Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag

Great report by Polygon, the sister magazine of The Verge.

Having recently played the first four installments of the series, I’ve felt quite let down when I first started playing Assassins’ Creed III. I’m still nowhere near the end, but lots of the concepts that made Assassin’s Creed II the best game I’ve ever played — from mechanics to story to the sense of liberty — have been put to the ground in AC3.

Seeing that Ubisoft intends to downplay the Assassins-Templar backstory in this new installment, I’m afraid that the company didn’t know where it was going with the story (Assassin’s Creed: Revelations may be the best example…). Quite a shame.

The millenias-long fight of Good versus Evil, the self-sacrifices for the better good, the realisation that Ezio was but a mere vessel for a message, etc. This made Assassin’s Creed and its story well worth the long hours of play, and made for all the hype and fame of the series. It’s too bad that the developers haven’t realized it.