Fans of Assasin’s Creed are probably already familiar with Connor, the half-Mohawk Indian Assassin whose memories they’ll be reliving this Fall in Ubisoft’s highly anticipated Assassin’s Creed 3. Well, it seems like Connor isn’t the only assassin that players will be taking control of this year: say hello to Aveline, the female protagonist of Assassin’s Creed 3: Liberation, a brand new Vita-exclusive side story set to launch alongside AC3 later this year.
While Assassin’s Creed 3 places Connor smack dab in the middle of the Revolutionary War in the north, AC3: Liberation drops players into an accurate recreation of colonial New Orleans, which is experiencing a revolution of it’s own: following the end of the French-Indian Wars, France has turned over control of the newly built port city over to the Spanish, and the people of the city aren’t happy about it. Per series tradition, this real historical conflict sets the stage for another battle between the franchise’s fictional conflict between the freedom protecting Assassins and the shadowy Templars. Just as AC3 alternates between urban locations and the vast wilderness of the American frontier, Liberation also features areas set within New Orleans and the surrounding bayou.
Aveline, the new main character of Liberation, is the daughter of a French nobleman and an African woman. Though she lives a life of privilege thanks to her rich father, she meets an escaped slave named Agate who introduces her to the shadowy war of the Assassins and the Templars. Ubisoft isn’t ready to reveal any further story details beyond that initial set up, but they have hinted that the story will deal with issues of class warfare and the beginnings of the abolition movement.
As for gameplay, Liberation looks like it’s an accurate recreation of the console AC experience: Aveline fights and free-climbs just like the protagonists of previous AC games, and the Ubisoft is promising that the game’s massive open world environment will be seamless and loading-time free. Since Aveline has a much different upbrining and lives in a very different environment than Desmond’s ancestors, she has access to different weapons than other Assassins, like a silent-killing blowpipe and a machete that she can use for especially brutal kills.
Like its more recent console cousins, Liberation will feature a dedicated multiplayer mode. Ubisoft isn’t ready to show off the multiplayer mode just yet, but they have stated that it’s something that could only be done on Vita — which suggests that game may use the Vita’s “Near” (the Vita equivalent of Nintendo’s StreetPass) connectivity.
If you’ve read this blog before (all 12 of you who read this site regularly,), you probably know that I love Assassin’s Creed, and the news that I’ll be able to play not one, but two new, fully-featured AC adventures this year is enough to make giddy with excitement. Previous handheld AC games have been disappointing, but it looks like Assassin’s Creed 3: Liberation has the potential to be the killer-app that finally forces me to buy a Vita. The game is set to launch alongside the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Assassin’s Creed 3 on October 30th of this year.
Source: Game Informer