6. The Music
The experience of exploring the cities and surrounding territories in AC2 was enhanced by some gorgeous pieces of music, by composer Jesper Kyd (above), pieces that served to plant you firmly in the world of Renaissance Italy. Musical score has become more and more important for these kinds of cinematic open world games. Mass Effect, Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption - they all use music to help pull the player a little deeper into the game world. With the Assassin's Creed franchise you could argue that music is even more important, because each game is set in a very specific time period, so every game needs to feel unique and sound appropriate for the era it's set. For these kinds of games, what you hear becomes just as important as what you see. The first two games had great music that really set the tone for the era, the setting and the character. Although Creed 3 also has great music (the taverns feature some great fiddle/folksy old school music and when Connor is young there is some fantastic American Indian chanting that set the scene) a lot of the music only kicks in when you're on a mission or in combat. During the rest of the game, when you are exploring the world, there is no music. I may be alone in this one, but exploring the frontier and cities could have been a more immersive experience with some score to set the mood. It's just another touch that AC2 included that would have gone a long away to making the setting feel just that much richer.