Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Looks like the naval combat introduced to the series in ACIII may become a larger part of the newest AC? It's difficult to go wrong with pirates. I'd imagine we can expect blowout coverage of the game at Ubisoft's conference at E3. Followed by a release sometime in Q4.

In my opinion, the ship combat was the best thing about AC III but felt out of place given the role of the character in his world.

Haytham was a far more charismatic and interesting character than Connor was. I almost have to force myself to play The Tyranny of King George. If I hadn't paid for it already, I'd have skipped it. Oh well, it's AC and I get to run around on rooftops. I'll take it.

An AC game where you actually play a pirate/sailor who is also a trained assassin is a GREAT idea.

Magician said:

Looks like the naval combat introduced to the series in ACIII may become a larger part of the newest AC? It's difficult to go wrong with pirates. I'd imagine we can expect blowout coverage of the game at Ubisoft's conference at E3. Followed by a release sometime in Q4.

Click to expand...

Oh, come on!

Man, they keep churning these bad boys out. Look out CoD, you may soon be superseded by AC as most released game series in a calendar year.

I agree with Taiso. Connor is such a horrible character that I stopped shortly after you start controlling him. I could not force myself to finish the game after the awesome that was Haytham. I loved the AC series up till 3 and it will take something special to make me love it again.

Ezio was such a hard act to follow. He is, in my opinion, one of the great main characters of this console generation. Even when he's an old man and the story isn't that great, you like him and he makes a lesser entry (Revelations) with a weak story worth playing through.

I thought they'd nailed it with Haytham. He was complex, charismatic, funny, interesting and authoritative. When you find out



I was thinking "No, don't change the character. This is far more interesting and a great twist on the formula."

Haytham would have been a far more compelling choice for a lead. He was directly involved in the intrigues of the story, would have been a much more compelling naval commander and was just a general badass.

Connor, by way of comparison, is brash, simple minded, bitter an humorless. His reactions to everything are base and simple, which makes him a dullard.

It also didn't help that AC III was a fucking embarrasing glitchfest with subsystems that never had any practical use except to force the player fo fulfill side objectives and a hunter's log that was the defintion of tedium if you wanted 100% DNA completion. Animal hunting was just a godawful trial to have to go through. Even the historical crossover was lackluster in III.

In the end, I liked playing it because it had enough of the familiar elements of the series to engage me. But I have never once considered going back to it to finish it.

Looks as though I'm one of the few folks who loved AC3. I really enjoy this series because the games feel like 3D beat'em ups/brawlers done correctly. If AC3 wasn't buggy as hell it would be an all-time favorite of mine. Well, that and all the collectibles, there're way too many.

Collectibles are one open world trope I'd like to see go away.

I have never played any of the AC games before but my brother gave me III for free, still in the original packaging. If I have never played the others is III an alright one to play? I have zero desire to buy new games so basically I go with what is given to me and right now I'm big on Modnation Racers but would like a change of pace.

Personally, I'd say don't play III if you haven't played the others beforehand.

And to Mags:

The combat is fine. That's not the issue with AC III. It's a lot of the other stuff.

But the gold standard for3D beat 'em up action is Batman: Arkham. End of discussion.

Taiso said:

But the gold standard for3D beat 'em up action is Batman: Arkham. End of discussion.

Click to expand...

That's true. So very...damn true.

Word round the campfire is that this will be a prequel to AC3.

You'll play Edward Kenway. Haythem Kenway's father, Connor's grandfather.

Interesting. This will be the first time the series has gone backwards in time.

I'm also wondering what the vehicle for delivery will be. Anybody that's played AC III to compeltion knows



Of course, that could always be changed or undone, or maybe that



I like the idea of them going back in time. It means that many vital developments of the overarching story don't need to have happened in a chronologically linear fashion.

There are also a lot of time periods and environments they can now go back to in order to tell meaningful parts of the story of the battle between the Assassins and the Templars. Those parts of the story will still feel like they matter and are worth playing beyond the tactile.

Ancient China would be a great setting.

Meiji era Japan would be fucking unbelievablly cool. Skip the Sengoku era, though. Period's been done to death.

Middle ages Europe. Especially France or Germany.

Victorian era England.

Prohibition era USA.

Hell, I still think there's great potential for another crusades era game with Altair.

Taiso said:

Interesting. This will be the first time the series has gone backwards in time.

I'm also wondering what the vehicle for delivery will be. Anybody that's played AC III to compeltion knows

Spoiler:

Desmond Miles apparently died.

Of course, that could always be changed or undone, or maybe that

Spoiler:

Desmond may still exist, but as a consciousness now and not necessarily as a living human being, since one of the series' themes is that one's consciousness can live on in digital/electronic environments.

I like the idea of them going back in time. It means that many vital developments of the overarching story don't need to have happened in a chronologically linear fashion.

There are also a lot of time periods and environments they can now go back to in order to tell meaningful parts of the story of the battle between the Assassins and the Templars. Those parts of the story will still feel like they matter and are worth playing beyond the tactile.

Ancient China would be a great setting.

Meiji era Japan would be fucking unbelievablly cool. Skip the Sengoku era, though. Period's been done to death.

Middle ages Europe. Especially France or Germany.

Victorian era England.

Prohibition era USA.

Hell, I still think there's great potential for another crusades era game with Altair.

Click to expand...

All great settings for future installments, and they have talked about a number of the other big names in the assassin order before that they could revisit. I have to say though that I am surprised by the choice to make this a numbered entry; I would have thought that would be saved for what's to come after the events ACIII???

Break out the cover art.

Dude looks like a complete fucking badass.

Does look quality

Magician said:

Break out the cover art.

Click to expand...

Generic as fuck.

Bump, for the trailer that was suppose to be under wraps until Monday's "big" reveal.

Already?

I just tried playing AC III over the weekend to do some more side objectives. I finished my hunting map.

I was really hoping some elements got cleaned up with patches, but the game still has a ton of interface problems, IMO.

The whole trading system interface is annoying as hell. I hate that it doesn't tell you that you've crafted a unique or limited item, such as a weapon or a convoy modification, until after you try to craft it. It's just stupid not to 'x' it out or warn you ahead of time.

The costumes are all kind of lame unlocks.

The signature weapon of the game, the Assassin emblem Tomohawk, is one of the shittiest weapons in its class. Why wouldnt' they want me using it as often as possible?

I hate the fact that music isn't playing as you're wandering the countryside or in towns. There was a similar problem in AC Brotherhood, but once I finished a side mission, that problem resolved itself. The only thing I can think here is that one of the few side objectives I have yet to complete is holding it back, and that's fucking stupid.

There are dumb side quests that are completely pointless and only exist to irritate me. Stuff like 'Listen to all of Washington's speeches' and 'Kill five animals from horseback.' Why would the game task me with completely easy time wasting requirements for 100% DNA strand? It's not like those things are fun or compelling. They're just annoying tedium.

The Delivery Requests are still fucking glitched out and don't appear on the map. There are only two ways to complete this side mission: explore every last square inch of the wilderness (ugh) or cheat by using a guide. It's irritating. Just put it on the map, let me take the quest and then it's up to me to gather the resources.

Why, oh WHY do I have to stand around stalking the settlers on my land until I witness them at work to get 100% DNA strand? Yet another completely pointless waste of time.

The horse is a glitchy fucking mess. He easily rides into areas and gets stuck in corners but when you try to ride back out, he becomes a jittery fuck. The devs really need to work on this aspect of the game.

The radials take way too long to come up when triggers are held down, and sometimes the loading times are longer than they need to be.

Patches could have corrected all of these things. But I guess they were too busy working on AC IV.

I am still down for AC IV. Playing in the golden age of piracy, on a ship, as a pirate captain, is a great idea for an AC game, and despite AC III's problems, I am still a HUGE fan of this franchise.

But because of the glitched out, untested gameplay and Connor's complete lack of appeal (even his costumes pretty much suck, IMO), as well as the aesthetically boring setting of revolutionary period America that lacks the sweeping vistas and majestic spires of renaissance Italy, AC III is a definite step back and a low point in the franchise.

I am looking forward to finding out why Haytham Kenway joins the Templars. It's clear his father is an Assassin and passes his knowledge down to Haytham, who then decides that the Templars have the right of it. The series of events that lead to that division will be fascinating. Also, Haytham being descended from an Assassin adds an extra wrinkle in that now the Templars have insight into how the Assassins work for the first time (as far as we know) and it raises the stakes in their struggle. Black Flag could be a great starting point for a new AC trilogy centered around the time period. They could easily have Captain Kenway visiting different locales throughout the course of his life, same as Ezio, to visit different periods in history. Shit, you could have him tooling around Europe if you want to get him into those breathtaking cities for a while.

Giving him a boat and familiarity with both sides of the Atlantic opens a lot of doors, if Ubisoft is smart about how they handle it.

After watching that teaser trailer and reading the Joystiq article with the bits from the lead at Ubi's San Francisco office, I'm convinced that that team is using the Assassin's Creed brand and as a vehicle for and excuse to release a pirate game. Looks awesome, Edward Kenway looks like a badass, I'm looking forward to this.
I hope this game breathes new life into the brand, and now that the Desmond bit is done and this game is looking back further than 3, I'm kind of hoping not to have any of that 'present day' stuff taking away from the experience. Just let me be a pirate Ubisoft, I don't need more than that.

Game is coming 10/29/13. I found some screens on magic-box. Here's one of them:



There is alread more in this single image, from the enemy types to the architecture of the city to the look of Haytham's weapons, armor and assassin's robes than I found in all of AC III.

Which is kind of the point for me. I don't just want the same old AC gameplay of running on rooftops and stabbing people over and over. Since these games are hardcore historical fiction, right down to the accurately depicted politics of the time and the fictionalized intrigues of tis drama.

I just don't want a ton of mini games in this. I think AC III overextended itself with all of the hunting and trading stuff. It stands to reason that the more stuff you add into a game, the bigger the headache will be. It's probably why AC III is such a glitchfest-too many subsystems clashing with one another.

I have no doubt in my mind that AC III's problems are a result of being rushed out the door to meet their 'yearly release' mandate. Between AC: Revelation and AC III, they just added too many things and got too ambitious with the story and just didn't give themselves enough time to test it all to see what worked, both in a gameplay context and in a storytelling context.

Maybe with a couple of years between games, Connor could have been less bland or the trading and crafting minigames wouldn't have been such a rustrating chore. They could have really taken their time and refined it and determined what worked and what didn't. I have no doubt that they wanted AC III to be as well received as AC II, but they just didn't give themselves enough time to make the game better.

I really hope AC IV scales it back a bit in terms of the minigames. If they're going to be there, they need to focus on the life at sea. Trading should be a simpler interface, like Sid Meier's Pirates (although not that simplistic) so it doesn't become a time sink. I liked how in Sid Meier's Pirates, you put in to port and trading was very basic and quick. I also liked how you could get information on the various port towns and the going rates for the different goods you could obtain, so you knew where to go to get the best prices. In less than three minutes you were sailing again, and doing the fun stuff. No need for menus on top of menus on top of menus.

Also, I heard PETA's got their panties in a bunch over the implications that whaling will be in AC IV. Normally, I wouldn't agree with PETA about this stuff, but I don't think whaling needs to be in this game. But not for the reasons you may think.

Assassins (as the organization in this game) live to a higher code and seem to actually value life and don't just kill anything that moves for a profit. So I can't see any assassin, even one I don't know anything about, whaling for money. They seem to attain their position only if they have a certain outlook on life, and only the ones that are corrupted (like Al-Mualim in the first game) stray from the path.

But hey, if Haytham is different and the story is believable, I'll kill me some virtual whales. Someday, if you see me fighting with Greenpeace out on the open sea, you can blame the video games for it.

The title.. oh my fucking god L O L

So you become a black flag if you play this game?

Um, yeah, the main character is a pirate.

And the term 'black flag' was used to describe a pirate's flag during the golden age of piracy, most commonly associated with the infamous 'Jolly Roger' emblem of a white skull and crossbones on a black flag.

Unless you're talking about some Urban Dictionary thing.

In which case, no, you don't become a black flag.