Why Assassin’s Creed 4 Has My Attention, Not the Pirates, Booty, or Setting

Adam Sessler of Rev3 Games chatted with Assassin’s Creed IV‘s Creative Director Ashraf Ismail at E3 last week. During their interview, the two chatted about the new game, its setting, and how the new plants react (with PHYSICS!) to movements of people on the next gen systems.

But what really stood out to me about this interview was how Ismail was talking about the world. Mentioning over 70 locations to go explore, not all necessary for the story and over 75 uncharted beaches. This extra geography really shows how the development team behind Assassin’s Creed IV is trying to change player’s perception about what there is to do in the game. With these added areas and the open ocean, there could be a true feeling of an open world, where the players have some main objective to do–but there are many more interesting things they would rather partake.

Ismail also mentioned how they have worked on adding schedules and shifts to the various factions in the game, as well as boats, lending to the feeling of realism. Knowing that every morning a British flotilla will set sail from a certain port makes for some great opportunities at plundering, letting the player actually be a pirate, spending all their time plundering on the open seas. After watching this interview, I am intrigued in what Assasin’s Creed IV could offer as a historically interesting (although not wholly accurate) open world game. A trend I hope the series can continue.