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All Articles: Assassin’s Creed: Unity
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China will launch April 21; India and Russia will follow in Fall
Ubisoft has announced the Climax Studios-developed Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China, a side-scrolling spinoff in the Assassin’s Creed series, will be released on April 21. Now only that, but Ubisoft also plans to release two additional Chronicles games. Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India and Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: Russia will both be released by this Fall.
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China will star Shao Jun, who was first seen in the Assassin’s Creed: Embers short film, as she fights for vengeance in her homeland. For Chronicles: China, Ubisoft and Climax will use Chinese brush paintings as the basis for the game’s look. In fact, each entry in the Chronicles trilogy will feature its own unique art style that evokes it’s setting.
The artistic signature of Chronicles: India will be based on the bright colors that bathe India during the Holi celebration. The game will star Arbaaz Mir, who must steal a mysterious item from a Master Templar. Mir previously appeared in the Assassin’s Creed: Brahman graphic novel.
Finally, Chronicles: Russia will take place just after the Russian Revolution, basing its look on the propaganda posters that were common in the USSR. Nikolai Orelov (of Assassin’s Creed: The Fall and The Chain) has been asked to break into the tsar’s palace, where he eventually crosses paths with Anastasia.
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China will be available for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One by itself (priced at $9.99) or as part of the Assassin’s Creed: Unity Season Pass. Future Chronicles installments will be sold separately. An in-depth overview of Chronicles: China can be found at the UbiBlog. Ubisoft’s official site also has an early look at Chronicles: India and Chronicles: Russia.
2015 Writers Guild nominees: Alien: Isolation, Last of Us: Left Behind, AC: Unity, Freedom Cry
The Writers Guild of America has announced the nominees for this year’s Outstanding Achievement in Videogame Writing award, which they use to honor the best game writing of the year.
Continuing their love affair with Ubisoft, the Guild nominated both new entries in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, Assassin’s Creed: Unity and Assassin’s Creed: Freedom Cry, for this year’s Writers Guild Award. Two other games are have also been nominated this year, Creative Assembly’s Alien: Isolation and Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us: Left Behind expansion. The full list of nominated writers can be found here:
Alien: Isolation (Sega)
Writers: Dan Abnett, Dion Lay, Will PorterAssassin’s Creed: Freedom Cry (Ubisoft)
Lead Scriptwriter: Jill Murray
Scriptwriter: Melissa MacCoubrey
Story: Jill Murray, Hugo Giard, Wesley PincombeAssassin’s Creed: Unity (Ubisoft)
Story: Alexandre Amancio, Sylvain Bernard, Travis Stout
Scriptwriting: Alexandre Amancio, Travis Stout, Russell Lees, Darby McDevitt, Ceri Young
Additional Scriptwriting: Jeffrey YohalemThe Last of Us: Left Behind (Sony Computer Entertainment)
Written by: Neil Druckmann
Writers from Naughty Dog and Ubisoft have been trading off top honors at the WGA Awards for the last five years. Naughty Dog prevailed last year for their work on The Last of Us, following wins for Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (2012) and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (2010). In between, Ubisoft collected a pair of WGA Awards for Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation (2013) and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (2011).
If history repeats itself, writers from Ubisoft will be hoisting a trophy in victory when the winners of the 2015 Writers Guild Awards are announced on February 14.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Alien: Isolation, Assassin's Creed: Freedom Cry, Assassin's Creed: Unity, The Last of Us, The Last of Us: Left Behind
Assassin’s Creed: Unity’s Dead Kings expansion will be available next week
Ubisoft has announced that Dead Kings, the downloadable expansion for Assassin’s Creed: Unity, will be released on January 13. As a way of apologizing for the bugs that still continue to plague the game, Dead Kings will be available as a free download for everyone who purchased a copy of Unity on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Unlike the spinoff settings of previous Assassin’s Creed DLC, Dead Kings will expand the main game’s campaign in new directions:
After the events of Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Arno leaves Paris for Saint Denis, a mysterious city that holds the crypts of deceased French kings. Sent on a mission to the extensive underground of the Basilica, Arno will face a faction of new foes, the Raiders, populating its catacombs. Equipped with a lantern and a new powerful weapon, the Guillotine Gun, Arno will have to navigate the dangerous passageways to uncover the darkest secrets of the city.
Don’t forget to check out the DLC’s debut trailer above and you can find more information about its content at the UbiBlog.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Assassin's Creed: Unity
Insert Quarter: Broken Games Are Still Broken
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
Yes, we’re still talking about games that were shipped to stores broken and still haven’t been fixed after nearly half-a-dozen patches apiece. In light of all the problems that Assassin’s Creed: Unity and Halo: The Master Chief Collection has caused for Ubisoft and Microsoft, respectively, Joystiq’s Richard Mitchell looked at what companies are trying to do to prevent this from happening in the future. And the answer seems to be… “not much.”
Sony will gladly take your $60 to pre-purchase Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End through the PlayStation Store, and that’s because they’ve added a disclaimer stating they don’t have to refund your money if it gets canceled. But on the other hand, CD Projekt delayed The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt when it became obvious that they wouldn’t be able to ship the game in February as originally planned. Even though the average gamer now expects the games they purchase to be patched many times over:
What’s really alarming, however, is that this process is standard practice now. Not only do we expect games to have problems at launch, but we tolerate it. We shrug our shoulders, saying “that’s just the way it is,” while developers and publishers take advantage of one of the most passionate audiences in existence.
That’s unacceptable.
The full article is available for your perusal at Joystiq.
The greatest trick CoD: Advanced Warfare ever pulled was being Nov 2014’s best-selling game
Activision’s Call of Duty franchise continues its reign atop the video game world by capturing the top spot in The NPD Group’s survey of November 2014’s best-selling games. It managed to hold off a strong challenge from Grand Theft Auto V, which received a huge boost from its new-generation re-release.
Nintendo had a very good month as Super Smash Bros. For Wii U and Super Smash Bros. For 3DS managed to sneak into the top three thanks to their combined might (The NPD Group considers them one game for the purposes of the monthly list). Further down the list, Pokemon: Alpha Sapphire shot to #5 while Pokemon: Omega Ruby owned the #7 spot (for some reason, the latest Pokemon release is considered two separate games by The NPD Group).
Ubisoft also had multiple games in the top ten, including Far Cry 4 at #6. Assassin’s Creed: Unity entered the list at #9, and while that’s an impressive achievement, it’s well below the top-three ranking attained by both Assassin’s Creed III and Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag during their respective debut months.
Finally, Microsoft has plenty to crow about tonight as they’ve revealed to IGN that that the Xbox One outsold the PS4 for the first time.
The full top ten for November 2014 can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Assassin's Creed: Unity, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Far Cry 4, Grand Theft Auto V, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Madden NFL 15, NBA 2K15, NPD, Pokemon: Alpha Sapphire/Omega Ruby, Super Smash Bros. For 3DS, Super Smash Bros. For Wii U
Ubisoft to apologize for Assassin’s Creed: Unity bugs with free Dead Kings DLC
To say that Assassin’s Creed: Unity‘s launch has been problematic would be an understatement. Multiple bugs and glitches have plagued players of Ubisoft’s game and some have even gone so far as to call for a full recall. As of right now, Ubisoft doesn’t have any plans to issue a recall, but they do want to do right by gamers who feel they’ve purchased an unfinished product.
First, the publisher will suspend sales of Unity’s Season Pass, effective immediately. Instead, Ubisoft has announced the planned downloadable expansion, Dead Kings, will be available free of charge for everyone that purchased Unity. Players who have already purchased the Season Pass (or Unity’s Gold Edition) will be eligible to receive one of six Ubisoft titles (The Crew, Far Cry 4, Watch Dogs, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Rayman Legends, or Just Dance 2015) instead.
Finally, Ubisoft has confirmed that the rest of the contents of the Season Pass, including the standalone Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China game, will be released as scheduled.
Developers at Ubisoft Montreal will continue to work day and night to patch the problems found in Assassin’s Creed: Unity. A message from CEO Yannis Mallat concerning the situation was recently posted on the game’s official website.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Assassin's Creed: Unity
Insert Quarter: Should Assassin’s Creed: Unity Be Recalled?
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
Can you recall a video game because it’s too buggy? It’s an interesting question. For the most part, a software purchase is considered an “as is” piece of property by publishers, retailers, and most of the general public. Whether you prefer to use “Buyer Beware,” or the classier sounding “Caveat Emptor,” a software program is considered yours as soon as you break the seal. But the bugs found in Assassin’s Creed: Unity aren’t like the average glitches found in your average game. And Erik Kain of Forbes wonders if it’s time Ubisoft issued a full recall instead of resorting to patch after patch after patch:
At this point we sort of take it all for granted, however. Another buggy game release? Color me surprised. We’ve done this so many times before it hardly makes us bat an eye.
But we wouldn’t stand for it in any other industry.
The full article is available at Forbes.
Posted in Insert Quarter, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Assassin's Creed: Unity
Xbox Store Today: AC: Unity, AC: Rogue, Halo Master Chief Collection, Lego Batman 3, more
After the delay of Halo 5: Guardians earlier this year, Microsoft didn’t have any kind of big shooter on their Fall 2014 schedule. Thankfully, Microsoft put out something else today that will surely make all the little Halo fans out there squeal with delight… an Xbox One-exclusive compilation of the first four games in the series known as Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Improved visuals and a complete “Anniversary” makeover for Halo 2 make this the biggest re-release the series has ever seen.
Elsewhere on the Xbox Games Store today is a pair of new Assassin’s Creed games (the Paris-set Assassin’s Creed: Unity on the Xbox One and the Revolutionary Assassin’s Creed: Rogue on the Xbox 360), Konami’s latest soccer sim (Pro Evolution Soccer 2015 on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One), and WB’s latest whimsical Lego adventure (Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One)
More information about all of these games (and a few other new releases) can be found after the break. (more…)