Kassandra, Ezio and Connor in VR and against all
As promised during the June 1 Meta Quest Gaming Showcase, Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR was entitled to his few minutes of presentation. The only survivor of the alliance between Meta and Ubisoft, which also initially included a Splinter Cell game in VR, this Assassin’s Creed marks Ubisoft’s great return to the field of virtual reality, a segment on which the French publisher is focusing. wanted to be a pioneer but gradually abandoned it in the face of weak market growth. And let’s be clear, faced with the lack of results from which Ubisoft has suffered in recent years, the studios of the Guillemot family have many other priorities than participating in the still hypothetical take-off of VR. Still, Ubisoft must honor its partnership with Meta and is therefore preparing this 100% virtual reality Assassin’s Creed for Quest platforms.
Driven by Red Storm Entertainment (and 7 other studios) under Creative Director David Votypka, Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR navigates between different well-known eras of the franchise. Thanks to a narrative pretext linked to Abstergo’s experiences in the modern world, the game’s campaign will alternate between Kassandra in the time of ancient Greece, Ezio during the Italian Renaissance and Connor in the midst of the American Revolution. The main feature of this project is that VR switches the action to subjective view, a first in fifteen years of assassinations over time. And since the game’s levels take the form of vertical sandboxes that you can roam with the same freedom as usual, and whose objectives can be accomplished from different approaches, the formula does not fail to make you think at Dishonored. Assassin’s blade, tomahawk, bow, crossbow, knives, smoke bombs, angel jump, parkour… the ingredients of traditional Assassin’s Creed are there. Regarding movement, Ubisoft has prepared locomotion options by teleportation and vignetting to block peripheral vision and limit breakage in the most sensitive. Options have even been integrated for people prone to vertigo.
What more could you ask for other than release on more platforms, like PlayStation VR2? Unfortunately, we do not know the exact nature of its agreement with Meta, but note that Ubisoft is credited as the sole developer and publisher of the game, which does not seem to guarantee lifetime exclusivity. You have probably thought that what is shown seems much too clean for Quest. And in fact, the video surreptitiously specifies that the few gameplay extracts are not and that everything is only pre-rendered cutscenes. A somewhat strange choice when the game is due to be released this fall.
jade help
With Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade, Ubisoft hopes to impose the franchise on the lucrative mobile market. For this, he partnered with Level Infinite, a Tencent Games label, and opted in no way fortuitous for a Chinese setting. We are more exactly in the 3rd century BC, in ancient China freshly unified under the reign of the imperial Qin dynasty. Opening a new chapter in China’s long history, the game’s storyline is more accurately set between the events of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed Origins. The young assassin disciple that we will embody will this time be fully customizable and will go and explore an open world where we can already see the emblematic Great Wall and visit the capital of the time, Xianyang.
Developed with the Unreal Engine, the title displays real ambitions in terms of production, even if the biggest challenge here seems to be to transcribe the main features of the franchise on the touch screen (assassinations, parkour, combat and exploration of an open world ). On the other hand, as always when we are presented with a mobile game, nothing on the details of the economic model. In the meantime, the team in charge of development has just opened the pre-registrations to participate in the first closed beta test which will take place during the summer. As the game is still far from complete, only a small group of players will be invited to give their opinion on the work in progress.
O mirage, o despair
Finally, the main course is served to us by the director of narration Sarah Beaulieu and the director of animation Benjamin Potts, two executives from Ubisoft Bordeaux, the studio that drives Assassin’s Creed Mirage. A key moment for this studio founded in 2017 and which has more than 400 employees, more than half of whom are busy on the game in question. Including the participation of 11 other Ubisoft studios, more than 500 people around the world are busy on Assassin’s Creed Mirage, despite its more modest size than the latest opuses. Presented as a reminder as a tribute to the first Assassin’s Creed, driven by the desire to refocus on the three basic pillars (parkour, infiltration, assassination) this episode takes us back to the Middle East and more precisely to 9th century Baghdad, an open city whose size is comparable to the Paris of Assassin’s Creed Unity or Constantinople from Assassin’s Creed Revelations. Notable detail, the presentation never uses the term RPG but rather narrative action-adventure.
On the scenario side, Assassin’s Creed Mirage takes place at a key moment in the history of the assassins and more generally of the region. We will follow the evolution of Basim, a young street thief still far from the experienced character discovered in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. In bad shape, Basim will be saved and then trained by the brotherhood of assassins to become a new weapon devoted to their cause, as illustrated by the trailer for the story released for the occasion. Between visions of nightmares that have always haunted him and questions about his own identity, Basim seems to question the path he has chosen. He can at least count on the advice of his childhood friend Nehal, his fellow assassins Roshan and Fuladh, as well as a historical figure like Ali ben Muhammad, leader of the Zanj revolt.
Investigate, hunt, strike and escape: it is through these four actions that Benjamin Potts sums up the central loop ofAssassin’s Creed Mirage, before presenting gameplay to illustrate his points. ” We’ve reworked the NPC detection system, improved the AI of enemy reactions, and recreated the assassination animations we are told. In addition to his basic tools (assassin’s blade, sword, dagger), Basim has a panel of five gadgets, including smoke bombs, sleeping darts and knives to use as lethal projectiles. The confrontation is considered here as the solution of last resort, but the melee combat still benefits from new animations specific to Assassin’s Creed Mirage, including kills, shackles and parries. Infiltration skills are not to be outdone: the gameplay sequence shows Basim in particular marking three targets before eliminating them on autopilot as if he were teleporting. You can also entrust the raptor Enkidu with spotting a target from the skies to plan an attack without getting wet.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage will be released on October 12, 2023 at a price of 50 euros for the standard edition, 60 for the deluxe edition, slightly lower prices for this more compact episode than the last gargantuan opuses. An additional quest based on Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves will be available on pre-order.