Every game and their dog seems to be getting a TV show these days. Just this week Crystal Dynamics announced a new Tomb Raider anime that will continue the reboot trilogy, but last year brought us news that Fallout's getting one too, as is Disco Elysium - and The Witcher, of course, already has one (which we've dissected in great detail). Assassin's Creed is in Netflix's sights as well, but having spent a good 100-odd hours in Assassin's Creed Valhalla recently, there is only one possible form an Assassin's Creed TV show should take: a time-travelling adventure show that stars Eivor, Kassandra and Evie Frye, because let's face it, they're the best protagonists the series has and together I know they'd sort the Templars right out. Let me explain.
]]>This week's free games on the Epic Store will have you murdering unsuspecting Englishmen and playing cards against your friends on a magical hex board. That's right, it's Assassin's Creed Syndicate and Faeria! I'll let you figure out which description goes with which game.
]]>Some have doubted the power of the Steam Charts to change people's lives. Those people are dead now. Belief in Steam Charts, RPS's greatest, longest-running, and most industry-revered column, is literally the only thing keeping you alive right now. Don't be a dead one. Love us. LOVE US.
]]>We were on a break! (Entirely topical references for you there). Yes, it appears that Assassin's Creed is back after a year-odd hiatus from its traditionally annual release cycle. Various leaks have it that the game is named Assassin's Creed: Origins, is set in ancient Egypt and looks, well, just like the image above.
]]>From the fractured festivities of The Division's Manhattan to the lo-fi confusion of Bernband, urban spaces in games are drawn from many reference points and they all communicate their own ideas about cities. What they are, on what terms we relate to them and how they behave. Thomas McMullan explores how game mechanics attempt to make sense of cities.
French detectives, shopping centres and terrorist acts: how games deal with the systems that make up the city.
]]>My calendar tells me we're now over halfway through April. The Met Office tells me astronomical spring in the northern hemisphere started on March 20. Yet the weatherman told me yesterday that I can expect highs of a whopping nine degrees centigrade here in Glasgow this weekend. I'd swear it was still winter had the annual Uplay Spring Sale not kicked off this week, with big discounts on the likes of Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Rainbow Six Siege and Far Cry 4, among others. Which others, you say? Find out after the drop.
]]>Since 2009's Assassin's Creed II, Ubisoft have released a new open-world murder playground every single year. Not in 2016. AC will indeed be taking a rest for a bit of a reworking, as was rumoured. I wonder if that means the Ancient Egypt setting for the next entry that rumourmongers mentioned is real too. Point is, Ubi are skipping 2016 and planning to return later with something fresher. Say, I wonder if Watch Dogs 2 will fill that October/November slot now open in Ubi's lineup for this year.
]]>Just before the Christmas break I was trying to catch up on all of the interesting games that I hadn't found time to play earlier in the year. Else Heart.Break() was right near the top of the list, even though I have zero interest in games that expect me to learn how to program in order to have fun. If I learn how to program it'll be so that I can become a megarich superstar game dev, not so that I can solve puzzles in somebody else's game.
So why play a game that is quite clearly about IFs, ELSEs and ANDs? The Store page description contains phrases that should have warned me off the game rather than encouraging me to buy it, and yet something appealed. I wanted to play the game because of a single paragraph in Brendan's review:
]]>A rumour is going round, based on anonymous 4chan posts supposedly by an Ubisoft employee, that we'll not see a new main Assassin's Creed game in 2016, but it'll return in 2017 with a complete overhaul set in Ancient Egypt. Not the most reliable of sources, that, and probably not a rumour to put money on. However, now we're all back at work and loitering around water coolers with idle hands and malevolent intent, let's gasbag and tell other people how to do their jobs. We ask: how would you revitalise the open-world parkouring murder simulator series?
]]>Ho ho ho it's Christmas, let's celebrate by making light of one of history's most brutal serial killers. Yes, the surprisingly ace Assassin's Creed: Syndicate [official site] on PC now has the long-promised Jack The Ripper DLC, available both to season pass holders and as its own $15 purchase. Putting our confusion about how the Whitechapel killer could possibly feature in the Syndicate timeline to rest, it transpires that the new chunk of story is set 20 years after the parent game.
]]>After initial investigations revealed a port worth playing and a game that ignited unexpected enthusiasm, I've spent just over forty hours playing Assassin's Creed Syndicate [official site]. Some of that enthusiasm has been dampened as familiar AAA open world problems popped up across the map like fungi, but a spark still remains.
This may well be my favourite Assassin's Creed game.
]]>Review code for the PC version of Assassin's Creed Syndicate [official site] activated this evening and I've spent the hours since playing through the opening sections and fiddling with various settings to see how it all holds together. In short, it runs beautifully and looks a treat. Details and early thoughts about my trip to the Big Smoke are below.
]]>Assassin's Creed Landahn is out! But not on PC, as we have to wait till next month before we can leap across all of Victoriana like an acrobatic chimney sweep. Far Cry Primal, the caveman sequel, will also arrive on PC the month after its February appearance on the console box. While this sort of situation isn't quite as common as it used to be, it is one which refuses to go away - with Assassin's Creed in particular a repeat offender, despite occasional promises to the contrary.
Is this - and the late arrival of other games on PC - cause for alarm? Alec, Alice, Pip and Graham gathered to discuss.
]]>Question: what do you imagine Alexander Graham Bell, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Florence Nightingale, Charles Dickens, and Queen Victoria herself would do in the kooky Dan Brown historyfucking world of Assassin's Creed: Syndicate [official site]? I ask because I laughed when I saw they're all your pals in the next AssCreed, but I can now leak a few details about their roles. Four words: Charles Darwin's spider mutagen.
Watch this daft new trailer closely and I'm sure you'll figure out a few more secrets:
]]>"Admire the Chief's feather headdress, his wives' shameless outfits and the adorable little faces of their red-skinned offspring. Feeding time is not to be missed!"
If that excerpt from the XIXth Century Search Engine hasn't caused your sides to split, don't worry - there's more. Ubisoft sent news of their latest AssCreed [official site] marketing initiative this morning, calling it "a rich historical research tool designed to look just like the search engines our great-great-great-grandparents used in 1868". I clicked on it expecting an irritating collection of steampunk iDevices and mustachioed memes. What I found was somehow worse than that.
]]>It wasn't fair that last year's Assassin's Creed: Unity became the fall guy for an entire industry's reluctance to make its digital people diverse. Unfortunately the apparently contradictory excuses, rather than acknowledgement of oversight, for cutting playable female characters from a game whose headline feature was co-op play with customised avatars made the situation much worse. In any case, the series now seems determined to be more inclusive, starting with the upcoming Assassin's Creed: Syndicate [official site].
We already know that you can switch between its male and female protagonists, twins Jacob and Evie Fry, and now it's been revealed that the supporting cast will include a trans man.
]]>Assassin's Creed: Syndicate [official site] will be getting a Jack the Ripper campaign as part of its season pass DLC. Alice would like us to think that she called this turn of events months ago. She didn't. In May she was all "tbh I'm astonished it's set too early for Jack the Ripper [AssCreed Syndicate is set in London, 1868 while the five generally accepted Jack the Ripper killings all date from 1888] - I was convinced they'd go for him playing a pivotal role in The Conspiracy."
It was in fact Graham who said: "I'm sure he'll feature in a big bit of DLC."
Ten points to Graham. Here's the trailer and some thoughts:
]]>Haven't you always wanted to meet Sam Fisher and take home a photo of him pretending to snap your neck? Why not bungee from a Venetian rooftop into a haystack (don't worry, it's not real hay!)? Dare you ride a rollercoaster named Uplay? All these dreams and more may very well - let's say it: will almost definitely - come true, as Ubisoft have announced plans to open a "next-generation theme park" in Malaysia.
That "next-generation" bit has caused some confusion in the RPS treehouse, but we think we've cracked it. Read on for our ideas:
]]>Almost every time I watch a trailer for an Assassin's Creed game, I think the same thing: I want to go to this place but I do not want to spend my visit climbing up the walls, collecting feathers, and bumping into people (and bumping people off). My repetitive cry of "great city, tedious experience" has itself become tedious. But here I go again because Ubisoft have released a new trailer for Assassin's Creed: Syndicate [official site] and when the marketing department considered the target audience they wanted to reach, they were looking at a picture of me. It's a beaut and I'm going to pretend it's a trailer for a tourism simulator. Or Dishonored 2.
]]>Cor blimey luv a duck and stone the crows [be kind then cruel to birds -ed.], you won't Adam and Eve [believe -ed.] what Ubisoft have done to the PC version of Assassin's Creed Syndicate [official site]. I'm only joshing: you will absolutely believe that Ubisoft have confirmed the PC version is coming a month after the console release. It's their flipping copper hand and eye [modus operandi -ed.], innit?
Having been a bit vague about the launch before, Ubi have now pegged down a Windows release date of November 19th - consoles are October 23rd.
]]>Ubisoft have let loose a bit of Assassin's Creed Syndicate [official site] in a nice 10-minute playthrough video taking a look at the game's secondary protagonist Evie, twin to playable Dude Hero Jacob Frye and a sensibly dressed Master of Stealth in her own right, as she infiltrates the Tower of London. You can watch it all below.
]]>I was waiting during E3 for Ubisoft to prove that Assassin's Creed Syndicate [official site] is a worthy addition to the franchise. True to form, the publisher has released about a million trailers (okay, three) for the game during E3. None of them have quelled my fears.
]]>Yesterday Ubisoft live-streamed its announcement of a new bounty of pre-order bonus opportunities, offering collections containing exclusive figurines, hip flasks, art books and a game called Assassin's Creed Syndicate. With so much variety on offer, we've compiled a list of all those packs to help you choose which one to buy a full six months before the first review!
]]>This year's instalment of Assassin's Creed will visit Merrye Olde Victoriane Londone, Ubisoft announced today (and as we knew ages ago), in Assassin's Creed Syndicate [official site]. It's due on PC this autumn with carriages to ride, urchins to milk for information, working class gangs to recruit, and a smattering of comedy cockneyisms.
Come have a look in the nine-minute gameplay trailer, showing off one mission.
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