Assassin's Creed III is a 2012 action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft.
Assassin's Creed III is set in an open world and presented from the third-person perspective with a primary focus on using Desmond and Connor's combat and stealth abilities to eliminate targets and explore the environment. Connor is able to freely explore 18th-century Boston, New York and the American frontier to complete side missions away from the primary storyline. The game also features a multiplayer component, allowing players to compete online to complete solo and team based objectives including assassinations and evading pursuers. Ubisoft developed a new game engine, Anvil Next, for the game. The game was met with positive reviews and has sold 12 million copies worldwide.
On February 28, 2013, Ubisoft announced a sequel to the game, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.The game follows the series' standard level-based gameplay during the 21st century, as well as the open world gameplay set in 18th-century colonial America. The player has access to a huge wilderness known as the Frontier (which is 1.5 times bigger than Rome in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood), the cities of Boston and New York; portions of the Eastern Seaboard and Caribbean Sea can be explored via the flagship of the Assassin's navy, the Aquila, captained by Connor himself, with Robert Faulkner his first-mate advising and teaching him in the ways of the sea.
Free running has been simplified to allow for more fluid parkour in the cities and wilderness, such as climbing and running on trees, mountains, cliffs,etc. Close combat has been modified, allowing Connor to dual-wield weapons and take down multiple opponents at once and players no longer need to manage the lock-on mechanic. Aiding this, Connor has access to a wide range of weapons which include muskets, pistols, native weapons such as the tomahawk and bow and arrow, a rope dart (used to pull foes or hang them, while on a tree) as well as the hidden blades. Human shields can be used against firing lines of enemies. Medicine is no longer used as health recovers automatically. Stealth is also revamped, allowing players to use natural elements such as tall grass and trees to hide, along with the ability to blend between any two people.
Assassin's Creed III features new weather simulations such as snow, fog, and rain. The seasons can also change i.e., Summer and Winter, which not only effect visuals but also gameplay, as the player will find running slower in deep snow. Snowfall can reduce visibility for the player and enemies, aiding stealth. Unlike the past games, this one includes animals varying from domestic (horses, cows, dogs) to wild (deer, wolves, bears). The wild ones are found in the Frontier, and can be hunted for meat or marrow in order to be sold. The quality of the kill determines the price, encouraging the player to hunt silently. For this, traps and bait can also be used.
Economy is now based on the Davenport Homestead, which also acts as Connor's adopted home. The site can be visited by people such as carpenters, tailors etc. suffering from displacement due to the war. Helping and interacting with these non-player characters (NPCs) will encourage them to settle in the Homestead. From there on, the player can craft various items and trade with them, and then sell the goods to the cities via caravan. The player can also help them build relationships with each other, which will then result in the formation of a small village. The player can also upgrade the Homestead manor as well as Connor's ship, the Aquila.
A revamped version of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood's recruitment feature returns as players can enlist citizens to the Assassins' cause by completing "Liberation" missions. They also have a much larger skill set, which allows them to start a riot, provide a covert escort, act as a personal bodyguard etc. Other side missions include collecting Almanac pages, exploring underground tunnels to locate fast-travel stations, joining hunting and fighting clubs, investigating frontiersman rumours about UFOs and Sasquatch, "peg-leg" missions in which Connor goes to underground forts and wastelands to uncover the legend of Captain Kidd's treasure, and others.
Assassin's Creed III also features naval expeditions. Using Connor's warship, the Aquila, the player can navigate the high seas. Control of the ship relies on environmental factors such as wind direction and speed, local presence of storms, high waves, and rocks. Engagements are by cannon, with broadsides covering both flanks of the ship, and swivel guns that can be used to damage smaller ships which can also be boarded to find treasure. The Aquila is used in the side missions known as "Privateer missions" and is also used in some of the main missions.
The Wii U version of the game has extra features. The player has the ability to change weapons on the go and the map is always visible on the Wii U Gamepad. The Wii U version also supports Off TV Play. With this feature enabled, the main screen is redirected to the Wii U Gamepad.Work on Assassin's Creed III began in January 2010 (almost immediately after the release of Assassin's Creed II) by a senior team of Ubisoft developers. The title has been in development for two and a half years and has the longest development cycle since the first Assassin's Creed.[19][verification needed] When Ubisoft first revealed Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood in 2010, as new details came to light, there was some confusion within the gaming community as to whether this would be Assassin's Creed III. According to the developers, Brotherhood was not Assassin's Creed III, and the third installment will not star a "pre-existing character."[verification needed] Ubisoft Montreal's developers stated in their interviews that Assassin's Creed III will be released eventually.
Jean-François Boivin of Ubisoft also stated that each numbered title in the series will introduce a new lead character and a new setting.[verification needed] Patrice Désilets, former series' creative director, said that the series has always been planned as a trilogy. He also commented on the story of Assassin's Creed III, saying that it will focus on Assassins' quest to prevent the end of the world in 2012, and their race against time to find temples and Apples of Eden built by "Those Who Came Before". Desmond will be searching for clues as to the locations of these temples, by exploring memories of one (or more) of his other ancestors.[verification needed]
In October 2011 Alexandre Amacio, creative director of Assassin's Creed: Revelations, announced that the next installment of the franchise was to be released before December 2012, however, Amacio himself would not be directing the game.[verification needed] This comes from the idea that Desmond Miles, the modern day protagonist of the series, was to finish his tale by December 2012. Amacio said that gamers should not have to play a futuristic game after the time period in which it is set.
Multiplayer returns in this installment by Ubisoft Annecy. Along with returning modes, new ones feature a co-operative mode named Wolfpack, in which 2-4 players are charged with killing certain NPCs within a time limit, through a sequence of 25 stages. It also features Domination, a team mode where players will have to capture certain areas of the map, protecting them from the opposing team.Following the events of Assassin's Creed: Revelations, series' protagonist Desmond Miles and his assassin allies have traveled to the Grand Temple of "Those Who Came Before", an ancient race of powerful beings who created humankind before a global calamity thousands of years before the events of the game made them almost extinct and ravaged the Earth. To find the key to activate the temple and prevent the imminent recurrence of the global disaster in 2012, Desmond uses the Animus, a device that allows him to view the memories of his ancestors, to explore the life of his 18th century ancestor in Colonial America during the American Revolution; a young, half-English, half-Mohawk man named Ratonhnhaké:ton, also known as Connor, whose father is Grand Master of the Templar Order in the colonies. Connor is caught up in the Assassins' conflict with the Templar order when his Native American village is attacked by the Templars, who intend to seize control of the newly forming country.
Connor's story spans two decades of his life, from his childhood in 1760 to 1783. Boston and New York are cities that can be explored, as well as the American Colonial Frontier, spanning forest, cliffs, rivers, Connor's Mohawk village, and the settlements of Lexington, Concord and Charlestown. The player can hunt small and large animals, and approximately one third of the story takes place in the Frontier. The city of Philadelphia can also be visited at one point during the game, as can The Caribbean during a naval mission. The entire Eastern seaboard is also explorable via Connor's captaining his naval warship, the Aquila.Assassin's Creed III received generally positive reviews, with most critics praising the visuals, story, combat style, hunting mechanics and Homestead system, while some complained about the game's glitches. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the PlayStation 3 version 85.77% and 86/100,[86][90] the Xbox 360 version 84.81% and 84/100,On November 14, 2012, Ubisoft reassured that the PC version of Assassin's Creed III will launch with fewer bugs than the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions. A new patch was in the works to squash glitches on all versions. It was the second title update for the game following a meaty patch available day-one. The PC launch came with both of these patches included.[118] After two days, Ubisoft detailed the sizable patch scheduled for release across the major platforms. This extensive patch was designed to address a list of around one hundred identified bugs present within the single-player campaign and online multiplayer modes plaguing the player experience. Some of the problems outlined involve substantial environmental instability, severe NPC technical issues, occasional console crashes and various issues involving sound synchronization amongst others. the Wii U version 83.00% and 85/100, and the PC version 80.75% and 80/100.
IGN gave the game a score of 8.5/10, saying "It achieves so much that you can't help but respect it, no other open world game has ever given us a setting that's as impressive to observe or as full of things to do as this". They did however say "Not everything about the game gels together convincingly and the missions' unnecessary prescriptiveness sometimes undermines the sense of freedom that the rest of the game works so hard to create".
GameSpot gave a similar review, stating "It takes chances with its opening, with its story, and with its characters. It expands the series' gameplay in enjoyable and sensible ways. As with many ambitious games, not every arrow fired hits the bull's eye, yet this big, narratively rich sequel is easy to get invested in" and gave a score of 8.5/10.
Game Informer awarded the game 9.5/10, saying "Assassin's Creed III delivers everything the series has promised, and throws in a little more for good measure... Most players will likely spend the first six hours of Assassin's Creed III wrapping their heads around the profound size and ambition of the game".
G4 felt that "Assassins Creed III is not perfect... But there is so much story, so much multiplayer, and so much stuff to do that your average 10 hour game should be terribly ashamed of itself".
Official Xbox Magazine gave it 8.5/10, and said "[Its] newly refined gameplay and incredibly rich setting are captivating stuff... It improves on the underlying Assassin's Creed formula in a handful of subtle but tangible ways... And its unwavering commitment to storytelling is both rare and impressive". They did however criticize, "Pacing problems which can drag the campaign into busy-work tedium".
PC Gamer was more critical, giving the game a 72/100 and stating that Assassin's Creed III had "Entertaining storytelling and fantastic naval combat marred by terrible mission design and endemic feature creep" The reviewer felt that homesteading detracted from the central theme and story, and narrowly-scripted optional objectives punished players for thinking laterally. "It's about pattern recognition rather than creative thought, binary reactions with no room for life or dynamism."
Assassin's Creed III was nominated for six awards in the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards: Game of the Year, Best Xbox 360 Game, Best PS3 Game, Best Action Adventure Game, Best Graphics, and Character of the Year (Connor).GameTrailers awarded Assassin's Creed 3 Best Action-Adventure Game of the Year 2012 while Game Revolution named Assassin's Creed III its Game of the Year 2012. For the 2013 D.I.C.E. Interactive Achievement Awards, the game won the award for Outstanding Achievement in Animation and was nominated for Adventure Game of the Year, and Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design. Assassin's Creed III also received four Game Developer's Choice Awards nominations for Best Audio, Best Narrative, Best Technology, and Game of the Year.