In a scheduled reveal today, Ubisoft has pulled back the curtain on the next title in the Assassin's Creed series.
Codenamed "Victory" before its reveal, Ubisoft's reveal of Syndicate confirms several of the rumors that had been floating about in the preceding months. The game will be set in 1868 London, which the announcement claims will be 30% bigger than the revolutionary Paris setting of Assassin's Creed Unity. The in-game London will be split into 6 districts; Southwark, the City of London, Whitechapel, Westminster, the Strand, and Lambeth. This next entry will also seemingly scrap the co-op multiplayer mechanic that was featured so heavily in the pre release hype for Unity to focus on a single player story.
Finally today's Ubisoft announcement revealed that AC: Syndicate's story will feature two parallel protagonists: Jacob and and Evie Frye. Players will be able to switch between these characters on the fly similar to Grand Theft Auto V I would imagine, but will be restricted in the story missions. Jacob has been described as a roguish and brash character (thank god we finally have one of those in video games) whereas Evie is described as a "relentless master of stealth". The story will be based around the Industrial Revolution, and casts the Assassins as champions of the working class fighting against a Templar aristocracy controlling the industry-powered society of London in the 1800s.
2014 was a rough year for Ubisoft; mega-hyped title Watch_Dogs failed to meet expectations, Far Cry 4 was well received but described as "more of the same" but the disastrous launch of Assassin's Creed Unity was the biggest story. The first next-gen Assassin's Creed released buggy, with egregious micro-transactions and a downright predatory review embargo. Not to mention that backlash against lack of a female protagonist caused a great deal of the pre-release hype to be swallowed by internet flame wars. AC: Syndicate seems to be a concerted effort by Ubisoft to right the ship that is Assassin's Creed by ditching unappealing co-op to focus on the single player and mixing up the protagonist structure, even if Jacob sounds like a British Ezio.
Assassin's Creed: Syndicate will release October 23rd, 2015
Thoughts on the reveal? Are you as crushed as I am that the time setting won't allow for Jack the Ripper missions?