Does Assassin's Creed Still Need The Animus?

Ever since the 2007 release of the original Assassin’s Creed, I have been enamored with this long and successful franchise - the freedom of movement, the historical setting, the sandbox style assassinations and of course, the ever cool, hidden blade. I sunk dozens of hours just roaming around 12^th Century holy lands, creating my own stories that usually descended (ascended?) into leading useless guards on a dangerous dash across the rooftops. It was a flawed game, but one that I have so much time and adoration for.

One element of Assassin’s Creed that always stuck with me was the modern day sections of the game that put you in the shoes of Desmond Miles, an ex-assassin thrust back into the on-going war between Assassins and Templars. Apart from the fact that Desmond was as bland as an especially boring potato, this modern day story kept me interested enough that I wasn’t cursing when I was dragged out of my historical romp to wander the Abstergo labs.

This tradition continued right through to Assassin’s Creed 3, with the idea of two secret organisations vying for power as well as a colourful cast of supporting characters (I’m looking at you, Shaun Hastings) keeping me invested enough to genuinely enjoy the obviously less developed modern story. The end to Desmond Miles’ story, as rushed and a hackneyed job as it was, signaled an end to Ubisoft genuinely trying to tie the franchise together with a coherent modern story.

Well, Black Flag did at least try to make you care about present day. You played as a mute, nameless character in first person as you worked for Abstergo Entertainment, an evil video game corporation – not looking at you EA. You are coerced into hacking various points of the office by a familiar sounding voice – none of it seems important or relevant right up until the final moments when the voice is revealed to be none other than a reincarnation of the Sage you are chasing through the high seas of the Caribbean. It was a nice little reveal but I still wasn’t interested, nor did I care enough about this story to feel anything but annoyed when I was dragged out of 18^th Century.

Unity’s attempts at telling a modern day story were pretty much non-existent, with Ubisoft opting for a ‘let’s go find a sage’s remains’ tale that was laughably under-developed and forced, right up until the conclusion when it became a full blown hilarious joke as you discover that the whole ‘sage remains’ thing was a complete non issue in the first place. No big revelation, no cliffhanger and no attempt to coherently link these entertaining ventures into history all mean that the animus has just become a crude reminder I am playing a video game.

Assassins Creed games are great because of the fantastic sandbox worlds that Ubisoft create for us to explore. We become heavily invested in the realism and scope of these worlds that we feel a living, breathing part of it – and the animus breaks that immersion. I don’t want to be constantly reminded that I’m not in revolutionary Paris, or renaissance Italy just so Ubisoft feel better about calling these collections of games a franchise. We already know of the endless war between Assassins and Templars and that is the only link we need as we go from new entry to new entry.

Ubisoft has even started to use the animus as an excuse for Unity’s technical problems. See a couple hundred clones in Unity’s impressive crowd tech? That’s just animus programming. Wondering why everyone in Paris speaks with immersion breaking British accents? Oh, that’s just the animus doing its thing. Why doesn’t Napoleon have a face when I speak to him? That lovable animus and its hilarious mistakes, when will it learn eh?

In short Ubisoft, if you aren’t going to bother trying to tell a decent modern day story then drop the animus, reinvest in some new HUD and menu designs and give us an Assassin’s Creed world that we can immerse ourselves in for hundreds of hours without thinking we are playing a video game. Seriously, reality is pretty shit.

Alex A.