Assassin's Creed 3 Setting

[Luke Skywalker]

Where do you think the next official sequel should be set in?

Personally, a modern day Assassin's Creed game would be amazing, if they could pull it off, a big if. Like, big metropolitan like New York City with dynamic people, realistic police, stores, etc., not the game being confined to unrealistically small "cities" or looking like Assassin's Creed 2 with modern textures. But an Enlightenment age setting could work too.

[FaxModem1]

I vote the Enlightenment Era, because a video game set during the French and Indian War(or the Seven Years war for the Brits) would be a rather interesting setting.

[Vendetta]

You couldn't do a modern day Assassin's Creed within the framework of the original games, and certainly not in New York.

The core element of Assassin's Creed is that vertical movement is as easy and useful as horizontal movement, and that the rooftops are your personal set of alternative streets, and most of your movement takes place on foot.

If you attempt to replicate this in a modern American city like New York (by which I suspect you actually mean Manhattan Island), you need to have Alex Mercer or Spider-man as your central character, because you need to be able to run up a fifty storey building in a few seconds.

The most "natural" progression to me, since it follows the temporal progression of the first two (subsequent characters to Altaïr rather than precursors to him) would be the French Revolution. It's got the right combination of political volatility and scheming that you could drop Assassins and Templars in it pretty much at will, the principal locations will be low built, tightly packed urban areas with majority foot transport and a few outstanding landmarks to climb up like the Bastille and Palace of Versailles, swordplay and knives would still dominate personal combat but there'd be plenty of new technology to give variation, and it's a period of history that is to date unexplored by videogames.

[Zixinus]

Civil war, or so time, because I'm really tired of Renaissance and such period.

We could still have swordplay and whatnot, that's fine and we could perhaps some dynamic shooting fights too.

I mean, seriously: think of Assassin with six-shooters

[Nathaniel]

19th Century London would make for a rather nice Assassin's Creed. A familiar setting, with a number of recognizable landmarks already in place, and countless places you could go with the story.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

You couldn't do a modern day Assassin's Creed within the framework of the original games, and certainly not in New York.

You could probably do it somewhere like Washington D.C., or other cities that lack skyscrapers.

[DPDarkPrimus]

If we continue to move forward in history, than the Enlightenment would be my choice as well. However I'd like to see at least a good portion of an AC game take place in China or Japan.

[Zixinus]

I wonder whether you can tie the whole thing into the 1848 revolutionary wave. That would certainly fit the conspiracy-heavy theme.

[Panzersharkcat]

I kind of want to see China in the time period of the rise and fall of the Kuomintang, just to see where Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong would fall on the Templar-Assassin side. They're both Templars?

[Zixinus]

That would probably depend on how big of an assholes were they in their personal lives.

You see, in the ASSasin's Creed universe, you qualify for instant Templar membership of some kind by being a massive, amoral dick that either
- rapes women
- hurts women
- kills people for no reason or kills people for very petty reasons
- is disgusting in some way
- has a thirst for power and tolerates no one in their way, routinely by walking on the corpses of their enemies
- regularly cheats on their spouse, whom they may torture in some way
- displays hypocritical and amoral personality

And the list probably goes on. Templars are always horrible people with no redeeming value while Assassins are noble, virtuous people who just happen to rely on illegal activities and underhanded methods to murder their enemies.

But yeah, visiting China would be a nice change of pace. I wonder how they could work kung-fu into the setting and all?

[loomer]

FDR and Churchill were Templars as well as Stalin, while Lenin was an Assassin (which to me is a missed opportunity to explore some very major moral ambiguity with a third party intent on being beholden to neither hidden faction). Mao'd probably be smacked in as a Templar.

[Tolya]

The devs once said that they deliberately choose a setting that is not frequently used in other games, so my guess that modern times will be confided to Tomb Raider style levels we've seen so far.

[Luke Skywalker]

FDR and Churchill were Templars as well as Stalin, while Lenin was an Assassin (which to me is a missed opportunity to explore some very major moral ambiguity with a third party intent on being beholden to neither hidden faction). Mao'd probably be smacked in as a Templar.

One thing that bothers me about this is that the game would therefore peg everybody who ever amounted to anything (good or bad) as an Assassin or Templar. As if there can't be any 'normal' people that made history .

[loomer]

Exactly. They're falling into the mistake of trying to tie everything into the conflict and that's not going to leave room for any non-affiliated game-changers. To my recollection, the only ones they didn't put down so far as either were Gandhi and JFK.

[Jade Falcon]

19th Century London would make for a rather nice Assassin's Creed. A familiar setting, with a number of recognizable landmarks already in place, and countless places you could go with the story.

It's also possible you could tie in Jack the Ripper to 19th Century London.

[The Vortex Empire]

I know in the missions for the other Assassins in Brotherhood they mentioned that Kaiser Maximilian of the Holy Roman Empire wasn't either. And that's the only leader I can think of who wasn't pegged as Templar or Assassin.

[doom3607]

Hmm. I'd like to see 3 with an unaligned enemy as well as the Templars, who just happened to be working on a very interesting case for the government. And then you'd break into 221B Baker Street and murder him or something.

[Zixinus]

As if there can't be any 'normal' people that made history .

The story (particularly the background story) is run by conspiracy-theory logic. Of course they don't. Either everyone significant was in on the conspiracy or they had people behind them that were. That's how the conspiracy-theory logic works.

Oh, and stuff like not understanding technology (apparently you can just improvise DNA-molecule reading technology), mistaking doodles and fantasies as genuine plans (how the hell was Leonardo's tank supposed to move anyway?) and turning complex historical events down into a black-and-white reality that is not random and thus less scary (somehow).

[2000AD]

I reckon the English Civil War might be a good setting. A monarchy being challenged, brother fighting brother, cavaliers and roundheads, etc, etc.

[Edward Yee]

Exactly. They're falling into the mistake of trying to tie everything into the conflict and that's not going to leave room for any non-affiliated game-changers. To my recollection, the only ones they didn't put down so far as either were Gandhi and JFK.

Actually, Girolamo Savonarola wasn't an Assassin or a Templar, but happened to snatch up the Apple of Eden before 1492 and hang onto it until right before his death, when it was retrieved by a Templar courier who was intercepted by Ezio, returning it to the Assassins' hands.

2000AD, the English Civil War was already covered in the "Project Legacy" Facebook game, with Charles II (seemingly unaware of the Assassins or the Templars) being restored to the English throne, possibly with Assassin support:Spoiler

I see a man talking to General Monck. He holds what looks like a sphere wrapped in a thick piece of cloth. I am curious, but I must now bow my head to receive my crown. Somehow, it is lighter than I expected. Like my heart.

[Havok]

I love Samurai. Japan.

Would the times line up OK?

You also would need someplace with relatively dense city structures, yet, as pointed out, not 50 story skyscrapers.

I think it would be an interesting twist to have organized crime be the third non-affiliated party that still knows about what is going on. Their almost anarchistic views clash nicely against the order of both the Assassins and Templars. They can use their influence to keep humanity fighting the system with drugs, alcohol, gambling and women.

[Jordie]

China, Japan and the French Revolution. The bleeding effect was already getting to him in 2, he was seeing Ezio running around at the beginning and ending of Brotherhood and in Revelations it's only going to get worse.

Then Ubisoft can make expansions for each and TAKE MY MONEY.

[Edward Yee]

As an addendum to "not all figures of influence were Assassins or Templars," one of the recruit missions in Brotherhood is essentially, "there's a rebellion against the English king... far be it for US to save him from his own people *SNICKER* but the rebel leader happens to be a Templar who will have to be prevented from rising to influence..."

[Darth Yan]

Revelations is going to take place in Istanbul, so I was wondering if they would do China? I personally want them to cover the War of Spanish Succession, the Reign of Louis XIV. He would have made a believable Templar

On a side note, I want a female protagonist for once. It's been to much of a dude's only as protagonist.

[Lagmonster]

The problem with alternate protagonists, Asia, etc. is that this is really Desmond's story. And his ancestors came from the Mediterranean. The Templars are also largely associated with Christian Europe, as I understand the plot, which limits how far back you can go and how far east or south you can go.