This article includes major spoilers for the game Assassin’s Creed III. If the game has not been played (and you do want to play in the future), please don’t proceed any further in reading.
Dissapointed? I know a lot of people are. Not with the game, hopefully, but with the conclusion. I am. I mean, don’t you think it was a bit rushed? Don’t you think it could have had more emotion, or more drama – just to make it the definitive moment of the series? To recap, Desmond and friends enter the temple, Juno turns out to be a bad guy, and he sacrifices himself to save the world – but in doing so likely handed it over to a psychotic, alien, Goddess… thing. We all expected something like this would happen, but certainly it would be a bit better. The only bit of drama, arguably, was when Desmond tried to pull away from his imminent death. That’s it. Nothing more. Nada.
All respect to Ubisoft, ACIII was astonishing. Unjustly overshadowed by glitches mainly fixed by the day one patch, and optional stories that were fundamentally optional (Don’t need to play them? Don’t judge a game on them). Connor’s tale and the Desmond outer segments were also brilliant, offering everything I expected from the build up. So when the present day group finally opened the gate, I was praying the finale would follow the example set. To some people, maybe it did. Maybe it gave everything they needed. It kills me to do so, but I can’t say the same. It didn’t give me the send off to Desmond I needed, as following him for the the past five years have created a bit of interest. Partly to blame is Nathan Dra… I mean Nolan North. So, for the many sleepless nights, I’ve thought of how I could have got that send off. In them nights of endless homestead missions, I thought of three conclusions that could have been more approved, and perhaps more loved, by the worldwide fanbase. Especially the last one. Oh, that last one… without blowing on my own trumpet – that one’s good.
Without further ado, after a month of waiting, here is how Assassin’s Creed III could have been a truly great finale – and not a Mass Effect 3 style disappointment…
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20 Comments
That third one was awesome! send it to ubisoft lol.
Cant believe they did desmond so wrongly in the end, IMO they shouldnt have given in to peer pressure of only 40% of fans when they said they didnt want Desmond anymore, but they only reason they didnt was because ubisoft were so half assed with the character development of him.
TBH AC3 shouldve been a desmond only game, imagine how awesome it couldve been
Its weird because I always expected it to be. Saying that, I’m nowhere near dissapointed with Connor’s story, but I just always thought it would be present day.
Since ideas are being thrown around how about this one, it obviously contains spoilers. After you complete the game you get tasked with finding pivots by an unknown person. I can’t remember the exact dialogue but I know that when you collect all of them this person says something about being synched to “the cloud”. Typically the pivots are used to unlock cheats via animus hacks, but it seems they have a underlying purpose that I haven’t seen anyone talk about on the net yet. So how can they be important? Firstly we know that the animus can store a conciousness (e.g. Clay Kaczmarek or Subject 16), therefore there may be a chance that Desmond’s conciousness may be in the animus like sixteens’s was. I mean fundamentally who is in the animus after Desmond gets fried? Who does the pivot guy talk to? Secondly that was one of the goals of the first civ. If you’ve spent time around the grand temple you would have learned that the first civ tried to store the conciousness’s of people inside machines, in fact the first test subject was Juno’s husband. They failed however, but sixteen didn’t. Somehow he stored his conciousness into the animus. Lastly this creates clarity on the purpose of synching the animus to a cloud. Assuming that the cloud means a cloud network, Desmond’s conciousness may be synched to a cloud network that allows his conciousness to be accessed by different animi. I wouldn’t be surprised if the pivot guy belongs to the Erudito collective. Ultimately if this is the case Desmond may physically be dead but his conciousness may remain in the animus and is ultimately synched to this cloud.
Hope this may bring clarity
I’ve always wondered about ‘Eve’ that either Juno or Minerva were talking about in Brotherhood I think. What happened to that, a whole ‘storyline’ just disappears. And Erudito, where were they? They didn’t seem very important or large for all the things credited to them. Just some things to ponder about.
I’m not sure about the Erudito references, but the Eve mention is quite a big part of the Liberation story (on the Vita). I’m looking forward to pick it up on Christmas, might bring some clarity for ACIV.
The reason that I assume that the pivot guy belongs to Erudito is because they specialize in hacking abstergo and the animus. Besides the assassins they are the only ones directly opposed to abstergo, and it even seems that they are more well of than the assassins as they directly taunt abstergo and while it’s easy to get info on the assassins, it’s a lot harder to get info on erudito, think of them as the Anonymous of the AC universe. Erudito has contacted Desmond directly in ACB if I remember correctly, but they have become a big part in the multiplayer. Also Erudito have their own independent network, and it is to this that I think the animus synchs. I also read somewhere that they are in liberation as well for the same reason that they are in the AC3 multiplayer, although I’m not sure as I’ve not played liberation.
But ultimately this is speculation, I tried to make sense of the ending as I was disappointed myself. I sort of believe that ubi has put in the pivots for a story related purpose.
it would have been nice letting people know there were spoilers ahead instead of ruining the ending for some of us. Most sites at least let you know
Sorry for that mate, but at the start of the introduction it gives a clear warning. Also, the three alternate endings title were kind of self explanatory. Why would you read this if you wanted to know the ending while playing?
There is a spoiler warning at the very beginning and the fact that the title says three alternate endings to ACIII would mean the ending is the subject. But hey people miss those things all the time
Side missions were awsome btw in this game and futuristic ac idea is stupid( other than that nice article). Desmond’s story was very bad to begin with. He didnt do anything for 3 games, was stuck in a imaginary island playing portal in acr and was electricuted in ac3. Terrible story good riddance. Dont get me wrong i like the ac story when its not a incomprehenisble scyfy mess. 96 percent of the games(the ansesters) have awsome tales.
I didnt care for the ending since i never liked desmond to begin with so i wasnt disapointed.
AC3 was the best game in the series. The frontier, the naval batlles, the story was overwhelmingly good. Besides this isnt the first ac game to have terrible wtf ending.
But… what about Drake?? DRAKE IS AWESOME!!!
I was thinking something along the line of the third on too! xD We needed a proper send-off for Desmond like we got for ezio :)
I Imagined that when he touched the orb, Altair, ezio, and Conner would glimmer behind Desmond, also grabbing his wrist like Desmond was. Then as he fell to the ground, in slow mo, we’d see the three of them looking at Juno with hatred in their eyes, showing that they had seen that their lives had been wasted just to be deceived in the end by Juno.
I dunno how that would work our with the whole Trilogy, but I felt like that would’ve been a more fitting end to the story :/
I doubt Ubisoft is gonna change the ending, but
they might make it right in the Next AC game, giving a tribute to them or something :D
Wait, Tripler? Triplr off Initiates?!
Oh man, I’ve been wanting to vent about the rough ending to Desmond’s for a while now but none of my friends have played it. Desmond’s has more value than most people give him. I’ve been dying to play a whole game as him but we will have that chance. I would have loved to have seen your third ending. The thought of it gave me goosebumps. If Ubisoft was smart, they would need to figure away to bring him back. Minerva could have devised a way to absorb Desmond’s consciousness when he touched the orb due to her fear that he may choose to do so when the time came. She was able to program her warning message, why not this? She was aware of Juno surviving so she could have made sure that all options weren’t gone.
My thoughts about the Erudito Collective: is it possible that we, the video game players, are part of that collective? There are no clues that the guy who is talking about hacking is talking to other characters. I think he is talking to us directly. We are basically using our own animus machines (Xbox, ps3, etc) to “relive” these memories. The present day timeline doesn’t really mesh with the theory that we are reliving Desmond’s memories but we could have been helping him or just trying to gather enough data to create the cloud in order to continue on in case he dies.
Oh and Connor’s story was awesome. We need one more game to explore more of his character.
My brain physically exploded at that second bit.
Also, about that bringing back thing. Remember in Revelations when Sixteen ‘saved’ Desmond on the island? There was no need to, he could have just pushed Desmond to the door. So, Desmond said goodbye to Ezio, and woke up in the van. But he woke up with that blue arm, right? The one he touched the orb with? Maybe Sixteen did save Desmond. After all, there was a glimpse of blue on Desmond’s wrist when he lay ‘dead’ on the ground.
Last ending you wrote there was really good :).
But to be honest, it could have just played The Simpson’s outro and been a better ending. All it said to me was that they needed some excuse to make more AC games after earlier declaring it a trilogy and to go on past 24th December 2012 and the end of the world when, in real life, we’d all ‘survived’ it would be stupid.
So they quickly threw together an ending that tied up the end of the world story that all 5 main games had been working towards so they could make more money from more games. Thats the main gripe, we’ve had enticing cliffhanger endings for 5 years now, teasing that its going to lead up to this huge moment where the world is about to end and we have to stop it. In reality, we didn’t really do anything, it was over in a 5 minute cutscene.
As for Connor’s story, it added nothing to the main arc apart from the beginning and end. In effect, we were just playing a game about the American Revolution and a guy who happened to be there at the time. There was early references to TWCB and Pieces of Eden but they were just totally forgotten about until the end of Connor’s story.
#rant!
The 3rd ending you made up sounds excellent, id love something like that were the 4 major assassins have to fight off Juno.
This is only because I expected there to be some sort of big fight scene at the ending, the fact that Connor just falls with Charles Lee and then stabs him in a bar is just ludacris… I was sooo annoyed with the last 15 minutes of the story having no fight scene or any player control bar moving your character forward.
I mean who remembers the end of AC1 where you found out Al Mualim was the bad guy all along and you had to fight him… That was good and at least you felt like you played the climax rather than watching a movie.
Felt no love for Connor as he didnt really follow the creed, he only used it as a way to try and save his village.
Bad Ending, Amazing Series, If there is an AC4 they should have an ancestor in Japan around time of the Samurai, and maybe a girl ancestor just for something completely different!
I enjoyed the ending to Connor (with Lee). It was sentimental. It was as if Lee knew he was at his end, passing Connor the drink.
And I did love Connor. He was the protagonist that lost the most out of the whole series.
Ehhh this ending was on par with the rest of the series they are all cliff hangers. Its not supposed to be a true ending its just an end to a chapter not the series. Sorry but I would have been PISSED with your third ending there are too many questions left and too many cool locales left to explore within the franchise. I liked the ending it fit with the rest of the series. Just like Altaïr Ezio and Connor Desmond is a cog in the wheel he played his part. It is now up to the next protagonist to play their role. We’ll find out in AC4: Black Flag