Preview – Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

The ending of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood prompts as it is usual for the series more questions than it gives answers. No wonder that the story around Ezio da Firenze, the protagonist of AC 2 and AC Brotherhood, should come to a worthy end. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations concludes the story of Ezio Auditore and it also revives original series protagonist Altair.

At E3 2011 we got a first look at the game via a short single-player presentation. Ubisoft kept notable story details to a minimum during the demo, but showcased action that the series is known for and noticeable additions to the latest game.

In what way Revelations will manage the actions between Ezio and Altair and also their descendent Desmond, wasn’t shown in the demo. To be exactly the demo focused only on Ezio. The main setting for Revelations, Constantinople, is a distinctive addition to the dynasty. Ezio travely to this city that is nowadays known as Istanbul when it was already a crossroads between East and West. These different cultures invested their surroundings with a such a huge variety that perfectly fits an openworld game and also very useful could hhe hilly terrain be – 85 per cent of Constantinople is on a slope, Ubisoft guessed.

Ezio as acrobatic as always, bit older-looking and greyer, is in town trailing another Templar. On a pilgrimage to Altair’s home town of Masayaf – starting point of the original Assassin’s Creed – he is attacked by the Templars and discovers they are seeking five seals that they need to unlock a hidden library beneath the city, where Altair has buried a weapon of great magnitude. The Templars have one of those in their possession, the other four seals are located in Constantinople.

In the demo shown at the E3 we join Ezio leaving town and seeking out his Templar enemies. Yusuf, the local Assassins guild chief is the first person he talks to and he tells Ezio that the harbour has been blockaded with ships and barricaded with a large chain drawn from the old Tower of Gelata. But Yusuf also speaks about a new type of bomb he has for Ezio – one more than 50 times more powerful than his usual fare. Bombs will play a main role in Revelations, there will be about 300 and you’ll gather items to customize them to use them for special purposes. As he reaches the Tower Ezio kills a pair of the local Janissary guards with the use one of a splinter explosive.

Moving further on Ezio gets in a fight with some more Janissaries and throws a smoke bomb. This gives us a chance to see how Ezio can use Eagle Sense to pick out movements in the haze. Once he cleared out all enemies, Ezio plants Yusuf’s bomb and then detonates it with a shot from the pistol on his gauntlet. The Tower falls apart and the chain across the harbour descends. Before he can leave town, Ezio still needs to deal with the blockade. So he uses the hookblade, a new gadget to ride a zipline down to a nearby ship where he can take advantage of Greek Fire – kind of a flamethrower – to burn the surrounding ships down.

In the moment he is finishing up, cannon balls start to rain down on Ezio’s and he has to hurry to reach his ship. The following sequence shows Ezio running nimbly across a rope connecting two ships, jumping and swinging himself fluidly from an environmental trapeze, leaping stylishly among burning timbers, briefly climbing some rigging and assassinating a Janissary from below, cutting a weighted rope and riding it to the top of a mainsail and then ziplining into a double kill before tumbling elegantly onto his escape vessel, all in about one minute.

In the final plenty of side contentwill be added to this kind of story mission, containing more of the diversions that made up the Assassin’s Tomb levels in AC2 and the lairs of Romulus in Brotherhood. Ubisoft says these will not just be interesting and memorable curiosities, they will have more of a narrative layer this time around too.

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