One of the biggest complaints related to the previous Assassin’s Creed 3 title – aside all the woeful bugs and glitches – is the fact that there was no real scope for adopting a more stealthy approach to the game. However, it seems like all that is about to change with Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag.
Recently, game director Ashraf Ismail was spoke with the Official PlayStation Magazine UK, and promised that the next Assassin’s Creed will indeed be arriving with an optional stealth-based gameplay feature that will agree with what a lot of fans have looked for in the previous AC title.
“A lot of feedback: people loved the naval [combat], people really enjoyed the fight, but we knew that the stealth element was something that we needed to push”. And as a result of that, Ismail confirmed that the team have, “put effort into the system to make stealth really viable gameplay”, adding, “if you really wish to play the game completely in stealth then you can”.
“I think this was something that was hard for players to deal with previously; that they didn’t understand all the rules or the feedback wasn’t strong enough”. [AC4] really simplifies how you get detected, how you escape detection, how you sneak up on a guard. All this stuff has been really simplified and made much more intuitive. The feedback itself has also been improved, so now we really focus on what the player needs to know. And that’s the feedback we get.”
Ismail confirmed that this time around, the devs have provided protagonist Edward with a bunch of new stealth tools, which, according to Ismail, include “tools that work in range, having tools that work in close combat, but have a stealth element to them.”
The enemies in the game are also expected to be “more iconic” and that “They’re really, very deadly. So these are characters that you pretty much want to sneak up on. You don’t want to run towards them, because they’re very deadly, very powerful, they’re always on high ground, so they have a bit of an advantage on you, so you really have to use the stealth to take them out,” he added.
Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag is currently scheduled to release this October for Xbox 360, PC, Wii U and PS3, with versions for PS4 and Xbox One arriving later.
