The highly-anticipated return to the world of the Assassins is here, and promises answers to your questions… albeit not all of them. You return again as Ezio Auditore da Firenze, a now-distinguished old man, but still a spry Assassin and mentor of the Assassin Order. Your story this time takes you from Masyaf to Istanbul (or was it Constantinople?) and back, meeting new friends and recruiting more assassins to your cause along the way. Many of us who know the series are unabashed fans of its incredibly broad storyline, which stretches its fingers into history from the Crusades to the Italian Renaissance and even to relatively recent events such as Tunguska and the Philadelphia Experiment. This time around, Ezio travels to Istanbul to combat Templars attempting to uncover clues returned there via the Polo family: Niccolo and his son, Marco.
Constantinople
The more things change…
Mechanics, of course, are very similar to the previous Assassin’s Creed games. Free-running is still all the rage, and stealthy and acrobatic kills are your bread and butter. As usual, however, we are given new tools. In Assassin’s Creed 2, counter kills, swimming, the pistol, and city renovation were all introduced. In Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, recruiting assassins allowed you to call them to your aid or send them on missions to other cities. The parachute, poison darts, and the crossbow were all added to your arsenal.
In Revelations, the hookblade and grenades are two of the new tools at your disposal. Players can use the hookblade to fly across ziplines, climb more quickly, latch onto missed rooftops, and throw enemies. Bombs can be crafted in three varieties—tactical, lethal, and diversion—from ingredients found in chests and on vanquished foes. The different ingredient types, including housings, powders, and fillings, allow you to create a fuse-delayed high explosive, a smoke screen that will burst on impact, a sticky grenade that will explode lambs blood over a group of victims, and more. There are a large number of variations, as you might imagine. Aside from these, the game’s combat segment returns to the standard dual wristblades, poison darts, pistol, sword, crossbow, and more.
The hookblade and zipline are new to the franchise
A few new or tweaked game modes are introduced as well: Den Defense and a new version of the assassin assignment activity. In Revelations, like in Brotherhood, you recruit assassins by clearing out Templar strongholds. Once you do, these strongholds become assassin dens. Get the Templars angry enough with you, and your notoriety will rise; if you get it high enough, Templars will attack one of your dens to try to reclaim it. If you get there in time, you’re treated to a type of tower-defense game where you can erect barriers and post different types of assassins—crossbowmen, riflemen, air assassins—to try to beat back the horde of Templars thrown at your doorstep. This can be avoided in two ways: by reducing your notoriety (the posters are gone, but you can still bribe heralds and kill witnesses), or by leveling your assassin recruits to Master Assassins.
To get Master Assassins, you send your recruits out on missions to the Mediterranean, similar to Brotherhood. Once they reach level ten, some of them can be assigned as leaders of the dens you’ve liberated from the Templars and have been defending all this time. Once you do this, you’ll set them on the Master Assassin track. At first, they will work with Ezio on an assassination attempt, learning from the mentor. After this phase, they can be sent out again for more assignments until they reach a certain level, at which point the second class with Ezio takes place. If successful, the recruit becomes a Master Assassin, and his or her den becomes impervious to Templar attack.
The discovery of Masyaf
In the assassin assignments, while the standard fare (sabotage a scholar, silence a herald, etc.) will reduce Templar influence in the city, the player now also has the ability to reclaim the cities of the Mediterranean for the Assassins, switching them from Templar control back to yours. As with the dens, however, these cities can be attacked by the Templars attempting to regain control, and you must occasionally dispatch your assassins to defend the city. There is no tower defense here, however.
There’s also a bit of interactive backstory on our protagonist Desmond’s life, with some as-yet unseen mechanics and interesting puzzle elements. Completing these provides some more insight into Desmond’s path in life and how he ended up at Abstergo.
Verdict: Play
For fans of the Assassin’s Creed lineage, this is a fantastic addition to the series and an incredibly fun ride. While the game does deliver on its promise of revelations, it has no choice but to leave us with more questions for the future. The new mechanics are a lot of fun to toy with and master, and the new game modes provide some new types of action while staying true to the core story and gameplay. For new entrants to the series, the early game does attempt to get you up to speed with a recap of the previous action, but it’s really just that—a recap, not a substitute. Even so, if you’ve been looking forward to the next entry in the series, you will not be disappointed.
Assassin’s Creed Revelations is available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.
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