Within just a year of the release of Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood comes Assassin’s Creed Revelations, another installment of the life and times of assassin extraordinaire Ezio Auditore. Ezio may have aged some, the location may have changed, but the game remains virtually identical overall to the last two AC titles. For anyone not familiar with Assassin’s Creed, this installment follows the same formula of stealth, parkour, and open-world exploration of all of it’s predecessors. At first glance it could be mistaken for any one of them, but does offer a few new bells and whistles upon closer inspection.
During Ezio’s expedition to 16th century Constantinople in search of the means to open Altair’s Masyaf vault, he is introduced to two new tools which quickly become an important part of his repertoire. First is the hookblade, which aids in scaling buildings with greater haste. It’s uses are numerous actually with applications in combat, escaping combat, and traveling by means of zip lines scattered throughout the city. The second new addition is the ability to craft bombs with various effects for any situation. Some can be used for distraction, some for concealment with the use of smoke, and of course some can be deadly with even an optional tripwire style which can be placed tactically.
The only other noteworthy addition is the tower defense mini-game which activates when one of your controlled assassin dens comes under attack during a highly elevated suspicion level brought on by performing high profile actions. It serves as a nice diversion when it does pop up, but if cautious enough one may not encounter it more than a few times total.
Diversions in fact aren’t in short supply with easter egg hunts for collectibles, assassin den management (which becomes somewhat time consuming), and optional Desmond sequences which resemble Portal with their first-person puzzling aspect. The first-person mechanics feel out of place however and is a peculiar design choice.
If you’ve played Assassin’s Creed 2 or Brotherhood you may feel as though you’ve played this game before. Die hard fans will find enough to love here though, including the return of Brotherhood’s signature cloak and dagger multiplayer experience with some new improvements of it’s own. Assassin’s Creed Revelations is nevertheless worthy of recommendation and will prove to satiate fans until the release of Assassin’s Creed 3.