When developing Assassin’s Creed 3 Ubisoft rebuilt what made the Assassin’s Creed games novel: how the player moved.
As explained during a talk at this year’s GDC, Assassin’s Creed 3’s AI Tech Lead at Ubisoft Richard Dumas explained how the game’s on-foot action was rebuilt from the sole, upward: and the implications of making an open world game with hills.
Details of the next Assassin's Creed have been spilling out of everywhere in advance of the game's official announcement. According to Kotaku, the next game in the frequently revisited series will be titled Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, will feature boats and pirates and swashbuckling and will be set around the Caribbean in the 18th century.
Assassin’s Creed 3’s Connor might not have the fire of an Ezio or a literally anybody else, but that charisma vacuum doubles as a handy cash-hoover. 12 million people bought the game during Ubisoft’s last financial quarter - nearly 70% more than did AC: Revelations.
What’s more, Far Cry 3 raised some eyebrows at the French publisher by performing better than they thought it capable of, to the tune of 4.5 million copies sold. You’ll hear a few ragged cheers from the PCGamesN camp for that one.
The Battle Hardened comes with three multiplayer maps for Connor to climb, creep, crouch and crawl his way around. These are Charlestown, Saint Pierre and Fort St-Mathieu. There's also three new multiplayer characters available, including a Governor (who Ubisoft say is "influential"), a Highlander (apparently "resilient") and a Coyote Man ("fearsome" and also probably "hirsute").Our Spotlight units plug content our journalists have made, that our advertisers want to promote. Sometimes the promotion is paid for, but the content they go to is always independent with no client oversight or approval.
Pond-crossed patriots, cover your ears. The husky voiceover setup for Assassin’s Creed 3’s first morsel of DLC plays so easily into the hands of casual anti-American commentators you’re simply better off not knowing. 
It's Sunday and, as a result of staying up till 9am showing your friends Telltale's take on The Walking Dead, your brain feels like it's barely functioning. But, you're stronger than sleep so you've crawled out of bed long enough to play some games or, if that's a little too engaged for your mental state, read about other people who have. If you're in the latter camp, look no further than below the break to see what we've been throwing ourselves into this week.
Far Cry 3 and Assassin's Creed 3 have been mysteriously absent from the UK Steam store since release, despite being available in every other region (even the lesser liked ones, looking at you Zembla). This is no longer the case. 
Ubisoft have released the Hidden Secrets DLC for Assassin's Creed 3 season pass holders, the bog-standard, plain Jane, salt of the earth, average Joe gamer Assassin's Creed 3 player will need to wait till the 13 December.Assassin’s Creed 3 finally made it to PC on Tuesday, but an astute reader pointed out that it hadn’t wound up on Steam yet. And it still hasn’t. As it turns out, there’s been a little trouble at Ubisoft’s end.
Staggered across the latter part of this year like a drunk in a restaurant, Assassin’s Creed 3’s various release dates take a fair bit of explanation. While the console versions landed in October, AC3 PC arrives tomorrow - and even then, only in the US. Europeans will wait until Thursday, and be glad for it. We’re a bit like that.
Jeremy already wrote this week about how Ubisoft plan on releasing a more polished version of Assassin's Creed 3 on PC, incorporating higher resolution textures and also and patches that are released for the console version of the game prior to the PC's launch. Well, the first of those ma-ha-ssive patches has been detailed and it really pains my heart to see what our console brethren have been going through.
We don’t get Assassin’s Creed 3 until November 23rd, but we’ve watched with interest as our console-tied peers spent their first hours with the game alternating between excitement, bemusement and irritation like a troupe of Cole Phelps’. The cause of that irritation? Mostly insta-fail stealth sections and some particularly rude and intrusive bugs. The former we’ll have to judge for ourselves next week, but many of the latter are due to be plucked out in a patch before we encounter them.Assassin’s Creed 3 will have microtransactions, we heard yesterday. Mention of something called ‘Erudito credits’ had emerged on console sales-places, but no details on how or where they might be used. It transpires that they’re a means to skip the grind of ACIII multiplayer’s CoD-style level progression, providing new tools in exchange for cash.
When you set a game in the past about a secret order of assassins who have managed to keep their existence secret from the majority of humankind and still end a trailer with the like "It's time for the world to know my name" then it seems a little bit silly. Granted, this is at the end of a trailer that is full of silly things. See for yourself:
Two pound buffs have become synonymous with free-to-play lately, but Ubisoft’s last investor call saw the publisher talk up the place of microtransactions in its $60 mega-games. Sure enough, now we have confirmation that microtransactions are coming to Assassin’s Creed 3. They’ll appear as a side dish to the main meat of the game that players know and love - a sort of hors amour, if you will.
Assassin’s Creed 3 isn't out on PC for a month, but became something that European console types can have and hold today. That means they’re entitled to their own launch trailer, which you’ll see below the break.
Although multiplayer was added to the Assassin's Creed games way back in Brotherhood, it looks as though the coming thirdquel will really develop the element. The video below shows off its different game modes, skill upgrades, character models, oh, and what it looks like to his someone in the legs with a hammer, over and over and over again.
Assassin's Creed's protagonist Altair wasn't a barrel of laughs. I'd go so far as to say he was about as welcome as a damp onesie. Ezio reversed that, so much so three games were made with him as lead. If the new Assassin's Creed 3's trailer is anything to go by it looks like we may be back in the dumps; protagonist Connor doesn't crack a single smile as he sees his people killed, his land ravaged, and his place in society torn away.
Assassin's Creed has always strived for authenticity. The memory-accessing Animus, for instance, can instantly translate into English any language it streams into your virtual ears, be it Arabic or Italian. In past games the Animus was a bit of a prude, neglecting to translate the ruder terms some native speakers would shout at Ezio and Altair as they scambled across roof tiles. Assassin's Creed 3 is set in America though, during the revolution, where everybody speaks good old fashioned American. So perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised when I was accosted by a particular word that I didn't even know had been invented in the 18th century. Confused, I turned to Assassin's Creed 3's lead designer Steven Masters, to ask him about assassins, America, naval warfare and swear words.
Assassin’s Creed 3 was always a sure thing at Ubisoft, but its setting in the heart of the American Revolution - with its low, parkour-unfriendly buildings and dense forest - was a hard sell internally. To get the green light from the publisher’s management, a tiny pre-production team at Ubisoft’s Montreal studio built a physical prototype of the game back in 2010.
