices used to get you playing have been established earlier, the major players in the overarching plot have already been introduced in-depth, and some of the concepts and terminology are being taken for granted.

That's not to say this is the way it must be; surely plenty of stories have given brief reintroductions to previously-introduced characters and themes (I'm thinking of the first four Harry Potter books where every character/term gets a small blurb the first time it's brought back per book). Surely, though, in a medium very heavily gated by money and time involved in development (making video games compared to writing a book) efficiency of storytelling is paramount.

My opinion, having seen LPs of the first two games (where most of the story is introduced and established), followed by playing the fourth? They tried to experiment and messed it up. There was always a pacing issue: the story in the first one flitted back and forth between the "genetic memory" gameplay and the modern-day protagonist dealing with continued conflict between these Templars and Assassins. In the fourth game, rather than giving us a semi-relatable human being to deal with, they gave us a blank slate to project ourselves onto. A new player, without the understanding that Abstergo is always up to something, would look at this video game company they end up working for and shrug "Why should I care about this? Where are my pirates?"

Personally I do have the expectation of learning something about the series of games if I jump into it in the middle. Some games do0 something completely different each time (Far Cry and Final Fantasy are examples of this), but most do not. If there's a plot, I definitely want to follow it to get the full experience out of the game. Lucky for you, Assassin's Creed 4 is a fantastic take on Sid Meier's Pirates! even without an overarching plot. It's one of the rare few games where I felt like getting to 100% completion just for kicks.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Let me get this straight.

You jump into a series, not at the first, second or third, but the FOURTH GAME. And you complain about the entire series' metastory?
This is, however, Assassin's Creed we're talking about. Gonzo conspiracies galore!

And Templars, because Templars.

[Calemyr]

The meta-story in Assassin's Creed is too important to the franchise to abandon, but the focus on it has been sharply reduced. You play a nobody, the modern Assassin/Templar struggle is subtle enough that you need to know who people are to know it's even there, the past Assassin/Templar struggle takes a backseat for the most part to Edward Kenway's personal agenda... the most vital meta-story element of the game is details about the Ancients and the Sages.

I hope they keep going this direction. Assassin's Creed IV was by far the most enjoyable of the franchise to me, because it was more or less about one man and his dreams, not some long-running tribal war or aliens or a really whiny guy with blood from all four corners of creation. Besides, Edward Kenway's imperfect enough and charismatic enough to be enjoyable.

[Jayngfet]

Honestly the metaplot would have been better up til this point if Ubisoft wasn't obviously totally embarrassed about it. Desmonds bit from the beginning of Brotherhood showed promise, but it was never delivered upon. The bits in 3 were even worse, since they just reused Conners animations for Desmond, which means the bits with Ezio became useless. The entire thing was rather obtuse and not nearly as well done as it should have been. Hell, 4 was even worse since what little they have is basically just all reused textures and assets with nothing but clunky minigames.

The problem was even worse given that Ubisoft has always considered those bits just something to tack on after the fact. There was never real effort to integrate them and make them enjoyable.

Now, on new players jumping in on game four: Suck it up. No really, it sounds harsh, but if ten minutes of tacked on material is ruining it that badly for you, I have no real sympathy. It wasn't the best designed thing, but if your issue is you don't understand a story, knowingly coming in this late and totally blind, that's your problem. The earlier games are about five bucks used or on sale, and have been for a while. Heck, most of them come bundled in one convenient package now. Assassin's Creed's inherent structure makes it about an overarching narrative first and foremost.

Now, there are legitimate grievances on that list, particularly the first one, but for the most part I don't really have sympathy for people who join a story halfway through and complain they don't get it.

[AdmiralCheez]

Well, to be fair, some people might just want to play a pirate game. Seen as this is the only recent one that I'm aware of, that kind of limits the choices. If the meta-plot made any kind of sense, or if wasn't insultingly stupid, I would agree that coming in on the sixth or seventh chapter is probably not the wisest choice. But, I also don't think it's fair to make someone play through hours and hours of the Crusades, the Renaissance, more Renaissance, and the American Revolution just to get to a decent pirate game.

[Divayth Fyr]

But, I also don't think it's fair to make someone play through hours and hours of the Crusades, the Renaissance, more Renaissance, and the American Revolution just to get to a decent pirate game.
But is it fair to complain about things that were in the series since the beginning and how the fourth (actually sixth) game in a series doesn't make a new player that welcome?

[Cikomyr]

But is it fair to complain about things that were in the series since the beginning and how the fourth (actually sixth) game in a series doesn't make a new player that welcome?

Black Flag could have, indeed, better integrated the metaplot in its gameplay so as not to feel too alien to newcomers.

But the fault lies in the implementation of the metaplot, not its existence. If Ubisoft just decided to cut off the overall metaplot, I suspect there would be far cries.

[Hiro Protagonest]

You know what the metaplot about modern day should be in Black Flag and any other game after 3? "This guy is descended from assassins but knows none of their skills, let's stick him in the animus for a couple weeks and he'll get decades of training and experience".

[Cikomyr]

You know what the metaplot about modern day should be in Black Flag and any other game after 3? "This guy is descended from assassins but knows none of their skills, let's stick him in the animus for a couple weeks and he'll get decades of training and experience".

Actually, didn't he learned all that in TWO?

[erikun]

I suppose I could possibly give the genetic memory thing a pass, as it is supposed to be the reasoning for allowing respawns and has been with the series since the beginning.

I have no clue about the rest of them, and honestly, it doesn't sound like good game planning. Video games do have a problem with frequently not being well written. However, poor pacing really should not be an issue in games today. I don't care if the other games were just as bad or if they wanted to explain some complicated plot that continues on from other games. If it is extraneous and disruptive in the game, then it doesn't matter where it originally came from.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Actually, didn't he learned all that in TWO?

Well yeah, but 3 was still part of the Desmond plotline. I'm saying that the premise of every game after that should be "let's train a guy in more skills at an accelerated pace", or even "we want to know more about the Templars in this time period". They could even do that with assassins who are already trained to give them more skills (which would be an explanation for why they don't start from a young age like with Ezio and why they choose people such as Edward Kenway).

[Closet_Skeleton]

I just don't understand why all this is included in a series about a conflict between two ancient secret societies, and stabbing people in various interesting eras. Why does it NEED the ludicrousness?

'survived to the present day' is pretty much the trope anyone actually cares about with 'Templar Conspiracies'.

Since apparently nobody actually wanted to make a 'medieval Muslim terrorists' game despite choosing the original Muslim terrorists as a subject.

[KillianHawkeye]

I think they should have just made a pirate game. AC4 came out right on the heels of AC3 (seriously, I haven't seen a triple-A game series release a sequel just one year later in I don't know HOW long), and I'm pretty sure it's because people wanted more naval content. I didn't play AC3, but getting a boat seemed to have been the high point from all I've heard. So they hurried up and released the 4th one which is all MORE BOATS and PIRATES and stuff, because that's what people wanted.

They probably could have just made a new game or a spin-off and just be all pirates all the time and dump all of the assassins and templars plot and people would have been just as happy.

[AdmiralCheez]

But is it fair to complain about things that were in the series since the beginning and how the fourth (actually sixth) game in a series doesn't make a new player that welcome?

If those things are still, after six games, poorly implemented, then yes, I feel it's fair to be able to complain about them. I've played all of them with the exception of Revelations and Liberation, and I still have many complaints about the meta-plot.

Additionally, for a series like Assassin's Creed, with it's many different protagonists and different settings, it has the perfect potential to welcome new players to the series. The greatest fault of the series, I think, is the meta-plot. I don't really think it was necessary to tie all of these different settings together via the Animus. After all, I'm pretty sure most people buy the game to murder their way through history, not to find out where the Ancient Aliens-esque conspiracy plot is going. Or to find out which member of Desmond's family was an assassin at any given point in time. If they had just released the games without the modern-day stuff from the beginning, anyone could jump in at any point in the series, and they wouldn't have a problem. Assassin's Creed would just be a bunch of games about unrelated assassins throughout history.

Instead, what we have is a situation where someone who just wants to play a game about a pirate assassin has to either go play six other games (and not the main game, the interludes between plot arcs), or read up on them, just to understand a silly plot that isn't well-written, wasn't thought out, and has absolutely no impact on the game they actually wanted to play.

[Jayngfet]

To be fair, there's no real reason to care about the meta plot if you're in it for the shenanigans anyway. The whole thing takes about 20 minutes you can skim through tops, out of about 30 hours minimum of pirate stuff.

I mean I'm being harsh, but I didn't care for the black flag metaplot anyway. It was probably the worst implemented here more than anywhere else.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

am I the only one who liked the metaplot? I haven't finished Revelations yet, or III, but from the first half of Revelations and all the jazz before, I love uncovering the conspiracies and the whole techgnostic stuff going on

[AdmiralCheez]

Yeah, I really didn't care for it in any of the games. I largely ignore it when I can, and only do the bare minimum to get to the next part of the real game. I guess my point is this - if, from what I've gathered, a large majority of players either hate or ignore the meta-plot, why bother continuing it? Just wrap it up in the next game and focus on the core gameplay. Keeping it in there because it's been part of the series since the beginning just seems lazy.

[Jayngfet]

am I the only one who liked the metaplot? I haven't finished Revelations yet, or III, but from the first half of Revelations and all the jazz before, I love uncovering the conspiracies and the whole techgnostic stuff going on

You're at around the spot where things kinda take a nosedive. 3's metaplot is basically just the gameplay from the historical segments, but without none of the markers meant to show what's going on, making into a confusing mess for what little there is.

Even Revelations's metaplot wasn't that great. It was a handfull of puzzles and that's it.

[Rodin]

I greatly enjoyed the meta-plot in the first game. There was enough mystery to what was going on to keep things tense, and it was an interesting change of pace that really highlighted the difference between "Average Joe" Desmond and his super-skilled ancestor.

Then in the second game, Desmond learns all those skills anyway, so he just becomes a Standard Modern Videogame Hero. Blech. Even so, it was still fairly compelling and the twist at the end was a truly jaw-dropping moment for me.

By Brotherhood, I had completely lost track of the meta-plot. I really couldn't summarize what was going on in that game if I tried, and I got near 100% completion on it.

By Revelations, I had stopped caring about Ezio and the meta-plot both. I picked it up when it was on sale and only got a couple hours in before giving it up.

When III came out, I figured new character, new game engine, good time to jump back in to the series. Connor never grabbed me as a character, and the metaplot by this point was off in fairy-land. The gameplay itself hadn't really evolved since II, either.

By IV, I didn't even bother picking it up.

Would it have been a better series of games without the meta-plot? I dunno. The first and to a lesser extent second game would definitely have suffered without it. The other games probably would have benefited from losing it. I've always felt the first Assassin's Creed was like an art house film that suddenly became unexpectedly popular, and then had to crank out sequels to a series that was never properly designed to do so.

[GolemsVoice]

am I the only one who liked the metaplot? I haven't finished Revelations yet, or III, but from the first half of Revelations and all the jazz before, I love uncovering the conspiracies and the whole techgnostic stuff going on

While I agree that the metaplot isn't terribly neccessary for the game, I liked it in 4. It doesn't do away with the general problem of tearing you out of an immersing game, but I thought the links between plot and meta-plot were much better this time.

We find there is an observatory that both Kenway and Abstergo is looking for, and we see how modern-day Abstergo is pushing for it, which causes some friction. We learn that there's a man called the sage who appears every few centuries, and harasses both Kenway and our modern-day employee. We find there are blood vials with the blood of an entire race in it, and after our Abstergo researcher found it, it's gone today and Abstergo has acquired it. The things the player discovers in the past have clear effects on what happens in the present. I thought it was nice.

[Triaxx]

I have to say that the best way to play AC at all is to completely ignore the meta-plot. They did a good thing in 2, by almost completely shoving the modern characters out of the story. I was much more invested in Ezio and his story than any of the modern BS.

[GungHo]

I enjoy AC, but I'm going to have to agree with Jeviar's point... if you're coming in as an outsider, it's pretty insane and jarring, but it's also hard to appreciate how much better AC4 was for de-emphasizing the modern-day stuff.

The only parts of the wall-breaking modern day stuff I really enjoyed were the Glyphs and Rifts from AC2 and Brotherhood, as the puzzles and conspiracies were interesting, but once they actually revealed the First Civilization stuff, I was like... "Seriously?" They jumped the divide from ancient societies and the New World Order to freaking Stargate within the same cutscene, and I was exasperated. The 3rd person Tetris game in Revelations was another horrible idea, and I frankly just watched that crap on Youtube after doing one of them.

I am surprised I bought AC4 after the inanity that was AC3. The eight hour tutorial was insulting, but... okay, I could have dealt with that. They pushed some of the Desmond stuff back and re-linked everyone's actions to "what I did in the past tells me what to do in the future", so that was good. But, the fast travel ideas were so dumb, and then they went overboard on the busywork and I was now being rewarded merely for interacting with the environment. I actually liked that Connor was a Native American and I'm glad they handled that part fairly tastefully. His rogues gallery was a big step down, though. I didn't feel any satisfaction in taking down that lot. The best thing they coded, though, was the ship battles, and they were on the mark by choosing to make a game that revolved around those battles.

[GolemsVoice]

I felt the quality of the foes you hunt has diminished after the Ezio series. While I feel that the series has gotten better all in all, ACII and it's follow-ups were way better when it came to providing you with enemies to hate and, well, assassinate.

That's a general trend I felt, by the way. AC IV: Black Flag was very much Black Flag, but very little Assassin's Creed, and I longed for elaborate climbing sequences or chases through tunnels or even a burning fort like in III, which was pretty cool.

[Name_Here]

Personally I loved the metaplot. In the first one the story of Altair was a mess. I didn't like him I didn't like how I had to collect flowers for one guy do a foot race against another and then compete in a staboff with another just to get the information I need to kill my target. But Desmond's parts were interesting stealing passwords and eavesdropping trying to figure out what the guys are looking for.

I can see how it's not everybody's cup of tea but I always ended up liking Desmond much more than the people who's lives he was "living" to me the draw was finding out what is happening in the modern day not fighting the Templars in the past.

I don't know how they integrated it in ACIV I didn't buy it but that is really the only part of the game I really have an interest in playing.