It turns a fascinating section of history into a vast open-world playground, letting you conquer the rooftops, stalk the forests and sail the seas of revolutionary America and authoring a main storyline that puts you in the middle of some of the most important events of the period, like a fly on the wall of history. You’ve always been on the outside looking in.Not so with Assassin’s Creed III, which hauls the series across the ocean into a new setting that’s absolutely bursting with things to do.
Assassin’s Creed games are easy to admire, but you often feel a bit distanced from them, too, held back from inhabiting these worlds as fully as you’d like to. It’s a snapshot that shows off a lot of what makes these games special – their incredible attention to detail, breath-taking verticality, fascinating architecture, unique historical settings - but it also represents their limitations. If there’s one image that encapsulates the Assassin’s Creed series, it’s that of a hooded figure balancing atop some skyscraping parapet, looking down into the city below.