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Assassin's Creed Unity is a historical action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is set to be released in November and December 2014 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The game is the seventh major installment in the Assassin's Creed series, and the successor to 2013's Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag with ties to 2014's Assassin's Creed Rogue. Set within Paris during the French Revolution, the single-player story follows Arno Dorian in his efforts to expose the true powers behind the Revolution.

The game retains the series' third-person open world exploration as well as introducing an improved melee combat, parkour and stealth system. Assassin's Creed Unity introduces cooperative multiplayer to the Assassin's Creed series, letting up to four players engage in narrative-driven missions and explore the open-world map.

Gameplay

Combat for the game was rebuilt, with fencing being used as an inspiration for the new system. In addition to returning weapons from previous games, Assassin's Creed Unity introduces the Phantom Blade. The Phantom Blade uses the mechanics of a crossbow to fire a silent projectile a great distance, while still serving the same role as the Hidden Blade in previous Assassin's Creed games. Navigation for the game was also overhauled. Ubisoft created new "Parkour Up" and "Parkour Down" mechanics to make it easier for the player to scale buildings in either direction. Additionally, Arno learns new parkour moves throughout the game, but the player can also purchase new skills as well. With the updated, larger crowds, new interactions with them are also available. The crowd regularly presents many activities, appearing organically, that the player can choose to engage with at their leisure. Examples include interfering in a fistfight, or chasing down a pickpocket.

For the first time, the series will allow players to customise the character, adopting a skill tree that enables players to assign points earned through gameplay to improve their skills in stealth, mêlée and ranged combat, health and traversal. Players will also be able to customise their weapons, armour and equipment to further complement their individual style of play. They will also have a wider selection of weapons available, including swords, axes, spears, polearms, pistols and incendiary devices.

Assassin's Creed Unity also introduces cooperative multiplayer to the series. Players can enter taverns, which act as social hubs in the game, where you can see if any friends are playing the game at the current time. If they are currently in a mission, they will appear as a "ghost" version of their player, allowing you to approach it to request to join their mission. If accepted, you are transitioned to their game and both of you reset to the most recent checkpoint, and continue on from there. Up to four players can join together in this fashion. The player will take on the role of Arno within their own game, with other players appearing as randomly-generated Assassins. Many missions and activities will be available for cooperative play (which the player can also complete on their own), but there are some story missions that are set aside to be single player only.

Premise

Characters

The main character of the game is Arno Dorian (Dan Jeannotte), a native Frenchman who was born in Versailles to an Assassin father. After his father is killed by Shay Patrick Cormac, Arno is adopted, unaware that his new family holds a senior position within the Templar Order, with his new father figure the Templar Grandmaster. Arno blames himself when his adoptive father is murdered, and so sets out on a quest of redemption that brings him into the Brotherhood of Assassins, where he slowly rises through the ranks, much like Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad and Ezio Auditore as seen in previous games. Arno's love interest is a Templar named Elise De LaSerre (Catherine Bérubé), the daughter of the Templar Grandmaster who adopted Arno, who also sets out to investigate more about her father's death and its role in a growing ideological change within the Templar Order that threatens its core values. Additional characters include Marquis de Sade (Alex Ivanovici), Napoleon Bonaparte (Brent Skagford) and Maximilien de Robespierre (Bruce Dinsmore).

Setting

Arno's story will be set in Paris on the eve of the French Revolution. The modern day setting will focus on the Assassins contacting the player and requesting their help to explore Arno in the past, as well as helping in the present. Co-operative multiplayer missions will follow the development of the Brotherhood of Assassins during the French Revolution. In addition, "time anomalies" can be encountered throughout the city. Accessing them will take Arno to various points of Parisian history, such as its occupation by Nazi Germany during World War II.

Development

Development for the game began shortly after the completion of 2010's Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, with the core development team splitting off during the early stages of development on Assassin's Creed III. On March 19, 2014, images leaked for the next game, titled or code-named Unity, showing a new assassin in Paris. The screenshots show new "parkour up" and "parkour down" buttons, a new navigation mechanic. The leak also stated that Unity, set during the French Revolution, would be released in late 2014 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and would feature an assassin named Arno. On March 21, Ubisoft confirmed the game's existence, having been in development for more than three years, by releasing pre-alpha game footage. They also confirmed the game's release date of Q4 2014, and that it would also see a release on Windows. Ubisoft writer Jeffrey Yohalem revealed that the French Revolution setting for the game was deliberately teased, along with Assassin's Creed III's American Revolution setting, in symbols seen at the end of Brotherhood. Ubisoft Montreal is the lead developer for the project, with contributing work from the Ubisoft studios in Toronto, Kiev, Singapore, Shanghai, Annecy, Montpellier, Bucharest, Quebec, and Chengdu.

At E3 2014, trailers were released for the game, demonstrating the game's cooperative multiplayer mode for up to four players, a first for the series. The development team was able to use the new power of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One to improve the NPC crowds. Up to 1000 individual AI characters can appear in a crowd, each acting independently and reacting to each other as well as the player's actions. The PC version of the game uses Nvidia's GameWorks technology such as TXAA anti-aliasing, advanced DX11 tessellation and Nvidia PhysX technology, due to a partnership between Ubisoft and Nvidia.

Lead game designer Benjamin Plich has said this game will be more difficult than previous entries thanks to the removal of the counter button and more aggressive guards. Plich also said that the game will feature synchronized Double Assassinations.

In August 2014, Assassin's Creed Rogue was announced for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and was revealed to have ties to the story in Unity.

Cooperative mode gender controversy

"We recognize the valid concern around diversity in video game narrative. Assassin's Creed is developed by a multicultural team of various faiths and beliefs and we hope this attention to diversity is reflected in the settings of our games and our characters. Assassin's Creed Unity is focused on the story of the lead character, Arno. Whether playing by yourself or with the co-op Shared Experiences, you the gamer will always be playing as Arno, complete with his broad range of gear and skill sets that will make you feel unique. With regard to diversity in our playable Assassins, we've featured Aveline, Connor, Adewale and Altaïr in Assassin's Creed games and we continue to look at showcasing diverse characters. We look forward to introducing you to some of the strong female characters in Assassin's Creed Unity."

After the cooperative multiplayer mode was revealed at E3 2014, additional information about the mode was revealed by creative director Alex Amancio and technical director James Therien. Amancio stated that the mode did not include the ability to play as a female avatar, due to "the reality of production". Amancio added by saying, "It's double the animations, it's double the voices, all that stuff and double the visual assets. Especially because we have customizable assassins. It was really a lot of extra production work," which was echoed by Therien. Level designer Bruno St-André expanded on this by stating that an estimated 8,000 additional animations would have had to be recreated for a female avatar.

This caused dissatisfaction in some video game community outlets. Brenna Hillier of VG247 noted how there were nine development teams working on the game, and said "Ubisoft has here trotted out a tired, stupid, constantly refuted excuse for why it has perpetuated the cycle of sexism and under-representation in the games industry." Tim Clark of PC Gamer made note "that previous Assassin's Creed games have had playable women as part of the multiplayer component, that Brotherhood had you supported by on-call assassins, many of whom were female, so it’s hardly like it can’t be done." Clark also looked to the way Amancio and Therien answered the question and felt how they referenced "how much the team wanted to include playable female characters suggests... that this is probably a decision which hasn’t gone down well internally." Former Assassin's Creed designer Jonathan Cooper responded by saying, "In my educated opinion, I would estimate this to be a day or two's work. Not a replacement of 8,000 animations." He also revealed that Aveline de Grandpré, the female protagonist of Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, "shares more of Connor Kenway's animations than Edward Kenway does." Fans also created petitions urging Ubisoft to change their stance.

Former Assassin's Creed game designer Patrice Désilets commented that Amancio's reasoning was valid, but that Ubisoft should put in the effort to let players have gender options. The Escapist's Shamus Young wrote that reworking Assassin's Creed's wide array of complex animations for a female character model would take considerable work, but concluded that "This has nothing to do with how hard or easy it is to put females in the game, or how much it would cost, or how difficult it is to do mo-cap these days. Ubisoft doesn't want to put females in their games, they have no idea if it's something the audience wants, and they are avoiding any move that might shed some light on the subject." Conversely, Michelle Starr of CNet made note of the valid technical challenges a female character would present, such as their different skeleton structure and the environmental factors, such as how NPCs would interact with them, and said, "the issue is not that Ubisoft is lying about how much work it would require to add a female player character – it's that the idea was considered unworthy of those resources in the first place."

Amancio attempted to clear up any confusion, by stating, "I understand the issue, I understand the cause, and it is a noble one, but I don't think it's relevant in the case of Unity. In Unity you play this character called Arno, and when you're playing co-op you're also playing Arno – everybody is. It's like Aiden Pearce in Watch Dogs... Arno has different skills - you select skill points in the game, there are gear elements that have an impact and all these weapons that make the character you make your own. But you're always playing Arno... The reason we're just changing the face and keeping the bodies is we want people to show off the gear that they pick up in the game through exploration. That's why we kept that."

Release

The game was originally intended to be released worldwide on October 28, 2014. However, on August 28, 2014, it was delayed until November 11, 2014 in North America and November 13, 2014 in PAL regions. On the delay, Vincent Pontbriand, senior producer at Ubisoft, said, "As we got close to the finish, we realized we were near the target but still needed a bit more time to hone some of the details to make sure Assassin’s Creed Unity is exceptional.” Additionally, the game will receive a day one patch with further updates to the game.

Historical consulting

On October 6, 2014, Ubisoft announced that they have enlisted the help of academic historians such as Laurent Turcot, professor at l'Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (Canada) for daily life of 18th-century Paris and Jean Clement Martin professor at the Sorbonne, to revise the script.

The Eiffel Tower, which was built in 1889, appears in-game via a distortion in the Animus simulation of Paris.

Reception

Assassin's Creed Unity received generally positive reviews. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the PlayStation 4 version 80.83% based on 6 reviews and 79/100 based on 6 reviews and the Xbox One version 74.76% based on 25 reviews and 74/100 based on 27 reviews.

The first review for the game was positive, with Chris Harding of The Games Cabin awarding a score of 8.8/10 citing an engaging single player campaign and impressive graphics as the highlights, with frame-rate issues causing minor problems.

The PC version has received widespread negative reviews by users citing lots of bugs and terrible frame rate performance, even on high-end PCs.

References

1. Additional work by Ubisoft Toronto, Ubisoft Singapore, Ubisoft Quebec, Ubisoft Annecy, Ubisoft Shanghai, Ubisoft Chengdu, Ubisoft Ukraine, Ubisoft Montpellier, and Ubisoft Bucharest

External links

• Official website

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