Animus Hub changes what it means to play Assassin's Creed

When Ubisoft first announced Assassin's Creed Infinity, it felt like an ambitious vision for the franchise's live-action future. But during the last console generation, it was almost nothing. It wasn't a vehicle to tell shorter, more human stories across a number of different historical periods, nor did it change how each game looked or played.

To be perfectly honest, the underrated trio of Assassin's Creed Chronicles titles did a better job of exploring the other side of the coin than Infinity ever did, taking the action to a new plane of existence and exploring smaller time periods that the main games have yet to explore. try and explore. When Mirage arrived, there was a naive hope that the series was moving back to its roots to embrace more intimate settings and stealth-focused gameplay, though the reality was instead a bitter reminder of how far the series has come and how archaic it is. the oldest records really are. With Shadows, however, it's another attempt at Infinity.

The Animus Hub is the home of all things Assassin's Creed

If my hands-on was any indication, Assassin's Creed Shadows will pull back to the modern day escapades of Layla Hassan and focus entirely on historical shenanigans. In the prologue I played, the game begins with you accessing a new computer program known as The Animus Hub, a collection of historical archives run by Abstergo Industries that is sold to consumers to have their own epic adventures while diving deep. into the memories of important characters to unravel the mysteries of the Assassin Order and the Templars.

At first it seems kosher, but the presence of corrupting visuals on the screen and a robotic voice guiding us from afar suggests that something nefarious is afoot. Every twenty hours or so I bet we'll be pulled back into this interface and fed another arc of technological gibberish before returning to Yasuke and Naoe. Ubisoft must have learned from years of experience that most players have little interest in modern segments when Desmond Miles is long dead, and burying that part of the game in convolution for a small reason will only turn people off. Turning it into a desktop offering that you can work with that also serves a purpose in space is a compromise that offers the next best thing.

This is the vivid vision of Assassin's Creed we've been waiting for

Assassin's Creed Shadows Animus Hub

The Animus Hub itself gives you access to four distinct features in the form of Memories, Projects, Exchange and Vault. Memories is where you can find all the latest games and jump straight into them if they are installed on your console or PC. At least that's the assumption I made when going through all the modern titles from Origins to Shadows. If you click on each game's icon, widgets will appear to purchase the entire title and downloadable content, along with new updates and reminders of your exact progress. This is not how Infinity was originally presented, instead presenting itself as a dedicated launcher.

The idea of ​​a battle pass in Assassin's Creed seems pointless, especially when the premium skins we're used to seeing in the digital store are already garish and unsightly.

Animus Hub Battle Pass in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

Projects are where the live service comes in, with Ubisoft set to release missions known as Anomalies that reward players with unique rewards upon completion. It's unclear what form these quests will take, but they will become part of the Battle Pass, which will also allow you to craft weapons and armor in the Exchange that will be immediately available in the game itself. These missions or walkthroughs do not appear to be available as part of older titles, and it is unclear if Ubisoft plans to support them. I'm afraid that these missions that we'll have to complete in order to progress, each passing through the battle and getting rewards will be nothing more than filler for the open world, which the base game already has plenty of.

Memories are where the modern narrative will be home moving forward, and will now be split up as part of The Animus Hub instead of being a constant presence in every game. It looks like the menu will unlock over time with new updates and as you progress through other parts of the hub, in the form of text files, audio recordings, and maybe even videos or comics.

Equipment and Cosmetics in Assassin's Creed Shadows Animus Hub

This is Assassin's Creed Infinity, or at least the only form that Ubisoft has managed to work in conjunction with the series' modern identity. It's being held back by open-world games that are already too big for their own good, and now they're being further poured into the saturated world of live services to keep us grinding for cosmetics.

I understand and appreciate the intent of making The Animus Hub a home for Assassin's Creed and a vehicle for telling a modern story that doesn't clumsily shove itself into the games, but when the end goal is clearly to keep us grinding through battle passages forever. , it won't take long and it will become a tedious job.

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Assassin's Creed Shadows

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