It's set in italy in 1476 from what i'm reading from my Game Imformer mag I just got.
Italy in 1476 is a spiderweb of political intrigue, warring families and corrupt clergy. Even the implied unity of calling the place by a single name is a simplification; violent city-states are in a constant state of upheaval and conflict, both within and without. Assassination, banishment, and grisly executions are commonplace. Life can be short and brutal even at the very top of the social ladder. Besides this harsh world coexists a strange counterpoint. The western world is waking up from long years of plague, famine, and conquest. The foundations of modern science, art, and literatue are emerging from these bloody streets, and the epoch that will be known as the renaissance has begun. Behind it all, toe forces vie for the hearts and minds of the people, continuing to conflict that stretches back into history from the fields of the crusades 300 years earlier to a mysterious future of conspiracy and secrets. The assassins and the templar continue their ceaseless struggle, and one side is about to receive a new combatant.
A Change in Setting
Renissance italy might seem like a strange place to advance the mythology of assassins creed. "It was basicly the switch between the middle ages and modern times" says producer sebastien pual. "It's a place that was talking about banking and art, and a new way of thinking with a man at the enter of his own universe, changing the way we saw religion. Lots of things pened in these very small cities in a very short period of time." For most our perception of the time is dominated by iconic images of art and architecture-da Vinci's mona Lisa, Michelangelo's statue of David, Venices Rialto Bridge. Often overlooked in the fact that these monumental achievements emerged out of an era of incredible strife. This tensions of opposites drew the time at ubisoft montreal to take the dramatic leap forward, abandon a familiar, well-liked setting, and start anew.
The cluster city-states of italy serve as an entirely new world to wander and explore. The interconnectioned waterways and canals of Venice make for a striking backdrop to intrigue and assassination, The architectural marvels of Florence become yet another obstacle to climb atop and leap across. "One of the main reason we chose the setting was for the amazing cities. Florence and Venice are two of the most visited places in the world. It's a fantasy for alot of people," Puel tells us.
Unlike in the previous game, these cities are no longer isolated bastions of civilization seperated by a wide "kingdom" of gorgeous but mostly empty wilderness. "There will be alot more missions that go from one place to another. It's not the feel of three cities, and a place to travel in between," creative director Ptraice Desilets says. "It's a whole bunch of connected cities and a continuous gameplay that links them together". Individual cities have country side built around them, with mission content, story develop-ment, and hidden secrets seamlessly connection the urban to the rural. Like the historical record of the period, a given city was far more then it's buildings and walls. Places like florence would extend their millitary and political might across broad reaches of the surrounding countryside, controlling smaller towns and villages that might further the central citys goals. There was no italy in the way we understand it today, but rather a squabbling collection of nobles, church officials, and merchant families vying for land and profit. Wherever possible the time in montreal has stayed true to this concept, resulting in a far more dynamic and compelling landscape to explore. The game opens in 1476, a far cry from the distant crusades of the holy land seen in the first game. Players wo enjoyed the first outing might not be surprised by the change up. After all, Assassins creed has been presented from the beginning as the story of a family stretched across centuries, not the individual tale of one man.
A Change in Character
Ezio Auditore De Firenze is a nobleman of florence when we first dive into his memories during the tumultuous year of 1476. He's a young man with a far different bacjground from the first Character. The link between the two is a nessessary precursor to desmonds ancestral memories, but the actual family ties remain a matter of unrevealed plotline. Whatever the connection, Ezio has grown up in a life of privilege. Like his distant family member, he is a mysterious and well-trained - the gentry of the period were educated with equal skill in swordplay, poetry and art. Unlike Altarr, ththere is a practiced charm in this new hero; seduction and wit comes easily. The Auditore family is like much of the well to do nobility of the time they have alliances with other Florentine houses. They participate in the endless one-upsmanship of moving up the social ladder. And they have enemies. While Ubisoft refuses to spoil the traile of how Ezio turns from a cultured Noble in an assassin, we know that he does end up alone and on a quest for vengeance against the most powerful families of the Renaissance. Though Ezio begins the game with a great deal to learn about the path of the Assassins, he has a walth of new skills that will set him apart from the first games protagonist. With Venice featuring so prominently in the story, the time members are well aware of the riot they'd have of their hands if they didn't unclude a swimming component. "It's sort of a geek joke but since it's sequel, he has to be able to swim". From any rooftop, street, or bridge, Ezio can dive into the Water traversing the twisting waterways of Venice with the same ease that he might free-run along it's rooftops. Like bales of hay in the first game, water can also be used a hiding place, so long as Ezios breath holds out. You can even pull unwary guards in the water grave with new moves. Ezio also has new options in the more familiar arenas of running and climbing. To further aid the sort of fast-paced chases that made the first game so engaging, excellent free-running paths are now frequently marked with a white cloth. Just as the ledge-side birds highlight an appropriate place to dive into cover, the white sheets now reveal many of the most advantageous avenues to clamber and swing your way through cluttered streets and past dangerous obstacles. With numerous taller building ever taller homes and buisinesses, the climbing system has reworked with a new leap and grab maneuver that allows easy the traversal of seemingly sheer vertical surfaces. Once he uses these new avilities to evade his pursuers, Ezio has the ability to blend in with any crowd he encounters, not just the white garbed monks of the first game. Ezio doesn't live his life in a bubble. The game will feature a notoriety system that governs how enemy soldiers and even the general populace will treat you. As he sows the discord and assassinates targets, Ezios infamy grows, causing the increased suspicion and alarm from the oopulace. "In a given city, you can either be incognito or notorious. When your you're notorious, new missions will apear. For instance you might be asked to assassinate the witnesses, bribe the people who are talking about you, to get rid of the posters of your face in the city. This will get your notoriety down to zero, and the guards won't be seaking you out. The biggests innovations have been saved for Ezios combat capabillities. As before, the game encourages an observation-based system of parries and counters. Unlike Altarr, Ezio can disarm an enemy with the tap of a button and then use the weapon against them. On top of that, each of the dozons of weapons have there own special move. Holding down the attack button will trigger each enhanced attack. Grab a long pike, and you'll attack with a wide arc that flings surrounding enemies to the ground. Snatch away a dagger from a lightly armoed guard, and you'll strab and flip past him onto a second target opening up a hole in the circle of enemies to allow for a quick escape. Fight with your bare hands, and Ezio will take advantage of any dirty trick to stay alive. An Unarmed charged up attack has him reaching down to fling dirt into his attackers eyes. "Since Ezio will not be carrying a weapon at all times, expect for his hidden blade and throwing knifes, he needs to be able to use his hands more efficiently when fighting". Puel explaines. Therefore, Ezio will be able to fight barehanded against enemies anytime in the game and perform various punches, knicks, grabs, and head butt.s Even with the other options the hidden blade retains it's prominence, this time in the form of an intricate device crafted by Ezios Friend, Leonardo Da Vinci. Ezio now wields two blades which can be used to swiftly take out two targets in one fierce attack. "It's Assassins Creed 2 let's put two blades in". "If your really good i'm hoping that by then you're mostly fighting with the hidden blades. That's the goal. At the end you're just a bad-ass assassin, without needing all the weapons."
A Change in the Game
After completeing assassins creed, monthes were spent gathering infomation from critics, and, more importantly, the fans. The team wanted to know what worked and what didn't in order to make informed choices. The result is game that is being shaped to respond to voiced concerns, but without abandoning the core experience that made assassins creed the fasting selling new game property in history. The number one agreed upon change? More variety. The first assassins creed had a gameplay loop that was easy to grasp. Pick up a mission at the assassins bureau, investigate the target, report back to the bureau, kill the target, and escape back to the bureau. It was an elegant and simple design that had the unfortunate side effect of becoming increasingly repetitive as the game progressed. For some players, it was enough to turn them away. Assassins creed 2 completely abandons that structure. "We thought, let's forget about entirely about the idea of having a really strict mission design concept." "Theres no preset structure." Instead, a branching network or contacts provides hints and suggestions that move you through cities, out into the countryside and through constantly changing objectives. While you're still trying to track down and isolate the individual targets, there are now 16 unique missions types that you'll encounter along the way. More than that these missions are rarely transparent repeats of earlier events. In one example we were given, Ezio heads to a nearby palace where a noblewoman holds some vital clue. Upon arriving, she imforms him that she is in grave danger, and he must defend her from assassination as they flee through the streets, they escape by boat, and Ezio must keep the craft afloat until they reach safety. Passive mission types like eavesdropping and pick-pocketing have disappeared and replaced by more active endeavors, like tailing a woman through a crowded marketplace or chasing a fleeing man as he seamlessly moves out of the city and into the sprawling countryside. "When you add a varrative component to the mission, it becomes a different experience," says Desilets. "Think GTA - but each time it feels different. So we decided to use the same approach. But then we're also saying, let's sometimes put two missions back to back. So you start by doing a delivery and that transforms into a chase, then you end up with a killing missions. We think of it like linked sausages, where one missions is connected to the next." The Current plan calls for a total of around 200 Missions. Any one of them can be triggered whenever you desire, as you travel back and forth between different contacts, each of whom have their own unique reuqests. Missions structure is home to perhaps the most dramatic effor at providing increased variety, but other, smaller elements of the game have fleshed out as well. Diving from a rooftop, the default hiding palce isn't always some conveniently placed hay bale. A merchants pile of wool or a cart filled with a local fisher-mans catch will also serve, among others. When preparing for a complex missions filled with guards, careful players can now scourt the nearby rooftops and streets to take out excess guards, greatly, easing the approach when the time to strike finally comes, and adding flexibility to how you approach the task. Ezio's increased combat skills are met by a far broader array of ememy types, each of whom are susceptible to different attacks, and hunt Ezio in there own unique ways. The Health system has been adjusted to allow for a more dynamic and participatory experience. Maintaining memory "sync" helps recharge your health up to a point, but grievous injuries require a trp to one of the many street-side docters, who can return you to full strengh. Even collectibles have been adjusted in a significant way to address an issue that was fundamentally lacking in the first game. Scattered about the world of Renaissance Italy are any number of hidden objects to uncover, but now come with concrete in-game bonuses that will make it worth a players time to hunt them down. "It's not only flags this time around. Now there's flags, plus statues, plus gold coins, and a bunch of others, and all of them have real rewards attached to them.
Knowing What Not To Change
The 240-person collective of developers crafting Assassins Creed 2 knows that many players had a blast with their first game. In light of it's success, the second game maintains the bulk of the features that made their earlir release a hit. Movement, combat, and interaction with the world are still handled through the innovative marionette control mechanic, where face buttpms correspond to body parts, and triggers help indicate the degree of intensity to the action. Likewife, even as the missions structure has become more nuanced, the game world still features familiar options. Players can still ride horses and climb high towers to a view of the surrounded landscape. More importantly, the freedom results in lots of emergent gameplay as you cause mayhem on, unsuspecting soldiers. Though the setting is new, historical authenticity is still a central focus. As the team did last time, they've brought on an expert historian from the University of Notre Dame to consult of the project. Some of the astounding events of the period are presented through in-game encounters. In one infamousbut true event, the leaders of the passzi family tried to assassinate the powerfull Lorenzo de' Medici while he was at mass on Easter SUnday. In the midst of communion, Medici's brother was stabbed and killed, but Lorenzo escaped. The Medici and their allies struck back in a bloody and well documented street war which ended with the lunching of the failed Pazzu conspirators. Examining the tumultuous events like these, it's not hard to see how Ubisoft has drawn comparisons to modern-day Italian mafiam with it's tales of murder and inter-family warfare. The tone of the game begins to take on a whole different feel when concepts of gangster crime families are overlaid on top of the cultures and conflicts of the Renaissance. Ultimately the goal is to present a genuine vision of Italy in the 15th Century, albeit layed with the fiction of two eternally warring factions that have brought their conflict to this new land. On that point, the focus on the war between Assassins and the Templar remains the overarching plotline that guides the story. "The Templar and the Assasins went underground, You don't see them anymore, but they're still there and they're still fighting." Somewhere behind the conflicts of merchant families, city-states, and the papacy lie the secret organizations of the Templar and Assassins, pulling the strings from the very beginning. In online forums, conspiracy theories abounded in the wake of mysterious images revealed at the end of the first game. Assassins Creed 2 will do nothing if not expand that cult of curiosity by broadening the cast of characters, and making it clear that there are entire generations, yet undisclosed that hold more keys to the mystery. In recent years, Ubisoft Montreal has developed a tradition for innovative risk-taking in their approach to game design. Assassins Creed 2 stands to be in a unique position amid that lineup. Embracing the ideas that set the franchise apart from the other action/adventure games, it's clear that there is no fear of remaining apart from the crowd. At the same time, the new approach to missions desing reveals a willingness to explore some of the more traditionally successful methods that have been used in open world games. The marriage of innovation to familiar conventions is one of the fundamental challenges in creating a video game. If Ubisoft Montreal can strike that delicate balance, gamers will be the ones to reap the reward come winter.
I typed it up reading from my game imformer mag. Took about an hour to type up. Figured I would type it up since there's not much info out about the game at this point. Any spelling errors is my bad.
