Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Wombat

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Well, if there's anything to concentrate on from AC3, its the naval battles.

Honestly, all the vibes I am getting from this game are off. It certainly seems like its second priority (you can't say B-team, given how they're chopped up and developed worldwide) behind Watch Dogs, given that a) the too-similar-to-last-game setting allows them to recycle a lot of art and design, and b) Ubisoft's reluctance to announce it for next-gen consoles implies their tech guys are focused on optimizing Watch Dogs' engine (Disrupt) before adding next-gen support to AC3's engine (AnvilNext).

Who knows, maybe Ubi has some tricks up their sleeve. I could see the game bouncing between Edward, Haytham, and Connor, as Edward waffles between which side to support / goes undercover into the Templars (your black flag operation).
 

Tuco

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Not sure but I hope the real-world timeline is after Desmond. You have to believe that Altair has about a million descendants.
 

Xalara

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Honestly, all the vibes I am getting from this game are off. It certainly seems like its second priority (you can't say B-team, given how they're chopped up and developed worldwide) behind Watch Dogs, given that a) the too-similar-to-last-game setting allows them to recycle a lot of art and design, and b) Ubisoft's reluctance to announce it for next-gen consoles implies their tech guys are focused on optimizing Watch Dogs' engine (Disrupt) before adding next-gen support to AC3's engine (AnvilNext).
Recycling assets is not really a bad thing in and of itself. Brotherhood had lots of recycled assets but it was a fantastic game.
 

Randin

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AC1's pacing and side stuff was terrible, definitely don't want to go back to it. AC3 had way too many action set pieces though and there wasn't enough about being an assassin, it just didn't feel very "assassin-y" and the series could definitely needs to go back to focusing on the Assassinations and less on cinematic action sequences and set pieces.
I'd say the problem with AC1's pacing wasn't that it had the whole 'gathering intel' thing, it was that gathering intel was both intensely repetitive and made up 80% of the game. If they took the format of the later games, but had an information-gathering segment before each of the major assassinations, and then made the assassinations more open-ended, so that you could make your own plan of attack, that'd be pretty awesome.

As part of that 'more open-ended' element, the main assassinations are the one place where 100% sync needs to go, so that the game isn't leading you to handle them one particular way.
 

Tuco

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If anything it'd be great if their assassination sequences copied Hitman more and the 'gathering intel' allowed for you to do them Silent Assassin style vs charging in there, killing the target and jumping in some hay.
 

Tuco

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My memory is pretty bad. Were there a lot of AAA titles that released for Xbox and Xbox 360 (and same for ps2 and ps3)?
 

Nostrovia_sl

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I wonder if they'll have the Spanish treasure fleet in it, that was lost during a hurricane in 1715.
And Blackbeard died in 1718
 

Wombat

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My memory is pretty bad. Were there a lot of AAA titles that released for Xbox and Xbox 360 (and same for ps2 and ps3)?
Well, there was less stratification between AAA and A and B games back then, but in a general sense there were far more cross-gen games than people remember. Gun, King Kong, the first NFS Most Wanted, Burnout Revenge, Hitman Blood Money, all the sports leagues (Madden, NBA 2K, NBA Like, Tiger Woods, NHL, etc.), the Dynasty Warriors family, etc. etc. etc. in just the first year alone. 3rd party next-gen only games were actually probably a minority.

Honestly, I remember a whole lot of NES/SNES crossgen games too. It was just the complete tech overhauls of SNES to PS1 and PS1 to PS2 that were the outliers.
 

mixtilplix

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Sounds like they knew from very early on during AC3's development that people weren't really looking forward to playing Connor in any future AC3 sequels like Ezio. Also could be the new engine makes it easier for them to put together an AC without much foundation work. Got to admit I really didn't like Ezio at first but his character really grew on me. Was sad to see his story end with Revelations.
 

Nostrovia_sl

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Sounds like they knew from very early on during AC3's development that people weren't really looking forward to playing Connor in any future AC3 sequels like Ezio. Also could be the new engine makes it easier for them to put together an AC without much foundation work. Got to admit I really didn't like Ezio at first but his character really grew on me. Was sad to see his story end with Revelations.
This AC may end up being more "Sand box" because of the naval stuff, in which case they already had a good template with AC3. So it's not surprising they're able to pump out another one so soon. That... and they have said in the "Making of" AC3 videos that the engine they used for AC3 makes creating an entire world very easy and quick. I'm sure they're going to utilize that as much as possible before the next best thing comes along.
 

Tuco

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This AC may end up being more "Sand box" because of the naval stuff
Maybe. The naval stuff in AC3 was the least sandbox part of the game. The missions were literally linear and picked from a map. I doubt we'll see a game where you can just travel around your boat on a coast/open sea.