Gameplay:
The game has three main protagonists who all have slightly different types of play-styles. I'll start with the two ancestors and then move on to Desmond later in the article. The first three sequences of the game are dedicated to Connor's father, Haytham Kenway. Haytham's kill animations and play-style is much more graceful than his son's, giving a good contrast between an English nobleman and a Native-American. The other difference between Haytham and Connor is that Haytham is unable to climb trees, unlike Connor. Other than that, Haytham's core gameplay mechanics are the same as Connor's, which is a good way to set up a prologue in both gameplay and story through Haytham's sequences.
Haytham's first sequence is completely linear, with no open-world elements whatsoever. It includes introductions on the new climbing system and the new combat system. Unlike previous Assassin's Creed titles where the player is required to hold both R1 and X in order to run and climb, Assassin's Creed III introduces a new "safe climb" feature which only requires the player to hold the R1 button. While holding the R1 button, the character will climb and run at full speed. If the player runs to an edge of a building while holding R1, they will automatically jump to the next ledge if they can make the jump. If the jump is too big or risky, the "safe climb" system won't allow them to go off the ledge. That's where the X button returns. Holding the R1 and X button together now exits the player from "safe climb" and allows to player to make bigger and more risky jumps, much like the previous games. Unfortunately, the ledge grab feature included in AC2 and it's sequels does not make a return, meaning large jumps are a little more risky.
The new combat system is similar to Brotherhood and Revelation's combat in the sense that "kill streaks" make a return. When you kill an enemy, you can quickly kill the next enemy to build your kill streak, unless the next enemy is a special type of enemy that can block a kill streak. The biggest change to the combat system is that the block and counter buttons are now the same buttons, preventing the player from turtling and making the combat system more risky. The player now has two options: hold the O button to stay in constant perry, or wait till an enemy attacks and then quickly hit the O button to counter. When you have chosen to counter, you always have further choices. Pressing the O button again will cause you to do a standard counter kill, which works on most enemies but not all. Pressing the X button after countering will cause you to disarm the enemy, which I believe works on every single type of enemy. The introduction of guns into the game also complicates combat a bit. Of course, you can use your own gun to shoot and kill enemies, although it has a very slow reload time, unlike the hidden pistol from AC2 which was almost instant. Sometimes, two to five enemies will stay away from the main action and stand in the line, and shoot you from afar, all at the same time (which is actually historically accurate). When this happens, the player is able to target one of the enemies in the main action and press X to use them as a human shield, blocking the gunshots and killing the enemy used as the shield.
The health system in the game is also significantly different. Unlike the previous entries, your health bar never increases at any point during the game, meaning you have the same amount of health from the first mission until the last mission. There is also no armor in the game, meaning any alternate costumes are simply cosmetic changes, allowing for more freedom in choosing what you want your character to look like without having to sacrifice health.
As you enter Haytham's second and third sequences, you get your first taste of the open world, being able to explore Boston and parts of the Frontier. You will also have access to some of the side-missions, but the main missions are likely your focus during this time. During main missions, the "full synch" feature from Brotherhood makes a return, where the player has special restrictions or requirements to "fully synch" the memory. Unlike Brotherhood, however, each mission includes more than one requirement and a secret requirement that is the same for every mission. The normal requirements can vary from anything from "do not lose more than 33% of your health" to "free all the optional prisoners on the camp." The secret requirement is always the same: "complete all other requirements on one playthrough," meaning that if you are replaying the mission and had previously completed one of the requirements, but choose to ignore it to get the other one on the next playthrough, you will not be able to receive 100% sync on the mission unless you do them all on on playthrough of the memory. Not all missions include these requirements, only main missions and naval missions, while the side missions are straight forward and only require you to complete them in one way for the full sync.
Like I said before, Haytham's sequences allow you to roam around Boston and part of the Frontier. Connor's sequences add the rest of the Frontier, New York, and Davenport Homestead to the list of places accessible. New York and Boston are roughly the size of Florence from AC2, although the landscape is much less beautiful. The Homestead is similar to Monteriggioni except it is bigger and has a forest area to hunt. The Frontier is massive, about 1.5 times the size of Rome from Brotherhood and has loads to do in it, including hunt.
Once you begin Connor's journey in sequence four, you are right away introduced to the hunting and landscape climbing features. The landscape climbing feature works pretty much exactly like the building climbing, except it is tougher to tell where you can scale a rock wall and you have to look for the right breaks in trees to know when you can climb higher on them. Other than that, pretty straight forward and really cool and fun to do.
The hunting system is easily one of the best parts in the game and also a very essential part of the game. Unlike the previous titles, you cannot earn money automatically by upgrading shops/buildings. The only source of revenue is by selling items or completing side-missions, but a majority of your money will come from selling items you get from hunting. There are two things that determine the amount of money you get from hunting: the type of animal you kill and the type of weapon you use to kill it. If you kill an enemy with the hidden blade or bow, it will leave the pelts and meat unharmed and in perfect condition, giving you the highest profit. If you kill an animal with your pistol or tomahawk however, you will damage the materials and it will sell at a significantly lower price. There are a variety of different animals to hunt in the game which all require different approaches. Some animals are fast and will run away if they see you, which require stealth or tactics, such as using bait or snares. These animals include deer, hares, foxes, and raccoons. Other animals are a little bit slower and you can probably pull off a kill simply by chasing them, such as female elk and beavers. Then there are hostile animals, who will attack you on sight, such as wolves, cougars, bears, and bobcats. These require little skill to kill and just require you to counter them appropriately, which is quite simply as the screen will show two buttons to press and you just do that one to four times and the animal will be dead. You have to make sure you skin the animals after you kill them to gain the materials, and also, if you choose not to skin too many animals in a row, you risk being desynchronized.
Speaking of desynchronization, as usual, killing too many civilians will cause the player to desync, but the developers have made sure that this time around, you don't do it by accident. It is now impossible to kill a civilian without specifically targeting them by holding the L1 button, making sure that the player doesn't accidentally kill any civilians when trying to kill a guard. You can also be desynchronized for killing domesticated animals like cats, dogs, or cows, and the same thing applies with the targeting system if you wish to kill these animals.
There have also been a few tweaks to Eagle Vision and Viewpoints. Eagle Vision is virtually useless in this game, and is only really used in a select few missions to identify the target. It is activated by pressing L3 like it was in Revelations. Viewpoints no longer revealed the full map, but only the area around it, encouraging the player to explore. This means that there will be greyed out areas of the map even after you have found all the viewpoints and the only way to get rid of the grey area is to run over it. This is a hassle for someone who wants to get 100% synch on the game because there are some challenges later that require 90% of the maps to be discovered.
Another big part of the game is the Homestead, which is similar to Monteriggioni from AC2. Homestead is Connor's home and there are tons of things he can do around it. You can play optional "homestead missions" to recruit artisans to live on your homestead, allowing you to purchase a variety of items than can be used as material for crafting weapons and other items. You can also sell these items made by your artisans for profit by sending convoys to different shops around America, although there is a risk they will be attacked, and if they are, you will get a notification to go and protect it. If you fail to protect the convoy, you will lose all the items and the profit. There is also a side mission called the "Encyclopedia of the Common Man" which requires you to observe the activities of your artisans and document them, which is a fun little addition to the game.
Assassin's Creed III also sees the return of Assassin's Recruits and Assassin Lair-type levels. Assassin Tomb levels manifest themselves in "Naval Locations," which can be found once returning artifacts to a crazy sailor on the homestead. There are five of these levels to explore varying from scaling landscapes to chasing Templars, resulting in a great reward after completing them all.
Assassin's Recruits can be recruited by playing liberation missions around the cities. There are a total of 6 recruits in the game, which are not unique like the ones in the previous games. Liberation missions have you completing little tasks to help the people around the cities, such as killing rabid dogs or stopping executions. Eventually, a contact will appear on the map and you can complete a small mission to recruit the assassin. You can then send them on missions around America like you could in previous games to earn revenue. Unlike the previous games, the recruits cannot die while on these missions, although they can fail and be injured for an amount of time. There are also tons of different tactics you can use your recruits for, from the basic "assassinate" featured in the previous games to new things like luring guards away, dressing up as Loyalists to escort you, or starting riots in the streets.
The next thing I would like to talk about are the other side missions, aside from liberation or naval missions (the latter I will discuss after this). Courier missions return in this game and are pretty much the same, deliver letters to contacts. Assassination contracts also return but work differently. When you talk to your contact, it activates the mission and reveals several marks on your map of people you need to assassinate. This doesn't actually enter you into a mission, therefore, you can do these at any rate you choose. There are also new delivery missions where contacts ask you to gather a variety of items for them and return them, which they will pay you handsomely for, so feel free to buy and craft the items from the artisans. Clubs also make their return in the game: the thieves club, hunting society, frontiersman, and boston brawlers. All of the clubs aside from the thieves club have interactable missions which will send you on various quests. The thieves club simply consists of challenges, which is also present in the other three clubs. There are also two types of collectables in the game: feathers and almanacs. Almanacs are only present in the cities and feathers are only present in the Frontier, but there are tons to collect which unlock various things.
Naval missions are probably the biggest new game mechanic included in Assassin's Creed III. Early in the game, Connor will acquire the Aquila and form a crew. Every sequence from then on will include 1 Naval Mission and 3 Privateer Contracts for you to play. Naval Missions and Privateer Contracts are all played on your ship. The Aquila has four different types of cannon shots, two of which are unlocked from the beginning. The normal cannon shot is good for sinking ships while the chained shot is used to destroy the masts so you can board ships and manually destroy them. When he cannon button is pressed, a long white area will appear on the side of the ship. Anything that is within this area will be shot by the cannon fire. There is also a swivel gun which can be used to target and shoot down smaller ships. Another effective way to damage enemy ships is to ram into them. Controlling the ship has 3 speeds: no sail, half sail, and full sail. No sail makes the ship stay stationary, although you may turn the ship while it is in this position. Full sail makes the ship move quickly but difficult to turn. Half said makes the ship move slower but much easier to maneuver, this is the best setting for ship battles. You can also brace by pressing the square button which will reduce damage from enemy fire or rogue waves. Naval missions are probably some of the best missions in the game, so don't skip them, even though they are optional.
I think I've covered everything gameplay-wise that happens within the Animus, so now it's time to talk about Desmond. Just like in Brotherhood, Desmond can exit the Animus at any time from the pause menu. While outside the Animus, Desmond can check out the Grand Temple, where there are some interesting dialogues with Rebecca, Shaun, and William. There are also special Juno cut-scenes that can be viewed at various points in the game. Also returning from Brotherhood is the ability to check your emails, some of which are crucial to the modern-day plot and others that are just in there for fun.
Aside from this, Desmond also has three sequences of gameplay himself. The first of these sequences is similar to the Assassin Tombs, where it is simply scaling a giant building. The second sequence is a mission where you are required to blend to hide from guards. The third sequence is the most action we have ever seen with Desmond, full of battles and even an assassination target. Desmond plays basically the same as Connor except he has some unique animations and only has access to one weapon: the hidden blade, which is only accessible in his third sequence. Also, because Desmond is outside the Animus and Ubisoft wanted to make it more "real" than the gameplay in the Animus, there are no button prompts and no controls around the screen. Your health is also not displayed and while you're blending there is no icon indicating that you are blending. Desmond really requires you to have mastered your techniques from the Animus if you want to be able to know what you're doing.
Music & Voice Acting:
I'm not going to talk much about this, but I will say a couple of things. The soundtrack of the game is pretty good, although nowhere near as good as AC2's soundtrack. The main theme doesn't even come close to being as memorable and amazing as Ezio's Family. In the modern portion of the game, all the main cast's voice acting is pretty much the same as usual, with the addition of William Miles who has some great moments. In the past segments, Achilles, Haytham, and Charles Lee all have great voice actors who express their characters' emotions very well, whereas Connor and George Washington's voice actors are quite bland and monotone at times, but it doesn't take away from the game too much.
Story:
Once again, I don't want to say too much about this because I do not want to spoil the game for anyone, but I will touch on a few things. Many people have been saying how bad the storytelling in the game is because of the transition between Haytham and Connor, and I completely disagree. Haytham sets up the setting and plot of the game quite well, and although it does go down a bit when Connor is introduced, he soon brings the story back up to action. Connor's journey is similar in a way to Ezio's, a quest for vengeance, but it is also entirely unique. Some of the best moments in the game are the interactions between Connor and Haytham because SPOILERS Haytham is a Templar.
Another aspect that I loved about the story was something that was absent in the "Ezio Trilogy" but present in the original Assassin's Creed. The Templars are no longer portrayed as corrupt and evil, but rather portrayed as using different methods to achieve a common good. The Templars actually believe what they are doing is for the best, as opposed to the Borgias who were actually harming the people of Italy for their own personal gain. This allows for a much more "grey scale" story that doesn't seem so much like an Assassin vs. Templar plot, which is also great because of how the game ultimately ends (I won't spoil it).
The modern day story doesn't advance much until the very last moments in the game. In fact, for the first 5 sequences, basically nothing happens. After that point, the story starts to touch on things and some of the dialogue reveals very important revelations, such as what really happened with Lucy and the summarized story of Daniel Cross. The Juno cutscenes also give the players a bigger backstory on the ways the First Civilization tried to stop the first Solar Flare. Desmond ultimately ties up most loose ends. The ending was a big cliffhanger and was actually a great ending. Unfortunately, the problem is that it was executed poorly and saved too much information for the final cutscene, leaving the player very in the dark unless they research a little. The ending will especially be very confusing to you if you didn't read certain emails or have certain dialogues with the characters, because they say some small and crucial things. Ultimately, it was a decent ending to the "Desmond Saga" of the story, but it was a pretty different direction that where I had originally thought they would go.
Assassin's Creed III is an amazing game and definitely lived up to the hype. While it has a few glitches and some story plot-holes, the main gameplay mechanics are all solid additions to the series and redefine what was created in the Ezio Trilogy. With this fresh take on the series, I am confident that the franchise is very far away from being over, which is a great thing.
Gameplay: 9
Story: 7.5
Music: 7
Lasting Appeal: 9
Final Verdict
8.4/10
Giuliano V.
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