Developed by Ubisoft Montreal, Assassin’s Creed III continues the story of the centuries-long battle between the Assassins and the Templars. In the present day, Assassin Desmond Miles uses a machine called the Animus to relive the lives of his ancestors both to learn the skills he needs to survive and to unearth ancient secrets.
The game takes place in colonial America during the Seven Years’ War and the Revolutionary War. You begin the game playing as Haytham Kenway. You play as him for the first few hours, leading to a nice plot twist that ties into the game’s theme of showing all sides of the story.
For the most part, the game relies on the same tried-and-true gameplay that has been built upon and refined over the course of the series. The combat system remains easy for casual gamers to pick up, but provides a challenge when you encounter large groups and the tougher enemy types. The usual freerunning and stealth elements are all there and there are also some welcome new additions, like hunting and naval combat. The latter is definitely one of the highlights of the game.
The naval warfare missions have you act as captain of a ship as you try to sink and board other ships. Different types of enemies, weather conditions like stormy seas and rouge waves, and a variety of attack options constantly switches things up and the scale of the encounters make each battle feel epic.
You play through the second half of the game as Connor, the son of Kenway and a Mohawk woman. Out of the series’ protagonists, Connor is the most interesting. He has the stoicism of Altair and the driven determination of Ezio as well as a naive, idealistic view of the world that is constantly challenged during his quest. Being half-British and half-Native American, he is divided between two worlds. He seeks to save his tribe by killing the Templar leaders, but he struggles with the idea of killing his English father to do so.
By contrast, Connor’s descendant Desmond is still as bland as ever. Sure, he makes the occasional sarcastic comment and there is one scene where he rants angrily about feeling manipulated by everyone around him, but those elements alone don’t really make up a personality. All of the segments where you play as him are unbearable and act as a distraction from the Connor’s story. The overarching narrative that centers on him does finally go somewhere in this installment, but the cliffhanger ending feels tacked on and unsatisfying.
The Assassin’s Creed series is not known for its well-executed endings. This is particularly true for Connor’s story. After a difficult boss battle about halfway through the game, I anticipated a similar fight at the end. Instead, Connor’s storyline ends with a rather anticlimactic chase sequence. The foot chase and the death of the Big Bad we get would be a fitting conclusion for a movie or book, but it seems completely out of place in an interactive medium. A video game should go out with a bang, but this one goes with a whimper.
Rating: 7 out of 10
Asssassin’s Creed III polishes the established gameplay of the series and gives us the great new naval combat mechanic that will be expanded on in the sequel. Despite the lackluster framing narrative, the main plot delivers good storytelling with a somewhat disappointing conclusion.
On a side note, I think Ubisoft missed out on a great opportunity to have Ben Franklin give you all of your gadgets and weapons, like Leonard DaVinci in Assassin’s Creed 2. It wouldn’t really make sense in the story, but it would have been awesome.
Never Sleep Gaming 