The modern-day story of Assassin's Creed 4 is 'optional'

In an attempt to make Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag more accessible, the modern-day story has been rendered "optional."

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Some gamers were peeved by the modern-day portions of the Assassin's Creed games. What if you just want to go around assassinating people? There's no time for this silly modern-day nonsense!

In an attempt to make Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag more accessible, the modern-day story has been rendered "optional." For fans that are curious about the fate of Desmond, there will still be plenty to see and do, but for everyone else that wants to go about pirating, these sequences can largely be skipped.

"In the main path, we don't go to [the modern day] too many times, we only go to it a few times," director Ashraf Ismail told Digital Spy. "But for the true fans who love that kind of stuff, there is a huge load of content in this world that’s there to kind of give homage to our fans, develop the lore even further."

Ismail described the modern-day as "all optional," so "if you don't really care, it's okay. You don't have to." However, fans that choose to delve in will discover "there's tons of videos, tons of images to find, you get to see what happened to Desmond after AC3."

"We actually looked at it as fan service," Ismail added.

Andrew Yoon was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    July 12, 2013 2:00 PM

    Andrew Yoon posted a new article, The modern-day story of Assassin's Creed 4 is 'optional'.

    In an attempt to make Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag more accessible, the modern-day story has been rendered "optional."

    • reply
      July 12, 2013 2:05 PM

      amusing since the original modern day story was likely added to make the game more accessible out of fears that a straight up period piece wouldn't play well with the average gamer demographic

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      July 12, 2013 2:17 PM

      [deleted]

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        July 12, 2013 2:33 PM

        agreed. the desmond bits have always been dull and boring

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      July 12, 2013 2:40 PM

      they should go all the way and make the matrix style UI optional as well.

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        July 12, 2013 7:21 PM

        It really is one of the reason i can't get into the games is because of that. If feels like im playing a video game inside a video game... not immersive at all.

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      July 12, 2013 3:51 PM

      Thank you! Also, just go make your pirate game, I don't need this AC nonesense at this point.

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      July 12, 2013 7:22 PM

      [deleted]

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        July 13, 2013 3:14 AM

        Me too - this is both surprising and disappointing to hear. Oh well - at least the content is still in there.

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        July 13, 2013 5:04 AM

        I used to, until the horrible handling of it in the third one.

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          July 13, 2013 5:22 AM

          Yeah. It's always felt written in the margins but they clearly lost patience with it in AC3.

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      July 13, 2013 1:19 AM

      The story about Desmond and Lucy were my favourite part of the game. After doing missions, getting to see things unfold in modern day story was like a reward.

      They should just turn it in a separate game. ;/

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      July 13, 2013 2:37 AM

      So why not just make a kickass new pirate IP, and forego bolting on the AC brand? I'm much more likely to check out a standalone pirate game than the next AC instalment.

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        July 13, 2013 5:05 AM

        Moneyhats. People would be FAR more likely to buy an established brand then to buy a pirate game I would imagine.

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        July 13, 2013 5:39 AM

        Because this is an Assassins Creed game with pirate character skins. Everything else is identical- animations, sounds, UI, gameplay, and story. Ubisoft just keeps remaking the same game every year and charging $60.

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      July 13, 2013 5:29 AM

      Isn't this just exactly what Brotherhood did? Bit at the beginning, bit at the end, and everything in between was optional.

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