Hands up, who actually enjoyed the present day stuff in the first trilogy? Back in the first Assassin's Creed it was a core part of the narrative, with Desmond Miles struggling to understand his purpose and place in the grand scheme of things - and that was before we found out fellow worker Lucy was working for the Assassins or saw Subject 16's hidden messages across the wall. With Black Flag Ubisoft did the only thing they could - break the fourth wall and carefully reassemble it choosing only the most specific of parts. By doing away with the story of Desmond and his interaction with a colony of ancient super-beings who were trying to stop the apocalypse (or something), it freed them up to let you step into the shoes of a new character, actually working for the company you'd been trying to stop in the previous trilogy. There were now multiple Animus machines within an office environment, and Ubisoft now existed as themselves in the game world, partnering with the Abstergo company to market the Assassin's Creed series, inside the Assassin's Creed series. You were nothing more than a worker, jacking into the Animus to find specific memories with which to assemble the AC games within the game, freeing up the team in real life to apply this to any time period and any scenario. Whilst it was all very back-patting and self-congratulatory, the fact that Desmond's story was over meant that all the fan theories about donning the hood in the present day were done too. Mirror's Edge proved that people love to parkour around futuristic environments just as much as traditional ones, and if AC could find a way of putting us in somewhere similar, it'd solidify Rogue as something other than just a DLC-style cash-grab. What do you want to see from Assassin's Creed: Rogue to make it worth a purchase? Are you planning on getting it alongside Unity? Let us know in the comments!
