The big blemish — as most rational critics pointed out — on Assassin’s Creed was its repetitious mission structure. After the second hour or so the integration of new story and side missions stopped, causing many players to die of boredom while mindlessly plowing through the game’s three tasks: eavesdropping, intimidating, and assassinating. Some call this flawed design, others brilliance. Either way it doesn’t matter: Ubisoft has promised more with Assassin’s Creed II.
Speaking with NowGamer, Ubisoft’s Sebastian Puel revealed that the story in Assassin’s Creed II would be told through multiple quest givers — Italian dudes who may have unique quests to assign players.
“We are now telling a story in a way that is intended to be very unpredictable,” Puel said. “There are no more ‘x assassinations’ to perform but a story that develops through a great amount of mission givers.”
“Some will give you an assassination mission, others an intimidation or information-gathering mission,” he continued. “There is no limit now to the types of challenges we can give to players. We are very careful to create a lot of variation in the types of gameplay and pace we are proposing.”
We could fuss over his listing of the same three missions types that drove us nuts in the original game, but that’s pointless considering the mention of “variation.” Instead, let’s focus on what should be carried over to Assassin’s Creed II: retards, parkour, and haystacks.
