Assassin's Creed Strategy Game Dives onto iPad

[Marshall Honorof]

Assassin's Creed Strategy Game Dives onto iPad

Ubisoft shifts its focus from assassination to diplomacy in a strategic board game for Apple's tablet.

If you, like many other aspiring Assassins, have been hunting for the Apple of Eden, your best tool might be another Apple. Not content with releasing Assassin's Creed: Revelations this holiday season, Ubisoft has announced a companion game for the iPad. Assassin's Creed: Recollection departs from the tried-and-true parkour/combat formula of the previous games and opts instead for a diplomatic board game. Recollections seems like it delivers the fun kind of diplomacy: the kind that involves armed guards, scheming Templars, and more Roman landmarks than you can shake a hidden blade at. The game will challenge players to think tactically while recruiting a diverse army of characters, assets, and locations to change the political landscape of Renaissance Europe.

Gameplay details are pretty sparse at this point, but Ubisoft has promised an 8-10 hour campaign, replete with "tactical political battles," and a focus on collecting people, places, and matériel. A screenshot from the game suggests that these resources will take the form of trading cards, complete with a system of ratings, abilities, and varying skills. Furthermore, players will be able to face off against each other using their own meticulously-constructed decks. As an added incentive, the game will come with a free copy of Assassin's Creed: Embers, an upcoming animated short about Ezio Auditore as an old man.

Recollection is the first portable Assassin's Creed title to take a radically different approach to the series's gameplay. Given the relative weakness of previous handheld outings, this is not necessarily a bad thing. The Assassin's Creed series has always been as much about setting as it has about its story and characters, so providing background information about the trials and tribulations of Europe's political leaders should only help to strengthen the central narrative. Currently, there's no specific date for the title beyond "Holiday season 2011," nor is there any word of an iPhone or Android port.

Source: GameInformer [http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/10/27/assassin-39-s-creed-recollection-attacks-november.aspx]

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[Wieke]

Sounds pretty cool. Shame about the apparent platform exclusivity. Heck reminds me a bit of these politically flavored card based table-top games like Dominion and Machiavelli.

 

[redisforever]

Alright, this actually may convince me to get into Assassin's Creed. I mean, they're cool, but I never got the hang of them. I'd rather watch my friend beat them, while I help solve the puzzles you have to decode.

First, though, it has to convince me to get an iPad. That'll be harder.

 

[Aeshi]

Why on earth would anyone make a STRATEGY game for a device whose button options consists of "press screen" and "press another part of screen?"

This is so dumb it's almost painful to watch.

 

[Frostbite3789]

Why on earth would anyone make a STRATEGY game for a device whose button options consists of "press screen" and "press another part of screen?"

This is so dumb it's almost painful to watch.

About half a second of googling has led me to the conclusion it's a card based game.

Strategy doesn't mean RTS. So your assertion is dumb and painful to read.

 

[Chaos James]

If anything was going to convince me to get an iPad, it would be this game.

Too bad I lack the money.

I did like the little joke about using an Apple product to locate an Apple of Eden, made me chuckle.

 

[harvz]

so, its card based, havent actually seen if its actual strategy (in the total war style) just based around cards or if its an actual card game. either way, the complexity will probably require 10-30 mins for a round depending on difficulty and, well, complexity of the game.

there is a reason why games like angry birds and cut the rope are really popular on ios, they are casual and therefore can be played in intervals ~2 minutes without any problems, if you try doing that with any sort of complex strategy game, you will forget strategies and loose the flow of the game.

 

[brainslurper]

so, its card based, havent actually seen if its actual strategy (in the total war style) just based around cards or if its an actual card game. either way, the complexity will probably require 10-30 mins for a round depending on difficulty and, well, complexity of the game.

there is a reason why games like angry birds and cut the rope are really popular on ios, they are casual and therefore can be played in intervals ~2 minutes without any problems, if you try doing that with any sort of complex strategy game, you will forget strategies and loose the flow of the game.

Civilization revolutions actually plays quite well on the iPad, even when playing in short intervals. Maybe because it is a more slow paced game.

 

[vivster]

i would really like to play something like that ...
all the historic and political stuff in AC is half the fun for me

so a game out of it and CARDS!!... must be awesome

 

[laserwulf]

No Android port = no purchase. And I really want to throw money at Ubisoft for this. Tablets need more non-casual games.

 

[Marshall Honorof]

No Android port = no purchase. And I really want to throw money at Ubisoft for this. Tablets need more non-casual games.

Ubisoft is batting .500 right now with Android ports of their handhelds (not counting Bloodlines, which only got a PSP release). Altair's Chronicles and Discovery have both been ported to phones: Altair's Chronicles for both iOS and Android, and Discovery just for iOS. It's not impossible that Recollection will get an Android release, but it depends on how well the game sells, and whether there's a team ready to do porting work.

 

[Mordereth]

No Android port = no purchase. And I really want to throw money at Ubisoft for this. Tablets need more non-casual games.

Ubisoft is batting .500 right now with Android ports of their handhelds (not counting Bloodlines, which only got a PSP release). Altair's Chronicles and Discovery have both been ported to phones: Altair's Chronicles for both iOS and Android, and Discovery just for iOS. It's not impossible that Recollection will get an Android release, but it depends on how well the game sells, and whether there's a team ready to do porting work.

I'm not sure why; with less sales you'll make more money (Steve Jobs didn't like the Free Market, they get a 30% cut of every purchase no matter who the fuck you think you are), and Android owners are going to be, quite frankly, more the type of people to enjoy a digital card game than the mass-market iPhone users (yes I have no statistics to support this).

 

[TheKwertyeweyoppe]

And here I was hoping I could tactically direct a squad of assassins to neutralize key guards and assassinate my target in a turn based tactics game, perhaps with a grand strategy in play as well.

But this looks cool too.