4. Open Up The Possibilities For The World
One of the most ridiculous omissions noted in Metal Gear's Ground Zeroes is the ability to knock on a wall and distract a guard towards your position. It's something that's been with the series since the beginning, yet for some reason Hideo Kojima and company decided they didn't need it any more, forcing you to run up on guys or wait until their patrol patterns put them in your midst. For some reason this was also the case in Unity. Instead of being able to play with guards and generally getting a sense of cat-and-mouse gameplay many stealth games rely on for the core enjoyment of the genre, it was removed and you had to use an item to get someone's attention. Lining that up with the corner-kill animations was then a task in itself, but it's a small thing that's emblematic of the larger problem with the series - a lack of gameplay options. The coolest weapon to come along in a while was the rope dart - something that let you strangle and hang guards from above, Predator-style. Now, although AC needs to remain separate from the Arkham franchise, there's something to be said for how much fun you can have just exploring the environment and dominating a number of foes from the shadows. Every AC mission tends to play out the same way - get to the target or goal as fast as possible. By fleshing out the abilities of whichever new protagonist makes an appearance and giving players a genuine reason to experiment, it could fundamentally change the way you get through levels.