Assassin's Creed

Assassin's Creed Discovery (SNES, Sega Genesis, PC) (1991)
Historical Era: Conquistadors in South America

History
After a semi successful outing with the first game despite lukewarm reviews, Ubisoft greenlit two sequels. One that would come out on the NES and build upon the first, and the other would be built from the ground up to take advantage of the upcoming next gen hardware. Ubisoft was worried after some failed demos and the lukewarm reception of the sequel. Ubisoft knew it would need to inject new life into the IP, if it was gonna be more than just a commercial viable product that would only sell itself on the fact the original was the first stealth game. At the time Ubisoft didn't want Assassin's Creed to be seen as just another product, and thought that a game with such prestige to be called the first stealth game derserved a better third outing. This new life would come from a Demo from inhouse studio Rare, that merged platforming and a top down prespective into something that intrigued Ubisoft.

Rare expressed their desire to have Assassin's Creed break from the midevial crusades setting of the first two games, aswell as explore RPG machanics. Their intent was simple to take Assassin's Creed from a Dark Stealth Action Game set during two different periods the Crusades and dystopian scifi future, and make it a more light hearted story driven top down stealth rpg with platforming anthology series that would explore muitiple different historical eras from around m around the globe. Ubisoft was hestiate at first until Rare provided them a concise GDD of what they wanted to do with their first outing with the series.

The development for the game went largely without a hitch, with Rare pushing the next gen machines to their limits in terms of audio, gameplay, and graphics.

Story
The story starts with Desmond waking up in a Abstergo Facility in capativity as part of the Animus program, a program that makes people relive the memories of historical figures to train them to become soliders for the government. You slowly throughout the game find out more about Abstergos goals as you need to take intermiddate breaks from the Animus to avoid brain overload.

The Past part of the story starts with Europeans landing on the shores of South America, and killing the natives. The player takes control of Xōchipilli a Aztec teen whose parents are killed as the Europeans destory his village. Xōchipilli stealthly escapes the choas, and faints once he is apparently bitten by something. He wakes up in a secret hideout of a organization known as the Motlatizque. From here he is trained how to be stealthly assassin, before being sent out on away missions to take out targets.

At the games halfway point Desmond gains access to the training room where Desmond need to show off to abstergo what he has learned from experiencing the life.

After Assassinating Inca conspirators and bad Aztec leaders, through this Xōchipilli grows close the Motlaizque members as he learns about their pasts and struggles. After years of Assassinating political targets he is finally able to engage with the European invaders he seeks revenge on. Him and his Motlatizque buddies attack a settlement of theirs only to be interrupted by the Europeans fighting among themselves.

Some of the Europeans are not ok with the geocide and decide to aid the Motlaizque in their quest to rid the foriegn invaders.

At the end of the game Desmond escapes the facility with the help of a group of Assassins.

Gameplay
The gameplay of Discovery is played from a top down view.

The controllers consist of 4 directional movement keys, 1 button for jumping, 1 button for sliding, 1 button for striking, 1 button for interaction, 1 button to access save menu, 1 button to access animus control panel (map, inventory, quest logs, log out of animus).

Movement consists of jumping, a double jump done by pressing the jump button twice, climbing done by pressing the jump button near climbing objects (stacks of boxes, ladders, double ledges, cracks), swinging from tree branches and poles done by jumping onto on and clicking jump again to swing, jumping or falling on awning to get a high jump, press the dodge button to slide under enviromental obstacles, and walking. You will be uitizing this movement system as you naviagate the open world, and the tombs.

Combat consists of dodging by sliding and striking. Combat is typically very hard and multi-enemy incounters usually results in a quick death. Striking someone from behind or before their detection bar fills kills then instantly. Striking them after their detection bar is filled from anywhere can take anywhere from 12 to 30 hits per enemy before they are killed. You can perform arial assassinations by hitting the strike button while near a enemy below you.

Players can find gear and gold littered throughout the world map in chests, the biggest payouts can be found by exploring tombs or raiding European camps.

Players can also by gear in cities by shopping at various shops: Witch Doctor (sells health potions), Smiths (sells weapons and repairs armor), Tailors (Sell Armor). The player can do other things by interacting with different shops in cities: Pubs (find side quests, play drinking minigame for money), and Map Crafter (Buy maps too tombs, or chest maps).

Music
The Soundtrack was composed by David Wise, Jasper Kyd, and Stephen Rippy. It was considered a massive technical achievement for its time pushing the audio capablities of the next gen consoles to their limits. They utized a combination of precussion, guitars, synths, beat machines, aswell as other instruments to achieve a mixture of what they described as the past and the future parts of the game.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey (SNES, Sega Genesis, PC) (1993)
Historical Era: Ancient Greece

Assassin's Creed Hood (Saga Saturn, PlayStation, Nintendo 64, PC) (1996)
Historical Era: England during the Third Crusade

Assassin's Creed Crusade (Saga Saturn, Playstation, PC) (1998)
Historical Era: The Middle East during the Third Crusade

Assassin's Creed Origins (Saga Dreamcast, Playstation 2, Xbox, Nintendo Gamecube, PC) (2000)
Historical Era: Macedonian Egypt

Assassin's Creed Samurai (Playstation 2, Xbox, Nintendo Gamecube, PC) (2002)
Historical Era: Feudal Japan

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (Playstation 3, Xbox 360, PC) (Main game: 2005) (Xpack 1: 2006) (Xpack 2: 2007) (Xpack: 2008)
Historical Era: Italian Renaissance

Post-Rare Era
Assassin Creed after rare has been very troubled, and having massive sales issues.

Assassin's Creed Liberation (Playstation 3, Xbox 360, PC) (2009) (Xpack 1: 2010)
Historical Setting: American Revolution. Developer: Crytek/Ubisoft inhouse

Assassin's Creed Rogue (Playstation 3, Xbox 360, PC) (2011)
Historical Setting: 13 Years War in North America. Developer: Arkane Studios/Ubisoft inhouse

Assassin's Creed Unity (Playstation 4, Xbox One, PC) (2013)
Historical Setting: French Revolution. Developer: Climax

Assassin's Creed Syndicate (Playstation 4, Xbox One, PC) (2016)
Historical Setting: Victorian England. Developer: Argonaut

Assassin's Creed Dynasty (Playstation 4, Xbox One, Playstation 5, Xbox Series X, PC) (2018)
Historical Setting: Ancient China

Assassin's Creed Valhalla (Playstation 5, Xbox Series X, PC) (2021)
Historical Setting: Viking Invasion of England