Assassin’s Creed Revelations will feature the return of series stalwart (and visibly aged) Ezio Auditore, as well as series original Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad, who is still a young man of his late twenties. Seeking answers to the many questions surrounding the artefacts of the mysterious first civilisation, and the apple of Eden seen in previous games, Ezio heads to Masyaf, the backdrop of the Assassin’s hideout in the first title.
Ezio seeks the lost library of Altaïr, but upon arrival, he realizes that a very powerful artefact is hidden inside the locked library of Masyaf and the Templars are also trying to lay hands on it. If the Templars get a hold of that artefact, they will be able to crush the assassins and control humankind’s destiny. To open the library and access the artefact, five keys are needed – and all of them are in Constantinople, the heart of the Ottoman Empire. The game will swap between the two protagonists, expanding the timelines of their respective stories.
Assassin’s Creed Revelations promises various new gameplay mechanics, such as Ezio’s use of bomb crafting, and some new sneaky assassin flavoured weapons. The game will also wrap up the story arcs for series stalwarts Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad and Ezio Auditore – or will it? During his Gamescom 2011 presentation Ubisoft’s Darby McDevitt left the door slightly ajar for expanding the stories of these two assassins. However, for the most part, Revelations will be tying up most of the loose ends for the two characters.
McDevitt said that beyond Revelations, Ubisoft will continue furthering the story of modern day assassin Desmond Miles.
This obviously leaves the series open to introducing new ancestors and historical settings for Desmond to explore.
During the Gamescom 2011 demo, McDevitt showed both Ezio and Altaïr, who were sporting some spiffing new facial animation technology, giving them more detailed faces, and explaining their altered appearances. The customary narrative style of the series remained, with well animated and voice-acted cutscenes linking sections of Assassin’s Creed gameplay.
Most interesting was one of the new gameplay elements introduced to Revelations; the crafting and use of various types of bombs. Throughout their journey, assassins will collect many components, a concept now likely familiar to Brotherhood players. Rather than being usable for an economic meta-game, as in Brotherhood, these components will be used to craft bombs. It seems that Ezio might need to compensate for his aging with some new sneaky tricks.
The bombs fall in to three categories: Lethal; Tactical; and Diversion – the names suggesting obvious usage implications. Bombs can be crafted from various components such as a bomb shell (brittle or strong), ingredients that will offer various effects (flashes or smoke), and types of gunpowder, which will dictate the strength and type of explosion.
To craft these bombs, Assassins will find crafting tables at various points around the game world. They will also be able to recover components from unused bombs in order to create something new.
Ezio was shown to be using deadly explosive bombs, timed diversion bombs, and he also planted a bomb on a corpse so that investigating comrades were killed with an explosive surprise. Ezio also has a few more new tricks to help him escape trouble, and was seen to use spikes scattered on the ground to slow pursuers.
All of these new gadgets, tactics and weapons warranted a redesign of the weapon wheel system, which has now been split in two – one for weapons and gadgets, and the other for the various bombs.
Finally, McDevitt dropped some tantalising hints about the revelations players might be uncovering during the course of the game. Through recovering the keys to Altaïr library, Ezio learns that the keys are actually artefacts from the first civilisations, and they were used to store memories which can be unlocked – an apparent plan by the first civilisation to communicate with those that would come after them.
The ability to use the veritable sixth sense of encoded memories is a trait of the first civilisation, and it seems that Altaïr, Ezio, and certain others in the Assassin order could have some of the first civilisation blood in them.
Assassin’s Creed Revelations is due out on 15 November for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.
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