Assassin's Creed Meta Quest game features evil corporation influencing behaviour and voting records
Plus updates on Jade and Mirage.
Tonight's Ubisoft Forward has given us a closer look at the trio of Assassin's Creed titles set to launch in 2023, including the Baghdad-set Assassin's Creed Mirage, VR title Assassin's Creed Nexus and smartphone entry Assassin's Creed: Codename Jade.
We began with a look at Assassin's Creed Nexus, which is due to launch for Meta Quest 2. Tonight provided our first real detail of the game, including the fact it will star three of the series' best-loved protagonists: Ezio, Kassandra and Connor.
Nexus will boast a "full single-player campaign", Ubisoft said, with an Abstergo-set modern day threat revolving around the evil tech company trying to use people's memories to sway their behaviour - and even their voting preferences. It's perhaps a bold choice of narrative for a game set to be played on Mark Zuckerburg-branded hardware.
To stop Abstergo's plans, you'll need to revisit fresh chapters in the lives of Italian Renaissance hunk Ezio (where you'll also catch up with "some old friends"), Greek demigoddess Kassandra (via a chapter set in Athens) as well as Assassin's Creed 3 star Connor.
Nexus will be first-person and feature "open map" environements with non-linear approaches, so you can explore and parkour - or go in using full-on combat. You'll fight with melee weapons using authentic gestures, with other tools in your arsenal such as throwing knives and smoke bombs. Finally, you'll be able to teleport to traverse around, with settings to help players who may have a fear of heights.
Next up, Assassin's Creed: Codename Jade. This is the Ancient China-set mobile game announced last year, which Ubisoft has now confirmed will get a closed beta this summer. Pre-registration for that will open up today, 12th June.
Set in the third century BC - chronologically between Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Origins - the game will feature the Qin dynasty. Ubisoft teased that your mentor in the game will be a figure familiar to Assassin's Creed fans - which almost certainly means Wei Yu.
If you're not an Assassin's Creed nerd like me, Wei Yu was one of the legendary Assassins featured in statues within Villa Auditore. Look him up on the Assassin's Creed wiki and you'll get spoilers as to his major role in the game - and to be honest, what the whole plot of Jade is likely to be about.
Ubisoft said Jade is still very much "in development", with no release window yet confirmed.
Finally, to Assassin's Creed Mirage. This looks lovely, though feels rather like a known quantity at this point. As a recap, Mirage tells the story of Basim when he was a young Assassin living in Baghdad. It's meant as a more focused palette cleanser - a city-set entry in the franchise after recent enormous country-spanning epics, more akin to the series' origins.
Tonight's showing was visually impressive, and Ubisoft was clearly keen to emphasise that, despite its smaller scope, this is still a worthwhile experience. Baghdad will be similar to Unity's Paris or Revelations' Constantinople in size, Ubisoft said. As the game nears its 12th October release date, it currently has a swathe of studios and 500 staff polishing it up.
All-in-all, it looks like a classic Assassin's Creed game made on modern hardware, with grounded powers and exploration, albeit with some snazzier visuals and nice dynamic camera moments.
2023 is the third year in a row without a big Assassin's Creed blockbuster game, but it's still an interesting year for the franchise nonetheless.