I don’t think I’m the only on in thinking this game is blowing it’s load way too quickly. In October at New York Comic Con I remember there being a booth erected for the third game begging for preorders. No more than five month later at PAX EAST there was another booth built promoting the fourth game. I fully understand that Ubisoft has the means to produce epic games quickly, however, is the fan base going to be Assassin’s Creeded out by the time this new game is released?
After sitting through a promo video at PAX East I can say one thing with certainty, that this game took the best part of the third game and made an entire story line around it. It’s safe to say that the naval battles were hands down the best part of Assassin’s Creed III. I say this because I got severely bored with Connor’s character very quickly. What with Ezio being the most charming son of a bitch anyone had ever seen, Altaiir just being a plain badass and Desmond being spunky as shit, Connor just kind of fell to the side. I get it, fighting for freedom in colonial America, blah blah blah. I’m uninterested. The game was pretty, but I feel like the characterization was seriously lacking. With the sudden release of this new game, I can’t help but feel that his character might have lacked because Ubisoft was trying to balance two games being developed simultaneously. With the released of this new game and a new pirate assassin, Edward Kenway. Kenway is rumored to be Connors grandfather. The game will be split 60/40 between land and naval travel. Three major cities will be featured during the game, Havana, Kingston, and Nassau. You will be able to attack, board, and capture ships that you encounter. As a side note, there will be the option to be able to play underwater which I think is an interesting touch. There’s also already some controversy surrounding parts of the game. Animal rights organisation People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) criticized Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag for the inclusion of whaling, saying that it is “disgraceful” for a video game to “glorify” whaling. An official PETA statement read, “Whaling—that is, shooting whales with harpoons and leaving them to struggle for an hour or more before they die or are hacked apart while they are still alive—may seem like something out of the history books, but this bloody industry still goes on today in the face of international condemnation, and it’s disgraceful for any game to glorify it. PETA encourages video game companies to create games that celebrate animals—not games that promote hurting and killing them.”
In response, Ubisoft stated that they did not condone “illegal whaling” any more than they condoned “a pirate lifestyle”. An official Ubisoft statement read, “History is our playground in Assassin’s Creed. Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is a work of fiction that depicts the real events during the Golden Era of Pirates. We do not condone illegal whaling, just as we don’t condone a pirate lifestyle of poor hygiene, plundering, hijacking ships, and over the legal limit drunken debauchery.” Well said Ubisoft, well said.
I think the thing I’m most excited about in this game after Assassin’s Creed overload is that Todd McFarlane did the promo poster for this game, and it looks SICK! The game is dated to air October 29th of this year for PC, Wii U, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Mac. I probably won’t be picking it up immediately.