Assassin's Creed 5: 10 Essential Features It Needs To Overhaul

For better or worse, this year will see the release of yet another entry into Ubisoft's long running Assassin's Creed franchise. After the rather disastrous Assassin's Creed III, Ubi fixed a lot of issues voiced by gamers with its much better follow up, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. They brought in better locations, overhauled the sailing mechanic first implemented in III, and gave us a much more entertaining protagonist to play as. Though Black Flag was a marked improvement over it's predecessor, there's still plenty of room for improvement. The main missions often felt like retreads of each other, with most tasks getting no more complicated than tailing someone and eavesdropping on their conversation. Movement on land has also began to feel a bit dated, and a myriad of glitches prevented Black Flag from being as polished as it could have been. With Assassin's Creed V likely due at the end of this year, we take a look at the 10 features that need overhauling to make sure it's an essential purchase, not just for fans of the series, but for newcomers too.

10. The Locales Need To Be Better

One of the joys of the Assassin's Creed franchise has been visiting locations we've only ever seen in the history books. These are places we've read about, seen drawings of, but perhaps never actually experienced. It was no more apparent than in Assassin's Creed II, where as Ezio players got to travel all over Italy, seeing such sights as the canals of Venice, the stunning architecture of Florence and the fortress of Forlì, not to mention vast expanses of Tuscan countryside. Assassins's Creed Brotherhood and Revelations both continued this trend of amazing locales, the former being set in Rome, and the latter in Constantinople (now Istanbul). All of these places have iconic vistas and landmarks, sadly this was not the case in Assassin's Creed III. In what can only be a case of video game amnesia, the developers seemed to forget that one of the main draws of the franchise was to see interesting locales. New York and Boston in the 18th Century - whilst important to shaping American History - didn't have much going in the way of interesting architecture. Black Flag somewhat improved upon the lacklustre effort from III, but most of the time in game was spent aboard your ship; the Jackdaw, something that ended up being much more fun than the land sections. Whilst Black Flag gave us some gorgeous visuals, the towns and cities featured still had little identity. For Assassin's Creed V, the developers need to take us to an interesting period that also contains places we WANT to see. How about London? It's been full of amazing landmarks for Centuries. Revolution-era Paris would be great, or if you want to go a bit further down the time line, why not the late 1800's when the Eiffel Tower was being constructed?