Madden NFL. Call of Duty. Need for Speed. Like them or hate them, but video game publishers thrive on consistent, annual franchises. And their purpose is understandable—developers pump out these games every year because, well, people like to buy them. The Assassin’s Creed series is a perfect example of this; Ubisoft rakes in incredible amounts of money from it. And though Revelations does have the unfortunate side effect of feeling a little too familiar in some respects, the intense amount of quality Ubisoft Montreal puts into each and every one of these games is astounding. Revelations is no different—the sheer amount of things to do, missions to complete, dudes to stab in the face and neck, and buildings to climb feels just as overwhelming as it has ever been, and I loved every second of it.
As it has been since Assassin’s Creed II, the overarching narrative that Revelations attempts to portray is somewhat muddled. It has a consistent idea or reason, but is ultimately difficult to comprehend. Revelations is, for lack of a better word, predictable. It eventually answers questions, gives fascinating information of the Assassin’s Creed mythos, and ultimately possesses a decently satisfying conclusion—it’s just difficult to follow.
The game continues right off the events of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood where Desmond, the distant descendent of both Altair and Ezio Auditore (the stars of the Assassin’s Creed games) has fallen into a coma. As a result of this, Desmond’s mind has been scattered throughout the Animus. In order to regain his consciousness Desmond must relive the latter portion of Ezio’s life. In this memory Ezio find himself on a quest to uncover the mystery of Altair and what has become of Masyaf, the old assassin’s stronghold, abandoned long ago.
The continuing narrative almost becomes this weird meta-clutter of flashbacks as Desmond is reliving the memories of Ezio’s life on the animus, while Ezio is reminiscing about the events of Altiar’s life through hidden, magic keys. Ubisoft Montreal has been building these characters up as likable, if not respectable, video game characters and Revelations really drives that point home. Ezio, for the amount of times he’s been in an Assassin’s Creed game, is a very well-respected, insanely intelligent assassin that—while murdering his fair share of dudes—does everything within reason. Altair, too, goes from being a very unlikable character from the original game to a very cool and somewhat unpredictable headmaster in the events leading to his ultimate death in Revelations.
Revelations takes place in Constantinople—or Istanbul—Turkey. The city is designed quite similar to the design of Florence from Assassin’s Creed II. Most of the city is positioned in the lower, bigger area of the city while a smaller portion is located in the north. Most of the city’s design is a mixture of renaissance-era, European and Middle Eastern architecture. It’s easily the biggest city they’ve made yet, having little to no countryside while possessing a heavy amount of buildings and structures.
The focus with Revelations seemed to be building upon the core structure of its predecessors. Ezio will continue to buy shops, recruit assassins to train, and climb high strictures to gain strategic viewpoints. Ubisoft Montreal has decided to build on these features rather than build from the ground up. As a result of this, Revelations is going to feel like a very familiar game, for better or worse. All of wicked features of ACII and Brotherhood are all back and kicking (like for example the awesome Prince of Persia-inspired jumping sequences) but are now accompanied by some interesting additional mechanics.
One of these mechanics is the tower-defense-style assassin den defend missions. This is an interesting mechanic that comes into play after you’ve successfully taken over a templar stronghold (similar to the Borgia towers from Brotherhood). The only difference now is that the Templars can that them back. Here you’ll need assign certain troops to set-up defenses while waves of enemies storm through the streets towards your tower. Earning moral by surviving and defeating enemies will grant you additional troops and barricades to prevent the Templars from destroying your base.
Ezio also has an abundance of new tools at his disposal. Early in the game you are given a new hook-blade (similar to a hidden blade) only now Ezio can reach up and grab onto higher surfaces, making some of the more difficult structures easier to climb (and also making the general climbing faster and less monotonous). This also comes into play with the design of Constantinople where Ezio can hook onto zip-lines makes the traversal from rooftop to rooftop a little faster.
Revelations also introduces a pretty robust bomb-building mechanic, too. Bombs play a major roll in Revelations as they become extremely useful the further you proceed into the story. Once you find a bomb crafting area scattered throughout the city you can combine a myriad of shells, gunpowder and other goodies to form different types of results. For example, you can craft an exploding bomb by combing an impact shell with British gunpowder, but if you’d rather take a non-lethal approach you can just as easily make a distraction-focussed bomb by combined a smaller amount of gunpowder with stuff like lambs blood or coins.
One thing that can be said about Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is that it can sometimes feel overwhelming. There’s a TON of things to do in the game, as you can either proceed through the story proper, stop and purchase shops for better income, help citizens around the city for recruitment, send assassins off to other cities for experience, or even search around Constantinople for books and other clues. Revelations isn’t a terribly long game, though. From start to finish (completing most of the side quests and collecting most of the collectibles), my play time was only just barely hitting the 30 hour mark. It’s an overwhelming game that doesn’t take very long to complete.
As with Brotherhood before it, Revelations includes a multiplayer suite that, if nothing else, feels like Brotherhood in many respects. The only notable changes is that the compass at the bottom of the UI is no longer there. Instead you must find your target either by luck or by searching your surroundings more thoroughly than before. Revelations also features much more customization this time around. You can edit your character’s looks, features, weapons, while also giving you the returning ability to add perks and streaks. New game modes have been added, too, with team games that combine players together to take one not one, but many of the same character and by combining together you can rack up more points.
Revelations audiovisual presentation is a decent step-up from its predecessors, too. Constantinople features an array of varying character models all moving with incredibly realistic animations and movements. They seem to be more detailed this time around, too. The city is full of life and has an incredible atmosphere. The faces still look a bit off, though. The soundtrack is again very good but doesn’t quite live up to the standards set by the incredible soundtrack of Assassin’s Creed II. The voice acting is again top notch, while Devon Bostick’s performance (Ezio) specifically does a phenomenal job at representing an aged veteran. I couldn’t help but be disappointing at the change in Altair’s voice, though.
Like it or not, Assassin’s Creed has become one of the most successful, and arguably the best annualized franchise in the video game market today. With Revelations, the series may not be new or exciting anymore—it’s simply solid. It doesn’t have anything particularly groundbreaking or game-changing, it just does everything very well. I’m puzzled of where, when, and what the next game will (or should) be, but as a stepping stone onto bigger and better things, Revelations does a good job of closing out the Ezio trilogy in a somewhat familiar fashion without feeling too dated. It’s interesting to ponder where the series will go next year.