Why You Should Be Excited for Assassin’s Creed Unity

The excitement surrounding Assassin’s Creed Unity’s arrival on the Xbox One and PS4 this coming November is palpable. Without a doubt, Assassin’s Creed Unity, is going to be one of the biggest launches of the year.

Inside Assassin’s Creed Unity’s world are new stories to get users interested into the age-old battle between the Templars and the Assassin Order. New graphics and updated hardware will give Assassin’s Creed Unity buyers the greatest looking vistas they’ve ever seen when compared to past games.

Ubisoft, the game’s publisher, has even gone back and a rethought the gameplay mechanics that we know and love. Online cooperative play has been upgraded and rethought. Users now customize their assassin in a way that suits their play styles and the play styles of their friends on Xbox Live or PlayStation network. A new profile in GameInformer even points to a Assassin’s Creed Unity returning to its roots as a stealth adventure game with a brutal combat system.

Here are five major reasons to pre-order Assassin’s Creed Unity when it arrives on store shelves this coming November 11th on the Xbox One and Sony’s PS4.

Your Assassin is Your Assassin

Creating an Assassin in the past has always been either hit or miss. Unlike other adventure games, Assassin’s Creed has always been heavily geared towards a central story with a theme. What that means is that players have always taken over the lives of protagonists in the series and never actually created the protagonist themselves. It sounds like a small difference, but the result is that Assassin’s Creed has never allowed a lot of character customization in the single player story. Changes to characters were just cosmetic in nature.

Assassin’s Creed Unity doesn’t exactly reach the pinnacle of character customization. For example, players still can’t change Arno, the game’s protagonist’s, race or anything. However, they can still make cosmetic changes and now armor changes actually account for something in the game. Say that your custom version of Arno is wearing a chest piece that helps help withstand bullets better than other chest pieces. That same chest piece could make it harder for your Arno to hide and sneak around. Sure, your Arno won’t look nearly as unique and personal as your Xbox Live Avatar, but this is a step above what’s been available in the franchise so far. It’s definitely a win.

As users navigate Paris and completely missions they’ll earn points toward more power ups and skills. From the beginning this means that users are starting off with less at their disposable than past games. This also means that users will be able to invest in the skills and play styles that they like.

It’s Going to Be Harder

Speaking of stealth, the Assassin’s Creed franchise has aimed for approachable stealthiness for a while now. The series has always tried it, but there have always been wholes – at least, in my experience with the last two games in the franchise. Combat has always been pretty iffy too, mainly because there are many different controls and things going on.

All reports indicate that Assassin’s Creed Unity will be brutal. We’re talking enemies that are cleverer and smarter than their counterparts in previous games. Game Informer reports that it found getting killed because of a screw up significantly easier in Assassin’s Creed Unity than in Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag. No joke, a single gunshot in Assassin’s Creed Unity can kill Arno, according to the outlet.

Because of the new progression system we talked about earlier, initially, users won’t have as many skills at their disposal. Right now, we can only speculate on what this will do to those at the beginning of Assassin’s Creed Unity campaign, but it’s not hard to imagine that some of the power moves users enjoyed early on in past games won’t be available to them in Unity until much later.

For casual users, the campaign being harder might not initially be enjoyable. That being said, Ubisoft is setting up players of Assassin’s Creed Unity for a future in which leveling up and beating the game’s many missions feels more substantial. For a series that releases a new entry every year, that’s key.

One thing that I think all people will enjoy is the simplified combat system. Assassin’s Creed Unity has a combat system that sounds very similar to what users get in the Batman: Arkham series. Dodge, parry and attack are the options that users get. Simplified combat should help balance these more aggressive enemies.

Problems Fixed

Finally, Assassin’s Creed Unity is worth a pre-order because it addresses and fixes most of the problems we’ve seen with the series in the past. Remember when entering and exiting a tavern forced you into a minute long loading screen. You’d talk to one person and get stuck at that loading screen again once you were done. In Assassin’s Creed Unity players can move between inside and outside spaces without loading screens. Better yet, getting down from tall buildings doesn’t require users to jump into strategically placed piles of hay.

A new cooperative mode allows players to team up and play story missions together. The difficulty scales depending on how many team members there are. Ubisoft has even changed the way it approaches missions altogether. Mission objectives aren’t as cut and dry as finishing a set mission or tailing anyone.

Read:  Assassin’s Creed Unity Special Editions: Which Should You Buy?

Assassin’s Creed Unity arrives on the Xbox One and PS4 on November 11th. It’ll cost $60, but an upgraded version that includes a ton of extras will also be available. Assassin’s Creed Unity won’t be available on the Xbox 360 and PS3. Those consoles are getting their own sequel to Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag in the form of Assassin’s Creed Rogue.