Pretty much. Don't get me wrong, those sections are pretty cool generally, especially the last one.
Though that's not what we bought the game for.
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Do you actually like the Animus in Assassin's Creed? should it stay or should it go
- Thread starter Hero of Time
- Start date
Though that's not what we bought the game for.
The Modern day stuff REALLY has sucked since they basically ditched Desmond's story after AC3.
AC3 had a huuuuge thing happen at the end of it that set in motion something big, and they basically ignored it/hand waved it all away instead of you know, actually building onto where it left off.
After AC3's ending I haven't gave two shits about the modern day story or anything of that, I think now, like many people, I'd prefer it just be a historical setting series and ditch the whole sci-fi/modern day stuff.
AC3 had a huuuuge thing happen at the end of it that set in motion something big, and they basically ignored it/hand waved it all away instead of you know, actually building onto where it left off.
After AC3's ending I haven't gave two shits about the modern day story or anything of that, I think now, like many people, I'd prefer it just be a historical setting series and ditch the whole sci-fi/modern day stuff.
Get rid of it, it has always been the worst part of the series. Nothing breaks the game more than being yanked out of the experience to play some utterly drab segment of shit I have no interest in.
I don't think they'll get rid of it in the next episodes, they already basically shrinked those sections to half hour in a 100+ hours game.
it is always, without fail, the worst and most boring part of any Assassin's Creed game. fuck the Animus.
I've been playing the AC games since the very first one and the animus can go away for all I care. I used to be interested in the modern day plot until they ruined the storyline with AC3, and ever since I really don't have any interest in the animus or any modern day aspects of the series any longer. I say ditch it.
Nah, after Desmond's story concluded, the Animus just became a nuisance that I want over and done with quick. Especially since Origins, what a fucking bore that lady - can't remember her name - is.
That... Actually kind of helps. Thanks for the thoughtful, informative response. I've been tempted to revisit the series because Origins looks so good. The scummy MT stuff in Odyssey is a little off-putting though.
I don't like it but it's kept pretty much in the background most of the time now, so it's not that intrusive
I beat Syndicate last week and that had maybe 15-20mins of cut scenes set in the present, with the rest set in the past
Unity was more or less the same
I don't look forward to those sections, but it would be odd to pull them entirely now, and they're used so sparingly I'm happy for them to be there for those who really care about the modern plot
I beat Syndicate last week and that had maybe 15-20mins of cut scenes set in the present, with the rest set in the past
Unity was more or less the same
I don't look forward to those sections, but it would be odd to pull them entirely now, and they're used so sparingly I'm happy for them to be there for those who really care about the modern plot
The moment they just abandoned Desmond's story line was the moment I stopped caring.
I don't mind it tbh. But mostly because is so short and I can go back to the Animus almost instantaneously lol
Honestly, I think that Ubisoft needs to drop Assassin's Creed altogether, both lore-wise and mechanics-wise. It'd be much better if for their next game they'd go full-blown historical or fantasy RPG in vein of Witcher 3 or Kingdom Come: Deliverance, dropping all AC baggage entirely (apart from the good parts like wall climbing). I think that by now they are up to the task.
This makes no sense from a marketing perspective, and Origins was a pretty huge departure from the series and essentially changed the games genre anyway
A new RPG that is basically Assassin's Creed minus the name and a few other conventions (like the modern day plot) would be throwing away all the good will and brand recognition that has been built up over the last decade
I'm not saying it would fail, but it doesn't really make sense to drop the AC name, branding and conventions while its stock is high and while there are fans who are invested in the series
They did build upon it. That was what AC4 and Rogue were about. Even Unity and Syndicate featured it. But then they decided that their Terminator 3-style "Time is a machine that will self-correct any attempts to change it because Judgement Day is inevitable" idea was way better. Desmond was retconned into a dead end who was incapable of overcoming the flow of time, because all his work was quickly undone.
Remember this quote from AC: Origins.
The irony is that The Witcher is full of accumulated series baggage, and CDPR are now making Cyberpunk 2077, which is full of baggage because it's an existing property.
Assassin's Creed is a wildly successful game series. One they enjoy making and have the freedom to dramatically reinvent on a whim. One they own the rights to. (Which is why Prince of Persia isn't a thing anymore.) They have basically no reason to stop making Assassin's Creed games, which is a double edged sword because they really need to grow a spine and create a conclusion to the narrative.
I'm playing through Odyssey and it's my first AC since AC2. It's the worst.
From the start where you don't even begin as Alexios/Kassandra to the points in the story where the game has to take a "break" to remind you that all you're doing does not really matter because it's all about these badly written caricatures in "modern times".
Maybe had I played the previous ones I'd appreciate it more, but as it stands it's awful.
From the start where you don't even begin as Alexios/Kassandra to the points in the story where the game has to take a "break" to remind you that all you're doing does not really matter because it's all about these badly written caricatures in "modern times".
Maybe had I played the previous ones I'd appreciate it more, but as it stands it's awful.
It needs to go. The modern day storyline died with Assassin's Creed III. It adds nothing to the experience at this point. Any resources spent on the modern day stuff would be better off spent on improving literally any other aspect of these games.
I found it pretty interesting until they decided to kill Desmond in order to be able to actually milk the series indefinitely. After that, it's been mostly miss rather than hit, but with Origins (I have yet to play Odyssey) I feel they found a new solid beginning to that part of the story.
I bet!
And then if the sequel won't be in a setting I'm interested in I won't even get the rest of the story.
And that'll make me even more baffled when I'll eventually jump back in.
They should make it a toggle at the start.
I'd like the modern stuff to be completely skipable, it drags me out of the main game story. I've not played all the AC games or completed all of them (so it may already exist in one of the games) but If we have to have the modern stuff, id prefer it to have similar gameplay main part of the game, I.e modern day parkour missions. The ones I've played the modern stuff has always been walking around and talking with no action.
The modern day stuff is the reason I don't play AC games. I can suspend my disbelief for time travel, but the idea that the entire past is stored in DNA is just such incredible BS, making me cringe too hard to continue playing.
i liked how they handled it in unity where the animus sections were actually arno in set pieces across the history of paris. i dont mind the animus conciet but i dont really need to be hopping out of it to read emails every few hours beyond the intro and outro
It's not a clear NO or YES for me. I liked it from AC1 to Brotherhood. If they can go back to that, I want it. If they keep doing the stuff they did with the last games, I don't care about it at all. I play AC for the worlds they create, at the end of the day I can't care less about the justification of why are we playing in Egypt, Rome or whatever the place it is.
I know, that's why I said they "hand waved " it away, which is basically what they did, instead of having it actually make an impact and go with what it set up.
I mean it was a great setup for them to basically take the modern day stuff into a new direction, give us a type of dystopian/Blade Runner'ish future and bring the gameplay more in line with the "past" gameplay in terms of structure and what you do. I mean could you imagine an AC world where we play in a modern time that's like Blade Runner? There's so much they could have done with that and made people actually excited to explore that kind of world. They could have taken the whole series modern day story into a new direction instead of the usual boring stuff it's been about since then that almost no one likes or looks forward to.
100% agree.
They dropped the ball on the modern day stuff with AC3 so they should've just wrapped it up altogether, it's dead, jim.
People need to get over Desmond. As far as I can tell, a huge reason why so many people are vocal about hating the story of Assassin's Creed is because they are still upset that Ubisoft killed off Desmond and replaced him with a faceless Ubis-- I mean, Abstergo employee, and then replaced them with Layla. Over and over again, you see this sizeable demographic of AC fans who have passive-aggressively hated the series since AC3 because it kicked sand in their face, killed a protagonist they liked, and then decided to start dramatically changing the gameplay and narrative structure of the series. Including deliberately removing the kind of storytelling and character development that attracted them in the first place. The people angry about Desmond seem way more vocal than the newer AC fans who don't understand the appeal of the science fiction story. It's not bemusement, but rather actively shitting on the series for still existing despite being dead to them now. Hence the whole "Why do they keep making these highly successful games? Nobody I know cares anymore," mentality.
The people constantly talking about how the story is going nowhere frequently seem to be old AC fans who want AC3 retconned out of existence and a new AC3 created where Desmond becomes a super sexy Assassin and ganks Juno. They don't recognise the new story direction of the series as a valid one. They're never going to give a shit about any character introduced because they want Desmond back.
It's no different to people saying they hate Far Cry 5's story because...
There were people who went from "best game ever" to "screw this shit, this series is dead to me now" in the space of about 4 minutes.
The people constantly talking about how the story is going nowhere frequently seem to be old AC fans who want AC3 retconned out of existence and a new AC3 created where Desmond becomes a super sexy Assassin and ganks Juno. They don't recognise the new story direction of the series as a valid one. They're never going to give a shit about any character introduced because they want Desmond back.
It's no different to people saying they hate Far Cry 5's story because...
Ubisoft nuked the planet and killed most of the characters.
I hate it, and outside of the ridiculous size these games have swollen up to, it's one of the main things keeping me away. I haven't played an AC game in years now, and the Animus storyline is keeping me from jumping back in because I know I'll never play them all, and I'll be missing tons of stuff. Also, I find the whole Animus thing excruciatingly boring, so now, I'm not gonna watch them on youtube, watching other people is not for me.
I hated the Animus since day 1, I'd be glad if they got rid of it, but it's probably too late, too many people want it to continue.
It started out interesting and I really enjoyed it but it started going downhill from Brotherhood's idiotic twist and then ran off a cliff with AC3. Ever since then it's been completely pointless, they have no over arching story they're telling across each installment or even a semblance of a plan for them, it's just worthless content and the only reason they seem to keep including it is because "that's Assassin's Creed's thing."
So my answer is:
If they had a story worth telling using it: Yes
Otherwise: No
So my answer is:
If they had a story worth telling using it: Yes
Otherwise: No
I hate it. It does nothing but detract from the astonishing historical worlds. Black Flag was egregious, forcing me to disengage from this amazing pirate landscape to run around a fucking office with "None of this pirate stuff you're playing is real!" being shoved down my throat.
And I lost track of the whole templars/assassins stuff ages ago, I just prefer a simple motivation like Bayek and his relatively simple (once you tune out some of the surrounding fluff) revenge theme.
And I lost track of the whole templars/assassins stuff ages ago, I just prefer a simple motivation like Bayek and his relatively simple (once you tune out some of the surrounding fluff) revenge theme.
I wish they would double down on the Animus, actually. It doesn't make sense to keep it at the state it's in right now.
I think the only reason people hate the Animus sequences is because they became worse with each entry.
It's actually a perfect storytelling device for a linear adventure but Ubisoft rather puts all their resources into an open world everytime instead of commiting to it.
Also it doesn't help that they denied us the logical conclusion of the series of having a modern day Ass Creed with Desmond having all the abilities from his ancestors.
It's actually a perfect storytelling device for a linear adventure but Ubisoft rather puts all their resources into an open world everytime instead of commiting to it.
Also it doesn't help that they denied us the logical conclusion of the series of having a modern day Ass Creed with Desmond having all the abilities from his ancestors.
I liked it in the Ezio games when it seemed like they had a solid idea of what they were doing with it.
It's a stale concept by now.
It served as a novel narrative tool when the series was new and they were working to establish the mythology, but we've already seen the main thrust of the story they were trying to tell with it in the first three numbered games, and the world has been established enough for several games now that we no longer need a frame story to contextualize it.
Time to move on.
It served as a novel narrative tool when the series was new and they were working to establish the mythology, but we've already seen the main thrust of the story they were trying to tell with it in the first three numbered games, and the world has been established enough for several games now that we no longer need a frame story to contextualize it.
Time to move on.
It's certainly got worse since the Desmond storyline ended......I think Ubi know it's a bit rubbish but they are stuck with it now so best thing is to make it as unobtrusive as possible.
This patently isn't true. AC: Origins laid out the plan. Extensively. AC: Odyssey picked up where it left off, and sets up the third and what will presumably be the final game in the trilogy. AC: Origins explicitly explains where the story is going to go. Across multiple monologues. They even recapped some of the important stuff like "Reality is a simulation, BTW," in Odssey, on Layla's computer. And of course AC: Odyssey's ending brings a number of threads together.
This also isn't true. Those games were about Templars and Assassin's and using a machine to view DNA. The new games are about how reality is a simulation and you need to break free of said simulation in order to "draft a new chapter" in order to change the past, present, and future. The new story is a complete contradiction of the premise and themes of the old story. The entire conceit of "View the past, use the knowledge to save the present" has been thrown in the trash. AC hasn't been about any of that stuff for the past two games.
The problem with a long running series like AC is to some degree is that these huge retcons and shifts in narrative focus go over a lot of people's heads. They assume that what they remember from the old games still holds true. I'd wager a vast majority of the people in this thread have not seen AC: Odyssey's ending.
I'm a little ambivalent about this. The Animus was an awesome concept from the start, that offered an in-universe justification for all the "gamey" aspects (UI, reloads, historical inaccuracies, etc). It was also interesting strey-wise, and the whole first civilisation story was pretty enticing. But AC II was the peak for me, with all its mysteries, the huge revelation at the end, and the promise that through the Animus, Desmond was going to become a badass.
At this point, I expected one or two more entries, and hoped the series would end in the modern day, mixing all the cool assassin moves Desmond would have learned with modern or near futur tech.
Then the next game didn' t do much to advance the plot, and by AC Revelations it becale clear that they were just padding to keep the series going for longer, that's when I really started losing interest. ACIII finally picked up the pace a bit but was frankly half assed and disappointing in terms of present time story. And the ending killed any remaining interest I had in this aspect of the series.
From Black Flag onward, the devs clearly didn't know what to do with the present time and the Animus any more, and they just had to drag that boulder. Now it just adds needless padding and uninteresting stuff that is never going to go anywhere because the series will have to keep going on forever, and the devs are cursed to continue putting that stuff in the games because that's what they've been selling us from the start, and apparently it would be too hard to just admit failure and move on without the Animus.
At this point, I expected one or two more entries, and hoped the series would end in the modern day, mixing all the cool assassin moves Desmond would have learned with modern or near futur tech.
Then the next game didn' t do much to advance the plot, and by AC Revelations it becale clear that they were just padding to keep the series going for longer, that's when I really started losing interest. ACIII finally picked up the pace a bit but was frankly half assed and disappointing in terms of present time story. And the ending killed any remaining interest I had in this aspect of the series.
From Black Flag onward, the devs clearly didn't know what to do with the present time and the Animus any more, and they just had to drag that boulder. Now it just adds needless padding and uninteresting stuff that is never going to go anywhere because the series will have to keep going on forever, and the devs are cursed to continue putting that stuff in the games because that's what they've been selling us from the start, and apparently it would be too hard to just admit failure and move on without the Animus.
I'm quite sure that e.g. Cyberpunk 2077 will be even more popular than Witcher 3, and certainly not due to the existing Cyberpunk TTRPG fanbase.
A lot of people are tired of Assassin's Creed and all the Animus-Abstergo-Assassins stuff. I mean if your reasoning were valid, companies would only ever produce sequels and wouldn't experiment with new (for them) IPs. I firmly believe that a new RPG from the AC devs that would drop most of AC stuff and which would try to do more stuff in a new way would be more successfull than just another AC game, even one which tries to expand AC horizons like AC:Origins and AC:Odyssey incrementally did.
I don't really see any irony here. Witcher games changed far more drastically between the installments than AC games, and there are only three of them in total, not eleven (even if you just count mainline AC games). Also Pondsmith's Cyberpunk IP has never been adapted in a videogame form, so with respect to videogames medium it's a new IP, and thus I don't see how your comment is relevant.
Thankfully not all companies conform to this reasoning, otherwise we would only ever get sequels. I firmly believe that if Ubisoft went to make a full-blown RPG with a new IP (not necessarily completely new and original, just new for Ubisoft), it would be far more successful than just another AC game.
