Some news broke this week that brought quite an unexpected reaction from me. A leak suggested we'd be getting 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a new Assassin's Creed game this year, and I found myself excited at the prospect. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Assassin's Creed is a series I once loved, but I haven't felt that way for a long time now. The problem is Assassin's Creed has ballooned well beyond what it used to be. Once a stealth title that allowed for action with a tight, linear story that was told in spaces to match, it has since become a long, bloated action RPG with a little bit of stealth - and as the size of the games have grown, the narrative has sagged under the weight. This new game, if the rumours are true, changes all that.
The leak suggests that it was initially supposed to be an expansion for Valhalla, but is now being retooled to be a standalone game. That makes it seem as though it might be in the Miles Morales mould, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:tellin🐓g a shorter and more cಞontained story. It will also emphasise stealth, reports say, although hopefully that means more of the (very good) old school AC games and less of the (very bad) stealth sections in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Spider-Man.
For those of us bored with what Assassin's Creed has become, this is a step in the right direction. I miss the days when Assassin's Creed was more focused and everything felt in service of the main story, rather than endlessly filling hours with busy work. I've put my time into the early games, climbing towers, catching pages, and collecting feathers. There were always optional extras, but there were far less of them, and they never felt overwhelming. Most importantly, you didn't need to ride over miles and miles of empty map to get there, which is just a ploy to make the game feel bigger and to find more space to shove collectibles into. Valhalla looked gorgeous, but the locations lacked the claustrophobic, compelling character of the early days.
At least when 🅘Black Flag branched out, it attempted something completely new and fresh. These days it's just Origins, but with Vikings. It's nothing new. It's safe, and that's one of the most boring things a video game can be. It tends to help sales though, so lots of studios are growing safer and safer. Going back to Assassin's Creed's roots is a risk, but it's one worth taking.
Unfortunately if it is a step in a new direction, it's a quick one-two cha cha cha before getting back on course. It was meant to be a DLC, and is now being repackaged as a whole game. You'd imagine there's enough in the game itself to justify it, but it's likely the decision was made with profitability in mind. Even if the game is a smash hit, the next Assassin's Creed will continue the pattern from Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla, storming ahead with the sprawling RPG design. We know Ubisoft is planning on turning Assassin's Creed as an idea into a live-service model sooner or later, and one-off short, enjoyable stealth titles just don't fit into that plan. We could see future games get their own smaller spin-offs if this one works, but they will remain spin-offs. The thing they are spinning off from will remain Assassin's Creed as we have known it since Bayek.
Therefore, I can't get too excited about it. In truth, we shouldn't ever get too excited about leaks anyway. But even if the Assassin's Creed I know and love is lost for good, these smaller games at least give me a chance to claw some of that love back. The main games will always exhaust me and worse, will always feel designed to, throwing far too much at players in the hopes of keeping them shambling forwards for 70 hours on end, rather than putting together the best experience possible in half the length. More time played = more better, right? Especially if you're trying to move to the live-service market. But it rarely makes it more fun for the players, even if psychologically some can justify paying the increased cost of a game these days in the safe knowledge that 70 hours of their time will be occupied in exchange.
This new Assassin's Creed game is exactly what I want, but I'm no longer an Assassin's Creed fan, and 168🐷澳洲𓄧幸运5开奖网:clearly the series still has a lot of them, which is why it will continue. But if this brief reprise is all the glory days get, it's better than I expected, and for that I'm grateful.
