Feeling a bit.. disconnected.. from AC games lately..

[Luke]

This is a strange post but just something I was thinking about recently. I remember back when I played AC 1 and 2; there was the feeling that I was discovering something sinister. I remember wondering when we would get to play as Desmond in some kind of futuristic world, perhaps after he had "learned" how to be an assassin by vicariously living through his ancestors.

Anyways, at some point, I realized that the AC games seemed to be going in another direction. Or maybe I just stopped paying attention. What is even going on in the AC world these days?

I kind of wish they had just called this game "Odyssey" instead of "Assassin's Creed", because I feel like I'm missing out on so much of the background and story having not played the past several games... Is that the case?

[Adanu]

It's a bit of both. The idiots over at Ubisoft mandated Desmonds death because 'following one character long term is going to confuse people'. Far as I'm aware, the dev teams original plan was to do exactly that to Desmond, and I would have been completely onboard.

I, frankly, stopped caring after Black Flag made it clear modern day was taking a backseat. I was curious where they'd take a Templar/Assassin romance in Unity, so I bit the bullet and bought that game... and became completely uninterested in anything beyond that. Now I keep hearing good things about origin and Odyssey. I despise the level system they added. AC has never been about levels. It's always been a roleplaying game with it's own flavor... just not the traditional ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Origins is now a regret purchase... and to be honest, Odyssey only got me because I want to see what they do with the spear and bringing back modern day into focus.

[Nemerlight]

no

[AC Denton]

Well, Desmond died in AC3 so that arch story is done.

They shouldn't change the name of the game just because people haven't been paying attention to the lore. Odyssey is a great Assassin's Creed game.
--
That said, if you or anyone wants to know what's going on, the summary is:

What's "going on" in the AC universe these days is that William Miles went stepped down from leading the Assassin's after the loss of his son, Desmond.
Black Flag and Rogue show what the Templars are up to in the modern day.
Unity and Syndicate focuses on what the Assassins have been doing (and their new friends, The Initiates), running modern day operations.


Origins picks up with the protagonist Layla Hassan, an Egyptian Abstergo Employee. She hates the strict rules of Abstergo and decides to do her own thing. Abstergo thinks she went rogue and tried to take her out, she then joined the Assassin's Brotherhood after William Miles decides to come back to work and recruits her (He'd been back for a while but remained quiet, you can read the wiki or comics for more, the universe is much more than the games).

Odyssey takes place in London (who knows why, likely to tie into the Watch Dogs 3 setting). Where she's trying to uncover more about the Spear of Leonidas and precurser artifacts.

[332Balu]

I always had my issues with the present time story line. The first 2 games were really interesting, and felt like i was following a more complicated plot, like you described. But one AC game every year was to much for me, so i skipped III, and went straight to Black Flag. I was a little dissappointed with the new present time story lines beeing so short and uninteresting.
But i can totally understand the need for the cut in present time story lines. If the present time story would be persistend from the first game to the last, new players could never expierence the overarching storyline.

This reminds me a lot of The Legend of Zelda:
While it was somewhat possible to put the first three games in a logical/chronological timeline, later games can not be put in a simple order, and their story's can not be combined.
They have to be treated as separate games, having only names and places in common.

And i feel like this is the best way to approach this game.
The present time storylines set the foundation, and share this foundation for all the AC games, hence the same name. The main focus is be on the past time story. And it works
I returned after Black Flag, i don't feel like i missed a whole lot of story and can enjoy this game, withouth having to play (or read) through all the background stories i missed in the last couple of years. And frankly, i enjoy this game a lot.

[AC Denton]

Originally posted by Adanu:

It's a bit of both. The idiots over at Ubisoft mandated Desmonds death because 'following one character long term is going to confuse people'. Far as I'm aware, the dev teams original plan was to do exactly that to Desmond, and I would have been completely onboard.

Everyone complained about Desmond because he was so boring, so they killed him off (ironically in the game that he had the best character development and gameplay to that date).

I, frankly, stopped caring after Black Flag made it clear modern day was taking a backseat. (...)
Origins is now a regret purchase... and to be honest, Odyssey only got me because I want to see what they do with the spear and bringing back modern day into focus.

Modern day came back in Origins. Odyssey is pretty much on the same level of modern day content as origins, with slightly more in the lore.

[AC Denton]

Originally posted by 332Balu:

so i skipped III, and went straight to Black Flag. I was a little dissappointed with the new present time story lines beeing so short and uninteresting.
But i can totally understand the need for the cut in present time story lines. If the present time story would be persistend from the first game to the last, new players could never expierence the overarching storyline.

Black Flag through Synidcate make a lot more sense in you play 3 and read into the lore after it. All the modern day stuff is there, they only minimalised it in the games. There's still the movies, books, comics etc.
Glad they brought modern day back fully, the series makes no sense without it.

[tmaddox]

I started my AC journey with Black Flag and can safely say that I find the modern day gameplay sections as an annoyance that are just stopping me from getting back to the past storylines.

I feel like we are getting to the point that the Assassins Creed name is more about a gameplay style than the underlying stories of the Templars and Assassins.

[Luke]

Originally posted by tmaddox:

I started my AC journey with Black Flag and can safely say that I find the modern day gameplay sections as an annoyance that are just stopping me from getting back to the past storylines.

I feel like we are getting to the point that the Assassins Creed name is more about a gameplay style than the underlying stories of the Templars and Assassins.

Right; I kind of wish they'd just drop the modern-day connection alltogether and just focus on this kind of gameplay in different time periods. I just feel so massively out-of-the-loop as to what's been going on. Guess I need to read up on a wiki page or something

[SunfireKnight86]

The modern day setting crap has always been window dressing that slowed the pacing of every game. I'm glad it's taking a back seat, as Greece is way more interesting than 50 pages of emails in London.

[AC Denton]

Originally posted by tmaddox:

I started my AC journey with Black Flag and can safely say that I find the modern day gameplay sections as an annoyance that are just stopping me from getting back to the past storylines.

Odyssey-Syndicate modern day sucks, that's all. The previous ones are great.

I feel like we are getting to the point that the Assassins Creed name is more about a gameplay style than the underlying stories of the Templars and Assassins.

Not true at all.

[AC Denton]

Originally posted by Luke:

Originally posted by tmaddox:

I started my AC journey with Black Flag and can safely say that I find the modern day gameplay sections as an annoyance that are just stopping me from getting back to the past storylines.

I feel like we are getting to the point that the Assassins Creed name is more about a gameplay style than the underlying stories of the Templars and Assassins.

Right; I kind of wish they'd just drop the modern-day connection alltogether and just focus on this kind of gameplay in different time periods. I just feel so massively out-of-the-loop as to what's been going on. Guess I need to read up on a wiki page or something

It's the peoples fault for complainign about it. If people actually just supported the modern day and ask for it, they'd make it better. All people do is complain and it leads to things being worse. People complaining is the literal reason the modern day went downhill.

[Sem56]

yeah, the series died when they heard a few complaints from people who don't really play the series that the background story was long and boring... and took the player out of the game

so they decided to kill that side off

the series has been dead ever since

now its just a witcher 3 rip off because a few weebs wanted another game just like it

[SunfireKnight86]

Originally posted by Sem56:

yeah, the series died when they heard a few complaints from people who don't really play the series that the background story was long and boring... and took the player out of the game

so they decided to kill that side off

the series has been dead ever since

now its just a witcher 3 rip off because a few weebs wanted another game just like it

Or you just like dumb, boring garbage and feel insecure about it.

[Adanu]

Originally posted by Waste of Bandwidth:

Originally posted by Adanu:

It's a bit of both. The idiots over at Ubisoft mandated Desmonds death because 'following one character long term is going to confuse people'. Far as I'm aware, the dev teams original plan was to do exactly that to Desmond, and I would have been completely onboard.

Everyone complained about Desmond because he was so boring, so they killed him off (ironically in the game that he had the best character development and gameplay to that date).

I, frankly, stopped caring after Black Flag made it clear modern day was taking a backseat. (...)
Origins is now a regret purchase... and to be honest, Odyssey only got me because I want to see what they do with the spear and bringing back modern day into focus.

Modern day came back in Origins. Odyssey is pretty much on the same level of modern day content as origins, with slightly more in the lore.

Desmond was /meant/ to be boring the first couple games. How do you make a badass character out of a /bartender/ without some training and experience?