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Assassin's Creed Chronicles Trilogy Revealed
Today, Ubisoft announced the Assassin’s Creed Chronicles trilogy, which will take players to China, India and Russia and follow the stories of three cult Assassins. The first chronicle, set in China, will be available April 22 in the UK for download on PlayStation 4 computer entertainment system, Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft and Windows PC. Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China will be followed by Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India and Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: Russia, which will release separately.
Developed by Climax Studios in collaboration with Ubisoft Montreal, Assassin’s Creed Chronicles brings the thrill of being a Master Assassin to 2.5D. Players will journey to three distinct civilisations and time periods throughout history including the Ming dynasty at the start of its downfall, the Sikh Empire as it prepares for war in India and the aftermath of the Red October revolution. Each chronicle stands on its own with a unique setting, art style, story and Assassin, but is tied together narratively.
Players will embody legendary Assassins, including Shao Jun from the animated short Assassin’s Creed Embers™, and Arbaaz Mir and Nikolaï Orelov from the Assassin’s Creed graphic novels. Assassinate from the shadows, master the art of parkour and take the leap of faith in a collection of stunning, living paintings. Each chronicle has its own artistic signature, from the beautiful brush paintings of China to the vibrant colors of India and the distinctive propaganda art style of Russia.
For more information on Assassin’s Creed Chronicles, please visit assassinscreed.com and facebook.com/assassinscreed.
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China takes place in China, 1526, as the Ming dynasty starts to crumble. You embody Shao Jun, the last remaining Assassin of the Chinese Brotherhood, returning to her homeland with a vendetta. Newly trained by the legendary Ezio Auditore, she is hell-bent on exacting vengeance and restoring her fallen Brotherhood.
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India throws you into the tension between the Sikh Empire and the East India Company in 1841. When a Master Templar arrives with a mysterious item that used to belong to the Assassin Order, Arbaaz Mir must discover why he's come, steal back the item, and protect his friends and his lover.
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: Russia
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: Russia occurs in Russia, 1918. Nikolai Orelov wants to leave with his family, but is required to perform one last mission for the Assassin Order: infiltrate the house where the tsar's family is being held by the Bolsheviks and steal an artifact that has been fought over by Assassins and Templars for centuries. Along the way, he witnesses the massacre of the tsar's children, but manages to save the princess, Anastasia. He must escape the Templars while protecting the artifact and Anastasia.
Key Features
• Assassin’s creed reimagined - Whether you are a long-time fan of Assassin’s Creed, or a newcomer, Assassin’s Creed Chronicles lets you discover what has made the franchise one of the most celebrated in video game history in a fresh genre for the series. Each chapter is a new beginning and comes with a unique hero from the Assassin’s Creed universe in a never-seen-before setting. While each Assassin’s story stands on its own, the chronicle is tied together narratively.
• Stealth takes on a new dimension - Assassin’s Creed Chronicles brings the thrill of being a Master Assassin to 2.5D. Scout, sneak, and hide to avoid detection. Fool your enemies by using whistles and disguises. Find your target, kill, and escape.
• Experience a fast and fluid assault course - As in every Assassin’s Creed experience, freedom of movement is essential. Whether you’re running from danger, scaling obstacles, or climbing stealthily, you will feel that you really can do anything.
• Master three different combat styles - Should you fail to go undetected, you can always take enemies out with style. Each Assassin is equipped with a powerful range of weapons and distinct gadgets, making every experience unique, with a wide assortment of abilities in your arsenal.
• Navigate multiple planes - Switch between fore, mid, and background environments and choose different paths according to your needs. Open new pathways, complete side missions, grab hidden collectibles, or take the quickest path to your target.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej9RgQG1hlc
Download HQ Trailer .MOV | 314 MB: https://mega.co.nz/#!fZJnmKZQ!ngIC-y5k6 ... GpMY4KGrec
http://blog.ubi.com/assassins-creed-chr ... a-preview/
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China – Sneak and Destroy
The Maijishan Grottoes are a marvel of ancient Chinese sculpture, featuring nearly 200 man-made caves and thousands of statues carved into sandstone cliffs. They were also, according to Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China, the home of the Chinese branch of the Assassin Brotherhood, until the Templars booted them out and converted the place into a secret prison sometime prior to 1526. And as Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China opens, the grottoes’ latest inmate is none other than Shao Jun, the young Assassin we first met when she traveled to Italy to seek the help of one Ezio Auditore in Assassin’s Creed: Embers.
Belly of the Beast
It’s all a ploy on Shao Jun’s part, of course. The opening cutscene, told through static images rendered in Chronicles’ striking brushed-ink style, tells us that she’s let herself – and a Precursor box given to her by Ezio – be captured by the Templars, who’ve foolishly left her in a bamboo cage dangling over a deep pit. Breaking out of it would be child’s play for any Assassin, and as she kicks down its door and leaps to safety, we’re introduced to exactly what Chronicles’ 2.5D gameplay has to offer.
For starters, Chronicles does an impressive job recapturing the free-running feel of 3D Assassin’s Creed games, with familiar controls for running, climbing and sneaking. The latter, it turns out, might be the most important of the three because (even more so than its open-world predecessors) Chronicles puts a very heavy emphasis on stealth. That’s not to say Shao Jun can’t hold her own in a fight; if an enemy spots her, she can use light or heavy sword attacks (with the latter used to strike killing blows), as well as parry incoming strikes. She can even dodge inbound crossbow bolts, if you can time a button press just right. However, if a strike slips past her defenses, she goes down pretty quickly, and the likelihood of that increases immensely if more than two guards are advancing on her.
“We really wanted to push the player to play stealth, so combat had to be more difficult,” says Xavier Penin, Lead Game Designer at Ubisoft Partners. “We wanted to go away from a simple button-mashing game where you just have to attack all the time. You really have to time your attacks and counters. So we were constantly trying to find a balance between giving the player the feeling that he shouldn’t go into a fight because it’s too hard, but still letting him feel that he can win a fight.”
Layers Are Your Friends
Luckily, the 2.5D environments offer a lot more opportunities for stealth than you might expect. Dark alcoves and bushes allow you to fade into the background and shimmy past guards – or yank them into the shadows for a quick kill, if you’re feeling murderous. Shallow pits in the foreground, meanwhile, let you duck low to creep safely alongside the main paths, while columns can be hidden behind and dashed between as enemies approach from the other side.
Shao Jun can also use her rope darts to climb and cling to the ceiling – or, in certain places, to simply swing over to platforms in the background layer to avoid detection. And if the environment doesn’t offer any immediately obvious routes, you have two powerful tools for strategizing at your disposal: Eagle Vision, which shows off the patrol routes of guards; and a whistle with an adjustable radius, which can be used to lure guards away from their posts. If all else fails, she can use her supply of firecrackers like stun grenades, dazing guards just long enough for her to slip past, or toss a noise dart to draw the guards’ attention elsewhere.
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It’s in your interest to stay unseen, and not just because dying is easy. Chronicles grades each segment of its levels based on your play style; if you made an effort to stay unseen and not kill, you’ll be graded as a Shadow. Stealth-murders and hidden bodies net an Assassin evaluation, while surviving fights sees you graded as a Brawler. There’s a certain satisfaction in earning a Shadow grade, but for our money, playing as an Assassin is much more fun, if only because it involves Shao Jun kicking guards in the face with her hidden-blade shoes – and later in the game, taking them down mid-run with leaping or sliding assassinations.
“I think we really wanted to find a sweet spot where you have a feeling of pride when you go undetected,” Penin says. “And it’s often tempting just to kill a guy and put him into the shadows. I love to do that, too. But we wanted something special, so that the Chronicles would have a real gameplay identity compared to the other games. And we thought that stuff was the sweet spot, because it’s something that is present in the franchise, but would be the specialty of Chronicles.”
Hidden Depth
When it’s not putting you through stealth puzzles, Chronicles challenges you to keep a sharp eye out for its secondary objectives. In the Maijishan Grottoes, those objectives were Assassin scrolls, which were usually hidden in inconspicuous-looking chests sitting in tough-to-reach spots. In the fortress that followed, however, they were the personal slaves of one of the Tigers, Yu Dayong. (I wasn’t able to find any of them, but the fortress – which featured explorable interiors and corners that, when turned, rotated our view of the stage – was a pretty big place.)
Not every level is broken up into discrete, graded chunks, either. Some score you based on how quickly you can race through the entire level, as was the case in the final stage I played in China: the burning port of Macau, which the Tigers had set ablaze in retaliation for Shao Jun killing their top-ranking comrades. With speed suddenly paramount, I cut a rapid swath through the level, killing guards without breaking stride (again, those leaping and sliding assassinations really come in handy), and outrunning flames as they spread across docks and up the masts of ships.
It was a little harrowing (and I’m not ashamed to admit I died more than a few times during the escape), but it didn’t take long to finish, ending with a beautiful Leap of Faith (something Chronicles does particularly well) into the water as the inferno raged behind Shao Jun.
It’s been an intriguing start for Chronicles – which, after China, will continue its storyline in 19th century India and close out in post-revolutionary Russia – and we’ll find out what happens next when Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China launches on April 21.
Learn more about Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India and Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: Russia in this feature.
http://blog.ubi.com/assassins-creed-chr ... -revealed/
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles – India and Russia Revealed
When Shao Jun begins her 2.5D adventures in Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China, she won’t be alone – at least not for long. “We’re talking about Chronicles, plural,” says Aymar Azaizia, Head of Content at Ubisoft Montreal, who revealed that Shao Jun’s story will be followed by two more Chronicles games, set in India and Russia, later this year. And if you’re a fan of the Assassin’s Creed comics, it’s not hard to guess which Assassins will represent those two settings.
Arbaaz Mir (of Assassin’s Creed: Brahman) steps into Shao Jun’s bladed shoes in the Sikh Empire in 1841, while Nikolai Orelov (of Assassin’s Creed: The Fall and The Chain) takes over in post-revolutionary Russia, circa 1918. The sequels will play a lot like Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China (which we were able to get hands-on time with), but what’s immediately striking about them is how distinctive they look.
“They’re all illustrative, and that brings them together,” says Glenn Brace, Assassin’s Creed Chronicles’ Art Director. “For China, we took a 16th century influence – very flat, 2D illustration. We then melded a very contemporary Chinese ink take with it, so it echoes Shao Jun the character and how fluid she is. We end up with a romantic, impressionistic vibe.
“Russia’s really exciting,” adds Brace. “It’s 20th century, so we have photography, graphics, poster art, constructivism, and we fused all those together to achieve an even more stark contrast to the other episodes.”
India’s art style, meanwhile, is meant to evoke 19th century British journalistic imagery, with more background depth than Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China and a few culture-appropriate twists. “We took influence from lithographs. Color was a key component; we boosted that, and we mixed some Sikh-influenced patterns into the world,” says Brace. “So again, it’s a fusion of a traditional medium of the period with a very modern, contemporary take.”
A Bright New World
The “color” part of that equation was immediately apparent when we played some of Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India for ourselves. Like in China, there’s a heavy emphasis on stealth, so it’s usually not a great idea to get into a head-on confrontation; however, it’s the only way to see the brilliant splashes of color that erupt whenever Arbaaz swings his sword, weaving intricately patterned arcs of purple and yellow through the air as guards close in around him. Otherwise, Arbaaz controls a lot like Shao Jun, with similar tools and techniques at his disposal.
The one India level we’ve played so far sees Arbaaz infiltrating a huge cavern, and – in contrast with what we’ve played of China – it has a strong old-school Prince of Persia vibe, complete with timed traps, unstable platforms, and a score determined by how quickly you can make it through alive. It also has its share of patrolling Sikh guards, who can be avoided, stealth-assassinated, fought, or – if you time your movements just right – crushed by the numerous platforms, chunks of wall and hanging stalactites that give way shortly after you grab or step on them.
Making our way deeper into the caves reveals a huge gate covered in telltale historically out-of-place markings, which dominates the background. Pulling a couple of hanging switches opens it, revealing two important things: first, not only is it a Precursor site, but it’s the kind where timed pillars of human-disintegrating light regularly burst from the walls and floors. Second, Arbaaz isn’t the first to get inside, as evidenced by the very alert Sikh guards patrolling the place.
Like the Chinese guards before them, most of the Sikhs carry swords – and occasionally shields, which have to be broken through with power attacks. A few even carry pistols, although these aren’t as dangerous as they sound; the guards take a second or two to aim, which puts a literal onscreen line of sight between them and Arbaaz; when it thins out, hitting the B button causes Arbaaz to briefly duck into the background, dodging the shot. In any case, they’re still deadly, which makes us feel a bit better about luring them into the Precursor site’s glowing deathtraps.
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China launches on April 21, and while release dates haven’t yet been announced for the India and Russia chapters, the trilogy is expected to be complete by this fall. And while they can be played in any order, there’s an incentive for fans to finish all three.
“There is a narrative link” between the three games, says Xavier Penin, Lead Game Designer at Ubisoft Partners. “As [the games] have to be independent, it’s not huge. It’s not central, but it’s there, especially for the fans. And if you finish Russia, and you’ve played the other two, there’s a special ending that’s really interesting for the fans and ties the Chronicles together.”
Get an in-depth look at Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China in this hands-on preview.
