The section I hated most in Assassin’s Creed 3 wasn’t nearly as bad as I remember. And with Acharky here we can… What? We have another Desmond mission!?

*sigh*

Fine.

Streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud

Though I long for the Desmond game that was set up in both the first two Assassin’s Creed games, these playable sections are doing nothing to assuage that loss. If anything, they make me want to agree with the crowd who insists (incorrectly) that this franchise is better without the modern day story tying everything together.

I know that group of people is wrong, but I will not stoop to defend missions as unfun and irritating as these.

At least next time, we’ll be back with Ratonhnhaké꞉ton to do something more fun.

Acharky may have fallen victim to the Templar plot, using Daylight Savings Time to make him late for the Let’s Play. But now that he’s here, it’s time to begin the section of Assassin’s Creed 3 that turned me against it back in the day.

Streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud

In my memory, the objective for that chase in the original version of the game was to “Kill Thomas Hickey”. Since he was my target, I did what came natural and reflex shot him dead, just like I did this recording. I remember feeling cheated by the game, because I felt like my choice in that moment was the most rational and reasonable solution to the problem of our target escaping. In that moment, my college student self felt almost like he was punished for being smarter than the mission designer. For that reason, I’ve carried it my memory all this time.

I was also, laughably, completely incorrect. Footage from Let’s Plays back when original version came out make it clear that the actual mission was to Chase Thomas Hickey, not to Kill him. Now, I still believe setting up a scenario where the player has to chase a target they, in story, are out to kill when perfectly viable means of assassination are in their toolkit is poor mission design and storytelling. There are ways to engineer this scenario such that the player isn’t in a position to deliver lethal strikes onto the target until the story is ready for them to perform the execution.

Unfortunately, this is fairly typical of GTA-inspired mission structures like this one. If the player doesn’t follow the designers script exactly, the game will fail them until they do, even if they could engineering more interesting or creative solutions than the designer intended. In fairness to Assassin’s Creed, this is a rare example of them falling into this trap, as usually they’re better about signposting and setting up scenarios to avoid this problem. Other games, particularly Rockstar’s work, are far worse about this. Building up such ire about such a small problem feels, in retrospect, foolish on my part.

I also imagine much of my anger regarding the prison break segment that follows is a logical extension of this same fooling indignation. I remember feeling like it went on too long and left Ratonhnhaké꞉ton uncomfortably vulnerable when it didn’t need to.

And again, replaying this game allows me to realize how incorrect I was about this too. Not only is the entire sequence short enough to fit one of my thirty minute episodes, but it’s also fairly important to note that the British soldiers weren’t the one who arrested our protagonist. No, it was his allies who did that too him: The people he’s fighting for.

While that might seem like a small detail, it’s yet another in a string of cruelties inflicting by the seemingly heroic colonists, further building up what is soon to become one of the central pillars of the story. Yet again, these “heroes” who fight for “freedom” trample upon those with less power than them.

It is a bitter irony at the center of the American Revolution.

Although Acharky isn’t here to see it, it looks like it’s time to react to that famous scene from the trailers for Assassin’s Creed 3.

Streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud

Well, it’s at least the mission that either inspired that trailer or was inspired by it. We could have dodged the cannonballs on our way to assassinating him, but honestly it’s far easier to just go around and bury a hatchet into his neck. I have no idea if this is an intended solution, but it is a funny one.

While a fun sequence, I don’t have much more to say regarding the Templars and their hollow excuses than I have before.

At least Acharky is back with us, to provide the comedy we all need in these trying times.

At last, we are done with audio issues. And just in time to lead the troops in Assassin’s Creed 3.

Streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud

Since starting this replay series with the first Assassin’s Creed, I have consistently hounded Ubisoft for it’s strange concept of moral relativity. In no uncertain terms, these are ultimately games written from a centrist, fence-sitting perspective, mistaking false or exaggerated equivalencies with deep philosophy, like South Park and similarly rote works.

While I still maintain that position in the context of the broader shadow war between the Assassins and Templars, this viewpoint that seeks to relentlessly tear down all other perspectives so that it can demonstrate how much smarter it is to sit in the middle has a lot of ammo to use against the American Colonial Settlers of the mid-to-late 1700s. Suddenly, in this specific, concrete context, this otherwise worthless strain of thought is able to launch into substantive critiques of the era.

I am compelled by this random, otherwise completely missable conversation between Ratonhnhaké꞉ton and Samuel Adams starting at 18:55. In broad strokes, Connor raises the point to Samuel Adams that spreading word that loyalists fired first when the truth was that no one knows if that’s true is a dishonest tactic. Thus, the question is raised whether or not resorting to cheap propaganda and dirty tricks risks poisoning the foundation of the new country before it even gets built.

Ubisoft has no need to create false equivalencies to criticize the “good guys” of the Revolution, because it’s already known that these people were deeply flawed, deeply hypocritical human beings. History has already done the heavy lifting, documenting the various atrocities committed by the colonists. All Ubisoft has to do to bring them down a peg is to tell the unabashed truth of it all.

Despite our attempts to leave him in peace after foiling his first plan, William Johnson has returned to steal Native America territory for the Templars.

As Acharky and I know, there is no other choice. He dies today.

(This week’s audio is a huge step up from last week, but it appears I still have issues to debug with my audio balance post-restore. This is still not up to my standard of quality and I do apologize.)

Streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud

Here we are again, another Templar trying to justify cruelty and executions by claiming that the next person will be far worse. Now, while is technically correct giving America’s historic treatment of the Native American population, that’s still no justification for willful participation in said cruelty.

Seems pertinent to point that out in the year of this writing: 2025.

And next week, I’m sure we’ll have more to say of this topic. Hopefully with correct audio balancing this time.

With his new robes, Ratonhnhaké꞉ton has finally become an Assassin now that we’re 40% or so into the campaign. And as Acharky says, he looks incredible in them.

(This week’s audio is a huge step up from last week, but it appears I still have issues to debug with my audio balance post-restore. This is still not up to my standard of quality and I do apologize.)

Streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud

It’s hard to go through playable reenactments of the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and (in the next episode) The Midnight Ride without feeling like we’re in a sequel to Forest Gump. I admit that I’ve not from Italy, so my view on Italian history is about as far removed as one could possibly be. And yet, I imagine that tales like the Pazzi Conspiracy and Rodrigo Borgia’s ascent to the papacy are far enough removed from modern Italian history that most Italian’s playing Assassin’s Creed 2 aren’t immediately familiar with the subjects.

Colonial America circa 1770 is very recent on the world stage. As an American citizen, my country’s history is so young that almost all of it is at least touched on in school, even if most education skips the more unsightly bits in favor of a more patriotic viewpoint. Most children in this country are raised up to idolize figures like George Washington, Paul Revere, Benjamin Franklin, et cetera. These are tales that any American schoolboy could recite almost by heart. As a result, it hits differently than Renaissance Italy does, but I’m not sure if that’s better or worse quite yet.

On one hand, the fact that this is a game developed in Canada for a French company means that they’re able to look at US History with a more sober lens. We can discuss matters like slave ownership and Manifest Destiny in ways that acknowledge the genuine pain and horror inflicted upon the victims of those practices.

And on the other hand, here we are dumping tea into the Boston harbor because the profits from the sales were secretly a Templar scheme to fund the purchase of Native American land. The gravity of the setting is undercut by the desire both to undertake historical tourism and weave this fraught subject matter into the franchise’s global conspiracy theory.

I appreciate what they’re going for, and I’m even enjoying it in the moment. The narrative team demonstrates skillful writing in taking full advantage of Connor’s position in this. He has no attachment to the revolution beyond what it means for his tribe, and they used that to their advantage.

Yet in just a moment, Paul Revere will be riding on our horse as we escort him through his Midnight Ride, and I have difficulty squaring the severity of the writing with the inherent goofiness of such a mission.

In a shocking turn of events, Acharky and I finally get to play as Desmond Miles in the real world doing real Assassin missions. I know. We were as shocked as you are now.

(This week’s audio is a huge step up from last week, but it appears I still have issues to debug with my audio balance post-restore. This is still not up to my standard of quality and I do apologize.)

Streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud

We said it in the middle of the episode, but this Desmond mission really does feel like it only exists in order to placate people like me, who wanted to see Desmond come into his own in what was supposed to be the series finale. Even after their pivot to a yearly schedule, they needed to payoff all the plot threads of the previous games, since the whole reason we dove into Ezio’s memories to begin with was to download his experience into Desmond’s brain via the Bleeding Effect. Otherwise, the Ezio trilogy would feel like one big waste of time in the narrative.

And honestly, it still does in a sense. This detour is a far cry from becoming the one who will save the world from the threat of the Mayan Apocalypse. They had time to ret con this is Revelations and chose to hold firm, for reasons I don’t honestly comprehend but likely had to do with the insane production schedules of these games.

It’s sad, but at least now we have Ratonhnhaké꞉ton’s incredibly well-designed robes to show for it.

Our training under Achilles continues as Ratonhnhaké꞉ton is induced into the ways of the Assassin Order.

(This week’s audio is a huge step up from last week, but it appears I still have issues to debug with my audio balance post-restart. This is still not up to my standard of quality and I do apologize.)

Streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud

While everyone is in a rush to call Assassin’s Creed 3 one of the worst games in this era of the franchise, including my co-host Acharky, it’s important to note that without this game, we would have never gotten Black Flag. This was Ubisoft’s first foray into ship combat, and the result was so successful that it spawned one of the popular games in the entire series to this day. (It also spawned Skull and Bones, but let’s focus on the successes instead.) Even other games from other companies, like the recent Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, take inspiration from what AC3 did.

And it’s easy to see why. This is one of those control schemes where they just happened to nail it perfectly on the first release. There was almost no need to make any changes to how it plays, because it did an excellent job selling the fantasy of engaging in thrilling ship-on-ship battles on the high seas. When combined with the excellent sound design of waves, cannon fire, and collisions between ships, the whole fantasy comes to life before our very eyes.

Sadly, I don’t know much of it we’ll do on screen since it’s mostly a side objective, but don’t mistake that for disinterest. Even now, I love these missions.

Another tutorial down. Hopefully, this just means Acharky and I are one step close to becoming an Assassin in Assassin’s Creed 3.

(As a heads-up, this week’s recording are terribly audio balanced because I forgot to do a sound check after restoring my PC. That blame lies solely on me, and I do deeply apologize.)

Streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud

I do think it’s an interesting detail that this is the first Assassin’s Creed game where players are able to fast travel directly from the map without using a Fast Travel Station. The maps in Assassin’s Creed 2 were big, but not so big that they were unmanageable.

This might be the first sign that the raw size of open world maps was growing too big, at least as far as this series was concerned. It’s a problem that would only get worse over time.

But what won’t get worse is my audio balancing. Next week, I’ll make sure that Acharky and I are more audible than the game, so that our conversations aren’t drowned out by dialogue and gunfire.

I really can’t apologize enough.

Against all odds, Acharky and I have managed to convince the old man to train us in the ways of the Assassin. With luck, this means we’re closer to our goals… whatever they happen to be.

(As a heads-up, this week’s recording are terribly audio balanced because I forgot to do a sound check after restoring my PC. That blame lies solely on me, and I do deeply apologize.)

Streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud

While I frequently criticize Ubisoft for their staunch refusal to make a stand or say anything interesting with the stories in their video games, I must confess that I am impressed with the decision to use the viewpoint of a Mohawk tribesman with light enough skin to pass as a white man in their game set in Civil War-era America. Doing so gives them the freedom to discuss some of the darker aspects of this society directly in a way that’s rare.

As an American citizen who was taught my country’s history in our schools, I obviously know it’s relationship to slavery and the slave trade. I’m also aware of the oppression faced by the Native American tribes at the hands of the colonizers who formed this nation, but these topics are frequently only discussed on a surface level. The darker, grimmer aspects of that time are glossed over and sanitized all too often, both in education and in works of fiction.

Perhaps this could only happen because Assassin’s Creed 3 was developed in Canada for a French company, but either way it is a bold choice, especially for Ubisoft, to tackle that subject head on. Because the colonies in the North didn’t rely on slavery, it is easier to paint them as tolerant to those of African descent with their borders. But as Achilles painfully points out, he is not allowed to shop in the general store because he is a black man. He needs Ratonhnhaké꞉ton to shop on his behalf, which he only do because he can plausibly pass himself off as a white man.

And that’s why it’s important that a Native is the leading man for this story. A white person living in the colonies wouldn’t even think to question the injustice of these circumstances. His naivete to colonial society is a blessing because it allows the game to directly call this out and question why it was ever the case. And as we progress further into the game, it allows the development team even further leeway to show how ugly this aspect of the country, which has been a part of it since it before it was founded, can be to those who are victimized by it.