The "future" narrative (wasn't it set in 2012, making it the past now?) really interested me during the Desmond saga. With his story ending in a cliffhanger, I had hoped the series would keep telling the story, but it seems not.
That bothers me for one main reason, that being that you don't really need the present-day narrative at all by this point. End the current-day stuff, and you can present endless Assassin's Creed games set in whatever time period without needing to mention the Animus or Helix or any of that. None of that is necessary anymore. We know what's going on. So just tie up the story of the glowy orange lady and her quest to destroy the world or whatever and be done with the current-day stuff. Don't be afraid to put closure to the overarching narrative, because you can just keep making AC games without it. Just give us an ending.
Bioware isn't letting the end of the Shepard saga stop them from milking the Mass Effect cow. As well they shouldn't. Mass Effect is awesome. AC can be awesome, too. But there's no need to drag the modern story on forever just to justify a new game every year.
On a side note, I'd be interested to see how the series would handle a scenario wherein guns have taken over as the primary weapon of choice. Up until now, guns have been a side-weapon due to their long reload times, and if we keep going forward in time, they'll eventually get to a period where reloading doesn't take as much time and blades fall out of favor. Then what? It felt ridiculous in the second game for Desmond to be fighting Templars armed with staffs, but at least they sort of made up for it with the shooty enemies in the third. AC turning into a shooter would be quite a jarring change. I would hope that would necessitate a shift to pure stealth with the hidden blade instead of going in guns blazing.
That bothers me for one main reason, that being that you don't really need the present-day narrative at all by this point. End the current-day stuff, and you can present endless Assassin's Creed games set in whatever time period without needing to mention the Animus or Helix or any of that. None of that is necessary anymore. We know what's going on. So just tie up the story of the glowy orange lady and her quest to destroy the world or whatever and be done with the current-day stuff. Don't be afraid to put closure to the overarching narrative, because you can just keep making AC games without it. Just give us an ending.
Bioware isn't letting the end of the Shepard saga stop them from milking the Mass Effect cow. As well they shouldn't. Mass Effect is awesome. AC can be awesome, too. But there's no need to drag the modern story on forever just to justify a new game every year.
On a side note, I'd be interested to see how the series would handle a scenario wherein guns have taken over as the primary weapon of choice. Up until now, guns have been a side-weapon due to their long reload times, and if we keep going forward in time, they'll eventually get to a period where reloading doesn't take as much time and blades fall out of favor. Then what? It felt ridiculous in the second game for Desmond to be fighting Templars armed with staffs, but at least they sort of made up for it with the shooty enemies in the third. AC turning into a shooter would be quite a jarring change. I would hope that would necessitate a shift to pure stealth with the hidden blade instead of going in guns blazing.
