Ubisoft Officially Announces Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

[EHKOS]

Didn't 3 just come out? I've never liked the feel of the controls, felt really sticky, so I won't be getting this, despite the fact that we need a great pirate game.

 

[bug_of_war]

I think that annoyed me most was that the first assassination of the game is a cutscene-QTE assassination, and the two most important assassinations of the game -

Spoiler

Haytham Kenway and Charles Lee - are also cutscene+QTE assassinations. You get to fight Haytham but when it comes time to actually kill him it's all prescripted. Then with Charles Lee you have that godawful chase through the ship, which should have been where his assassination took place, but instead the game prickteases you by letting him get away again, pointlessly, just so Connor can catch up with him in the bar later for a good old "press X to assassinate" cutscene+QTE.

My main gripe is that the stabbing:faffing ratio just gets worse with every game. I brought this up in the last thread on this but ... ACIII had a bowls minigame. Bowls, the favourite sport of septuagenarians. Not just a minigame, either, an actual mission in which the goal was to play bowls. Just stand next to a bearded guy and throw balls at balls in almost total silence. For ages.

I'm pretty sure that I spent more time playing bowls than I spent assassinating people in that game.

Oh, and the stealth sucked. There is one stealth function, and it is "crouch in bush".

Look, at the risk of sounding a little aggressive, I really love stabbing people. Stabbing them in the face, stabbing them in the spine, stabbing them in the guts, jumping down on them and stabbing them, hanging from a ledge and reaching up to stab them in the balls. I'm not saying that stabbing is my favourite thing to do in the world, just that I'd rather be stabbing people than building a wardrobe inside a menu system and micro-managing a trading company. Or playing fucking bowls.

Yeah I can see how the first literal assassination is just "Tap X" and is EXTREMELY scripted, but that's kinda like judging a book by it's cover, albeit you could also argue that AC3 is akin to if the front cover of the 5th Harry Potter showed a little girl in the human military fighting in china. I agree that there was probablt more bowls time than assassination time, buuuuuut that's one mission that can be finished in 5 minutes and is totally optional afterwards. The trading company is also optional so it really only has to be done once. Hey, I'm not saying your reasons for not liking the game are wrong, you're fully entitled to your opinion, and I mostly agree with it; There should have been more stabby stabby mc'killingtons in AC3 (especially the last to Templars), but I found that I was able to look past these issues and enjoy the game, so I kind of feel obliged to make excuses for the game.

 

[Quellan Thyde]

If they actually include Black Flag songs in the soundtrack, I'm in.

Really, though, where can the series go at this point? When the devs killed off Ezio, most if not all of the IP's mojo went with him. Of course, it probably didn't help that Ubisoft decided to set the next true sequel in architecturally-bland colonial America -- instead of, oh I don't know, maybe *France*, where there are plenty of tall and glorious buildings and the political unrest was caused by something more than a overheated tax revolt... but let's not get started on that.

So, yeah. Whatever. That's all this news deserves, a great big "whatever."

 

[saintdane05]

How many seasons did it take before Power Rangers made it to Pirates?

It hasn't, yet. Super Sentai did it in 35.

 

[EeviStev]

So I'm thinking "Assassin's Creed 3 with more naval battles." Now to bookmark this page so I can link it and yell "Called it!" when the game comes out, then sit back an feel all smug. That will be a good day.

 

[Sexy Devil]

*deleted*

 

[Union Jack]

Literally, when Assassin's Creed II was announced and I figured out that the games would all be set in different times, the first thought that jumped into my head was, "Holy shit, there needs to be a pirate version." So I kind of called this in 2008ish and I feel great about that. Hopefully this will be a great game that takes advantage of its setting and characters and the Assassin's mythos, instead of just a pretty neat game about Assassins during the Revolutionary War.

 

[Saucycarpdog]

Wait didn't we already have an AC game like less than a year ago?
Why is this info coming out so soon shouldn't they wait a little bit more?

Ubisoft said they want the AC series to be a yearly release. That's why.

 

[Extragorey]

I haven't really liked the AC series since it left the Renaissance. Ezio was by far the coolest assassin, though Altaïr made a cool return in Revelations. But Brotherhood stands above the rest as my favourite AC game to date. Too many guns ruin it for me.

 

[bug_of_war]

I'm conflicted, because I can sort of see how good the game could have been if it had had a redraft to cut out all the pointless dead air puffing it up, fix the pacing and the storytelling issues, and add more actual assassinations. It also needed an extra 3-6 months for the developers to actually finish making it instead of just being shoved out mostly finished, with the exposed wires of unfinished gameplay elements still visible. Overall it just needed to be edited down. I get that Ubisoft have a "40 hours of gameplay" quota to fill but the stuff they shoved in as content filler just means there's more crap that you have to wade through to get to the good stuff.

I didn't hate ACIII. It was obvious that they did a lot of research for the historical/cultural stuff, and I actually really liked the new characters and the story. That's why I think they deserved better than the game that they ended up in.

Also, the ending for the modern day storyline was absolutely terrible. It was terrible on a Mass Effect 3 level. Maybe even worse.

I found myself being able to look past the games faults and enjoy the game to the point where I'd give it 8.5/10, even with my version that's glitched and makes it IMPOSSIBLE for me to get full synch on the Eagle mission. Basically, once I get up to the point where you dive into the tree's roots and have to fly around the screen just goes white; I can here everything, I just can't see shit. Also, I found myself enjoying most of the side missions/filler content such as the guild missions (though they did get tedious) and the Homestead missions (for some reason I like them, even though most the internet seems to despise them). I agree with you in saying that the game could have used an extra few months of final polish, they really should have spent more resources on making a good game than following their yearly cycle.

The ending was quite a let down, but I can't agree with you about the ME3 ending cause I actually enjoyed that...but yeah, AC3 modern day ending was, I wouldn't say a let down, but it was disapointing. I say this because I'm psyched that we get more games, but I'm disapointed that they chose to end Desmond's story THAT way. Ah well, guess we'll see where they go with AC4

 

[Blunderboy]

See I rather liked the naval combat in AC3 (history nerd) but building a whole game (I assume) around the concept just strikes me as pants on head retarded.
Given all the other possibilities they could have chosen it just seems to go against everything the series should be about.
Where is the subtlety in a broadside or successfully raking an enemy ship?

 

[Aesir23]

I have been a steadfast supporter of the AC series since the announcement of AC1 but even I'm getting to the point where I can only greet this with an exasperated "Oh, come on!" I love the AC series and I doubt I'll ever stop, but by this point I would like to have one year without an AC release. It feels like AC3 was only just released.

I think this is one I won't be buying until the price drops unless they can show that they're really creating something excellent with this new idea.

However, east Asia and London are two locations that would probably sell me the game right off the bat (barring an enormous amount of bad reviews) due to the sheer amount of interesting architecture and history.

Besides, the concept they seem to be going for probably would've worked better as an entirely new IP with the naval system in place.

 

[Buizel91]

Now i am no historian...But isn't that dead guy wearing a French Naval Uniform? Could this be during the French Revolution?

Still looks interesting, especially if your assassin is a Pirate. I do hope the Naval battles are still optional (i liked them in the 3rd, but i only liked them because they were optional) or maybe using the ship as a means of going from one island, to another, with random battles happening as the journey progress's...That could work, beat's horses anyway.

Still, i have enjoyed every Creed game since number 2, and while the 3rd was definitely the weakest, it was by no means bad.

 

[Beautiful End]

You know, as a Gamestop employee its getting harder to force people to preorder the game promote the game and still sound honest and excited about it.

Seriously, I love the series but I'll admit it, I can't keep up anymore.

 

[Riobux]

Cool, in the next game they can introduce me to World War 2 since this series is dedicated to providing me with increasingly tired settings.

 

[Vault101]

The naval stuff was boring as fuck in AC3, so if they're making a game around and in all likelihood keeping Connor...
yeah never getting this game.

funny thing is most people say they liked the naval stuff the best

and no I think this is going to be a new guy

I would be happy except I heared in a leakes trailer he was a "womanising too cool for school" type person..which is understandable but I was just getting sick of Ezio and liked the more grounded nature of Connor

 

[Caffeine_Bombed]

The pirate theme does make me think this'll be worth a crack. I spent a large portion of 3 wandering around in the pirate costume pretending to be...well, a pirate.
BUT I was still greatly disappointed with 3 as a whole so I refuse to get completely excited about this. I'll likely end up waiting for the price to go down before buying this.