Ubisoft unveiled a brand new video for Assassin's Creed Unity, featuring 11 whole minutes of gameplay and the new “Black Box” approach to mission structures that enable players to explore and complete mission parameters in a more free-form way.
The 11 minute video features a start-to-finish look at one of the missions in the early part of the game. Arno is tasked with assassinating a target but the means of carrying out the assassination is left entirely up to the player.
Arno is then seen making his way around the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, occasionally dropping into a crowd and listening to plenty of conversations unfold with casual peasant-folk who seem to sport a disproportionate amount of English accents instead of French accents.
Ignoring the lingo conundrum, Arno makes his way around the cathedral to first gain access to a set of keys spotted out during the opening cinematic of the mission. Here is where things get interesting: players are no longer restricted and refined to carrying out assassinations like in previous Assassin's Creed games.
The setup in Unity is closer to the original Assassin's Creed, insofar that players will have to scout and utilize the environment and their own means to find a way to complete the mission as opposed to relying on heavily scripted and linear mission structures that eventually became a staple in the series.
One of the biggest requests from gamers was to be able to openly and creatively approach missions in their own way, as opposed to being confined to the rule sets and restrictions setup by the mission scripters. Here is where the “Black Box” comes into play.
Creative director Alex Amancio describes how the varying parameters of the mission can be manipulated by the player by changing, accessing or altering mission mods; this can make an assassination easier or harder to carry out depending on your skill level.
For instance, gaining access to the cathedral certainly doesn't have to be done the way it's portrayed in the video above. Players can instead waltz right through the front door and face down against plenty of guards for doing so. Alternatively, it's possible to play it cool like in Hitman and attempt to carry out the assassination while blending in with a crowd. The possibilities are supposedly varied and extensive.
While Assassin's Creed Unity is visually impressive and the expanded open-world structure is impressive and well designed, I still think that Assassin's Creed Rogue looks to be the better game. It's entirely possible that it could turn out ot be crap, but the storyline and general character setup for Rogue is just so much more appealing than what they're covering Unity.
You can look for Assassin's Creed Unity to launch on October 28th for the Xbox One, PS4 and PC. You can visit the official website for more info.
