Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said last week thatAssassin’s Creed fans can expect remakes of older games in the series in the coming years. At first, that didn’t strike me as an especially exciting prospect. Ubisoft’s approach to game design hasn’t changed all that much sinceAssassin’s Creed 2came out in 2009. That game was still fun when I played through it in 2018, and I doubt I would feel any different now. It established the series' formula, and given how faithful AC stayed to that formula for so long, it doesn’t really feel outdated.
Features editor Tessa Kaur has a different take, and you’re able to read their argument that Ubisoft’s approach to open-world design has changed significantly, and for the worse,here.
So, while I don’t really care that much about playing old Assassin’s Creed games with a modern coat of paint, Iwouldpay for an Assassin’s Creed remake that retroactively added one crucial feature introduced with 2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origins to the older games: Discovery Tours.
Discovery Tours Are The Best Change Ubisoft Made With Assassin’s Creed Origins
If you haven’t experienced this aspect of modern AC for yourself, you really should seek it out — even if you don’t actually care about playing the games it’s attached to. Discovery Tours are essentially huge virtual museums which use the game’s entire map as a teaching tool. This mode is entirely combat free, so instead of randomly stumbling into battles, you can stumble onto fascinating tidbits of history about Egypt, Ancient Greece, or the British Isles.
The Assassin’s Creed games are so well-researched thatOriginsactuallypredicted an archaeological feature of the Great Pyramid before it was officially discovered. Ubisoft has even put outcurriculum guidesso that teachers can easily use the mode in classrooms, and they’re a great way to meet students where they are by using something that many of them are interested in: gaming.
It’s a shame that Discovery Tours weren’t introduced sooner. We have them for Origins,Odyssey, andValhalla(and a slightly different version inMirage, where the information is included in the world of the campaign, not as a separate mode), but that leaves nine mainline games that don’t have any version of the feature. This would provide a strong incentive to revisit older games, especially those set in time periods and locations that you find particularly interesting.
Adding Discovery Tours Would Make Older AC Games Worth Another Buy
Assassin' Creed 3 is far from the best game in the series, but I loved learning about the American Revolution in my high school American Wars class, and I would love an opportunity to dig deep on the run-up to and aftermath of 1776 in a fully realized (and remade) AC setting. I missed Black Flag at the time, but the chance to turn it into the world’s most exciting lesson on pirate history would be a great reason to buy a remake.
I’ve already played AC games with this kind of eye for historical detail at times. I went to Florence, Italy for my honeymoon, and played AC 2 in the months leading up to it, familiarizing myself with the geography and landmarks of the place I would soon be visiting. When I finally saw the Duomo cathedral after hours spent stalking along its roof, it was like running into a celebrity. I was starstruck. If I had had access to a Discovery Tour, though, the experience would have been even more enriching. Instead of just recognizing landmarks, I could have actually learned something about their histories ahead of a trip.
Ubisoft already collects all this information while developing these games. The series employsin-house historians, even if the games do include inaccuracies and detours into the fantastical — like 2’s fistfight with the Pope. Adding Discovery Tours would require some new research, I imagine, but much of it has already been done. It’s just a question of organizing it and implementing it. If Ubisoft does this, they may welldiscoverthat I, and many others, are willing to shell out for slightly different versions of games we already own.
