E3 2010: Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood preview

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E3 2010: Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood preview

 

Master assassin Ezio returns to the shadows in this continuation of Ubisoft's critically and commercially acclaimed Assassin's Creed 2 -- only this time, he's brought friends.

 

What We're Talking About: The sequel to one of the best reviewed games of 2009, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood.

 

Where We Saw It: A backstage room inside Ubisoft's booth, crowded with Ubisoft Montreal developers showing the game to the press.

 

 

What You Need to Know:

 

•The new multiplayer experience plays a huge role in Brotherhood. New recruits are plugged into the Animus, and will exist apart from the main story of Desmond and Ezio. The developers showed us the Wanted mode, which is a variation of a traditional deathmatch, but with a stealthy twist. Each player is assigned another player to find and kill, and every player is both hunting and being hunted at all times.

 

 

•Big set-piece action moments. We saw huge events happening all around, such as a moment where siege devices descend upon Ezio's villa, with cannonballs smashing the surroundings and destroying the very structures he's climbing on.

 

 

•Much more aggressive combat action. Enemies will no longer wait for you to finish your combat animations. They'll come right at you, making for a faster and more intense fight.

 

 

•Ezio is now a master assassin, as opposed to the relative novice first introduced in Assassin's Creed 2. This means that his profile is now much higher; he can't rely as much on being subtle and unrecognizable as in previous games.

 

 

Point in Dev Cycle: Pre-alpha. It's still pretty early, but Ubisoft assured us they're still on track for a release later this year.

 

My Take: The often slow, plodding pace of the previous Assassin's Creed games seems to have been tossed out the window. The parts of the game that we saw featured huge, action-packed moments, and a much more bombastic approach to developing the story. We don't just see Ezio's villa attacked, we see it blown to bits by cannons and assaulted by thousands of soldiers in-game. The whole city is exploding around you as you search for targets to assassinate in the midst of an epic war.

 

I think these moments will be a great change of pace for the series. The original was often criticized for being overly slow-paced, and AC2 was a pretty big increase in intensity. Brotherhood is just the logical continuation of that trend. Those who have been alienated from the series due to pacing should keep this one on their radar. Ubisoft seems to have found a way to keep fans of the slower originals happy while reaching out to a whole new set of fans.

 

The multiplayer demo was shockingly similar to the Assassin's Creed 2 multiplayer iPhone game. It's clear that the developers are taking that spectacular idea and translating it into a fully-realized console experience. Even on the iPhone this game mode was absolutely spectacular, and we can't wait to get our hands on it when the full version releases.

by Andrew Groen