I dunno, I really liked how the Ezio trilogy showed Signore Auditore’s life from birth to death and how he grew as a person over time. The voice/performance work over the course of the three games (and Embers) I feel is immensely underrated.
3 Likes
I guess the Ezio Trilogy did have significantly more time to do that tho! In fairness I do feel that my criticism of the series relates mostly to Asssassin’s Creed 2 in how rapidly it moves through the early years of Ezio’s life but Brotherhood and Revelations did manage it a bit better. Or I just really liked jumping around Constantinople. Ottoman gang assemble.
Talking about the Ezo Trilogy, how funny is it that Machiavelli is a bit of a dumbass and it’s Ezio who is actually imparting all the shrewd realpolitik to him? I love these games.
Most of the Assassin’s Creed games have something that works for them, except maybe Unity.
Despite the lib Karl Marx, Syndicate is definitely my favourite of the series because Jacob is my favourite assassin. Origins and Liberation have my next favourite assassins, and are also in my top 5. Despite the fact that most people - myself included - almost define the series for its 40,000 item checklist, I think the characters are a big part of the appeal for me. One reason I like Origins more than Odyssey is because I felt more connected to Layla in her first game.
Even though I don’t plan to buy Valhalla for all the other reasons, I am curious to see if Eivor stands up as a protagonist. None of the preview stuff encourages me, honestly. And I hope there is good Layla stuff in this one, at least. I’ll watch that on YouTube if she gets cool shit to do.
1 Like
You know there will definitely 100% be an AC game in the future set in 70s West Berlin in which David Bowie helps you upgrade your hidden blade and you run around trying to help him write lyrics for “Heroes”. I can see it now, the 2026 announcement trailer will have a slow jam of Heroes whilst our androygynous 80s hero stalks the protesting crowds taking out dudes Atomic Blonde style, before the chorus kicks in and we are stood perched from some high place watching the wall come down.
Assassin’s Creed: Heroes.
That’s what it’ll be called.
And yes I will play the shit out of that one too.
4 Likes
Hold up, Jacob over Evie? Evie was the brilliant tactician and cane wielding badass. Jacob was a pair of fists and a top hat.
@Velocirapture Real talk, why hasn’t there been a checkpoint Charlie smuggling spy game.
5 Likes
An extremely good hat animation, but yes, I am also Team Evie.
3 Likes
Evie’s cane was a fun weapon, but Jacob had a much more fun story and arc. His relationships with all of the Templars he went against were some of the more entertaining in the series, and his whole ‘just build a street gang’ thing was more enjoyable than some of the other excuses the series has for that model of mini game/checklist. Also, I’m a simple man and I like a bisexual idiot.
Bayek is a close second, though. Aya would be in my top five, too, if Ubisoft weren’t cowards and she was a proper main character.
3 Likes
I’m retrying Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and Evie Frye just recommended to Alexander Graham Bell that his new invention be called the Telephone.
“What a CRAZY name!”
5 Likes
And they’ll bring back Animus glitches in the trailers so on each one the music swaps between the English and German version of Heroes except for the one trailer scrubbers find at 0:47 when it briefly swaps to the French version. What could it mean?
Hey, remember the ending to Syndicate where Evie totally owns Queen Elizabeth with “But with the greatest respect, our philosophy forbids us from assisting with the expansion of the Empire. Perhaps, ma’am, you could consider putting an end to your imperialist desires?”
Today’s Ubisoft wouldn’t even take that political stance.
And for the record regarding Origins being too fantasy: I loved that Origins had some mystery to whether Bayek was just getting the runaround from some stupid Isu artifact, legitimately interacting with an Egyptian pantheon outside of aforementioned regular Isu crap, or just losing somewhere in the desert. The last DLC was the best and it’s good to see by that that’s the direction Valhalla is going in as opposed to Odyssey where, nope, everything is precursor stuff.
… Damn it, we all missed a joke about if the French in Valhalla will have English accents again.
4 Likes
Watching some gameplay on Youtube and I’m a bit more excited by this again. Definitely looking forward to the settlement bits and just sailing around.
However, as an archaeologist who’s MA covered Roman Britain a lot, the monumentality of the Roman ruins in the game is nuts. Britain was a colonial backwater, yet the ruins in the game are at a scale you only see in Rome. Plus the temple ruins look like they are 4th-5thC CE Greek and don’t resemble anything that’s ever been found in Roman Britain, both in scale and in style.
I know it’s just a game, it’s fantasy, and history is ever changing and mostly interpretation, etc. But I wish more historical fiction looked visually and stylistically more plausible. Yes, I know there are gods and aliens and shit, and I enjoy that, but what I would like more is a more obvious contrast between a plausible facsimile and the purely fantastical.
3 Likes
Man, these cutscenes are really painting the Vikings as jerks. I’m wondering if Eivor is going to have a side flipping moment midgame, like in The Last Kingdom.
Given that the villain seems to be Alfred the Great, I’ll be surprised if Eivor doesn’t change sides.
Neat.
It’d be a perfect franchise to do a different time period each season.
1 Like
I wonder how expensive location shooting is in this time of COVID. On the one hand, crazy expensive to move things and people around. On the other, places are probably begging for someone to come shoot a movie or series there.
And if not, I guess season 1 is about an Assassin in mid-20th Century LA. It’s noir except this time the main character is the one doing the killing.
…Okay that actually sounds amazing.
1 Like
They teased a Jazz Age Assassin at the beginning of (I think) Black Flag and I haven’t forgiven them for never mentioning it since
1 Like
Miles Davis appears
“Hey cool assassin cat, my music notes got spread all over New York! Can you go get them?”
“Weren’t you mostly improv-”
“Shut the fuck up and get my notes.”
1 Like
But it’s about the notes he didn’t play.
Even I don’t feel good about that joke.
2 Likes
Just saw this interesting article on Valhalla by Bret Devereaux. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but Bret has done good stuff in the past (I highly recommend his “Fremen Mirage” series as well as his series about Sparta). The overall substantive take is that Valhalla sanitises the history of viking colonialism in a way that plays to white supremacist fantasies.
2 Likes
Yeah I found it odd when the game chastised me for killing a priest during a raid.
2 Likes
The Narrative Director offered his thoughts on the article, which are pretty good too. There are plot spoilers in there for a few of the region storylines.
Edit: On the subject of the game, I’ve really been enjoying it. I was lukewarm on it during the previews but once I got my mitts on it from gamefly I’ve enjoyed it immensely. I think it strikes a pretty good balance between the old AC games and the newer, RPG-focused ones. Some of the boss fights aren’t quite there (mainly the drengr and witch fights) but I find myself enjoying the raid mechanic for clearing out military outposts with my crew.
The pawn system they have is half-baked, though. I was hoping for something more. It sounded like they were going to be your second and follow you around just about everywhere instead they’re just another face in your crew that may or may not be hired by random players. Maybe they’ll add to it with future updates. By the end they added a crapton of stuff to Odyssey and I see Valhalla being no different.
1 Like
