I'm hoping they can figure out how to make engaging characters now that the veil of intrigue is completely torn down. It worked well in ACI where we had no idea what was going on and everything in Desmond's meta-story was mysterious, new, and exciting. ACII lead to more mystery and made things even more exciting (for me at least) but then nothing happened to take the character or the storyline forward. The events at the end of Brotherhood were another shot at intrigue, but that's where it began to feel contrived. We got to delve into Desmond's past and it was 'artistic' but not engaging or interesting. His mental collapse was a needless detour. In fact, everything after the events of ACII seemed to exist for the sole purpose of making an excuse for making more games with less meaning while attempting to maintain the same level of intrigue. The problem was that 'intrigue' was there only trick. They tried to keep everything all wrapped up in mystery but the mysteries never actually meant anything, nor were they working to some larger resolution. After the revelation of Juno everything was just needless, pointless, and bland fluff.
Desmond was supposed to be the special one, the guy who had learned lifetimes of assassin training and we were all expecting him to scale the walls of Abstergo HQ and beat the living crap out of modern day Templars, starting with Vidik. That would have been a fun and fitting end to the character and the series. Instead Desmond became a nameless, faceless, emotionless vehicle who nobody cared about save for the potential he could have had.
The ending of ACIII was another attempt to be all mysterious and full of intrigue, but nobody cares anymore.
If anyone working on the AC series wants to have some REAL intrigue in their game then they need to do some research in philosophy and actually put something firm behind the veil. They hint at greater truth, but its all smoke and mirrors. The Assassins and the Templars don't actually stand for anything except a reason to kill blokes in a video game. All their hinting about greater causes, religion, meta-truths, and anything else that could have a shred of meaning is simply that, hinting. The hinting is just smoke and mirrors, mind games, mental candy spread a mile wide and 1/2 inch deep. We might as well have no story line and replace it with a series of random combat, mini-games, video cut scenes, and... oh wait...
Part of the problem is that they CAN'T say anything outright lest they break the Prime Directive that comes from being a 'multicultural multifaith organization' namely that they might offend someone.
As far as I'm concerned, they blew it. I was invested in Desmond and while the first two games set him up for incredible potential his adventures, his life, and his sacrifice were meaningless. They could have had a kick ass trilogy and then branched out from there, but they didn't. What can we expect from further games? Probably more of the same and I am tired of it.
