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

6. The Movement Mechanic

One of the hallmark's of the Assassin's Creed games has been the way you traverse its expansive world. It was one of the first games to feature a free-running mechanic. With the simple press of a shoulder button and a thumbstick you could be bounding around the streets, climbing buildings faster than a Spider can or scampering across Venetian rooftops. Unfortunately though, as Ubisoft have added more and more into their worlds, this mechanic has began to feel a little TOO simple. The mechanic at its core is relatively sound but it often feels like a crap-shoot as to whether your character will keep running in a straight line or decide he wants to climb the nearest box and hop onto the building instead. The developers need to find a way to accommodate the excellent free-running with more natural movement and animation when you don't want to parkour all over the place. A common problem found in the previous game was with something as simple as opening a chest. If you could move 360 degrees around it, good luck trying to open the damn thing on your first try. Not only would you have to make sure you were directly in front of the chest, getting their was often far more trouble than its worth, with your characters' walking speed too slow, yet engaging the running mode makes him want to clamber all over the thing - a total exercise in frustration. Fixing these niggling issues with the control scheme and movement could go a long way into making the game flow better and feel much more organic when it comes to movement. Also, just a suggestion for Ubisoft, maybe let our character open a chest from any angle? Sure it might not look as pretty, but at least it will be functional.