Now, while our first main goal is to find the Assassin Bureau, as without being there we can’t commence the assassination even if we learn everything about our targets, I would like to note that not far from the gates we see two guards talking. We can also find an alternate way through via parkour.
Right now, however, there’s a monk in trouble, and if we save him, we can get past the gates undetected while blending in a group of his brothers. Audio design is an important part of the experience, later I’ll show one of the biggest reasons why.
First, of course, we need to get through the guarded gates of the city.Īs we approach, we hear cries for help. Our goal is to get to the Assassin Bureau to learn more information about our target. There’s not really much to do in the Kingdom other than travel around and look at the view (or collect flags and kill Templars if you’re into this sort of thing), and the act of traveling is much more enjoyable when you actually pay attention to what’s on your path.Įventually you’ll see some stone arches, which are elements that show the exit from the area you’re in. Just like, you know, there’d be in real life. There’s signs on intersections that show you where to go. Don’t open the map, or GPS, how do we get to Acre? Well, it’s quite simple actually. So, we got our target, it’s Garnier de Naplouse in Acre.įirst, of course, we leave Masyaf, take a horse, and ride on the only pathway available until we reach the next zone, the Kingdom, which is a hub between all cities. When you enter, you see the Assassin fortress in the distance as the main landmark, which is where Al Mualim will give you the targets’ names.Īnd from the top of Masyaf you can see the exit. So we start in Masyaf, which is the first settlement we get to explore, and the village is pretty easy to navigate around in. To start illustrating my point, allow me to show a segment from the game, our first target in Acre (and second target in the game), and how we’d complete it without any HUD elements or map. The addition of HUD in the game was clearly a late one, possibly based on some playtests, and while I can see why it makes sense to have a HUD, it also undermines the experience the game tried to build. I’m talking no map, markers, icons, controls.
The first Assassin’s Creed (at least the console version, I’ll talk about some missions introduced in the PC version later) was designed to be playable fully without any HUD elements. After all, ‘Nothing is true, everything is permitted.’ There is one amazing thing in the first Assassin’s Creed that elevates the experience to a different level of immersion and none of its sequels has it.
One can say, ‘Sure Stas, the first Assassin’s Creed has interesting ideas, great atmosphere, story, and provided a base for the franchise, but it got repetitive and boring, surely the rest of the series is a big improvement over it?’ Well… in a way yes. Neither did II, Brotherhood, Revelations, III, Unity, Rogue or Syndicate. But even Black Flag doesn’t have what made the first game truly special. Until the release of Black Flag, Assassin’s Creed 1 was my favourite of the series.