ASSASSIN'S CREED: Anarchy

Project Name: Assassin's Creed: Anarchy

Genre: Action-adventure, stealth, semi-hack and slash, Open-world

Type: fan-DLC project for Syndicate

Platform: Consoles, PC

Reference: Assassin's Creed franchise

Author: Aboy Ningthouja

Introduction: In an effort to break from the mainstream gameplay strategy so as to deliver a more immersive and intensive taste to the players, AC Anarchy, a fan-project DLC of the original Syndicate game aims at creating a more story-oriented experience that takes place a few years after the events of Syndicate in the same city of London. It would tell the story of a certain character (not an assassin), Krueger Smith right from his birth to leading a massive network of anarchists, while most of these sections being fully playable with the help of unique interface, fluent story-synced inputs and perfectly strategised levels. This would allow players to go through the same experience as the character right from the start, thus putting weight on the various events that would follow.The project also intends to utilize the full potential of an Eden artifact ingame which in-turn enhances combat ability, parkour system and senses of the character.

Storyline: A broken and retired Sgt. Mccain is kidnapped by a rogue faction of the Abstergo Research team inorder to trace a piece of Eden by making him relive the ancestral footprint of one Krueger Smith. The painful tale of Mr. Krueger Smith begins right at the gate of hell, Newgate prison, where his mentally-ill mother is held for a crime she apparently committed. Kruger is then admitted to an orphan-home run by templars where he is raised under great hardship, slavery, fear and struggles. He finally get an opportunity to escape when Jacob Frye attacks the home and sets the children free. Krueger then, struggles to survive on the street of Devil's Acre where he witnesses the end of his mother. Little Krueger driven mad by vengeance, makes his first kill. He is then taken care of and mentored by an old assassin rogue, transforming him into a perfect killing machine at his disposal. This eventually makes him notorious as the Son of the Devil. But Krueger is a man of justice and truth, the main reason behind him leaving his mentor. He sets out with the ultimate gift from his mentor, a piece of Eden, the power of which he mastered during his training. This attracts the attention of the assassin brotherhood led by the Frye twins and greedy templars led by a notorious Grandmaster Louise Helm VI forcing him into a web of life-threatening events, conspiracies, murders and betrayals. Upon finding out the murder of his mentor, who apparently stole the artifact from the brotherhood with other fellow rogue assassins, inorder to protect the integrity of the city, Krueger realizes his mentor was trying to protect the people by ordering him to eliminate the betrayers and steps into the game forming his own army of anarchists to fight the assassins and templars and fulfill his mentor's wish.

Gameplay: AC Anarchy would retain the exact gameplay mechanism of its parent game with some exceptions on parkour enhancement and new special abilities owing to the addition of the new Eden artifact feature. Some new key abilities include enhanced enemy navigation, counter-attacks, eavesdropping, stealth, speed, strength and illusional feats. This would also affect in the parkour system in various ways such as longer and higher jumps, smoother transitions between structures, faster sprints, and wider opportunity of scaling on walls. But to amplify the value of the artifact, a depleting power gauge would be added. A new upgrade and training option would also be added for the new feature. In this project, the character would possess a primary set of dual weapons connected to the story and a new savage signature hidden blades with new execution features. Few primary weapon abilities include, dual blade execution or scissor style, pinning down with a blade and executing with the other, boomerang blade, bulls-eye throw, and marksman which involves heating the blade and marking an enemy for the people to decide his fate. The new hidden-blades also bear added abililities such as, enhanced key-unlocking, slipping down on walls with the blades hooked, hooked interrogation mode, blade-shooting, multi-hack savage execution and stealth lunge. Other than combat controls, the project would also have new special interaction inputs which will allow the player to connect with various other important characters in the game.

Level Strategy: Players will be provided the opportunity to go through the gruesome and painful life of Krueger Smith first-hand right from the start. This would widen the window of connection with the character and overall level of immersion. Most of the events will be playable with special inputs requiring from the player. The levels will be massively dominated by bits and pieces of simple yet powerful humane behavior and flaws. After all, to err is human, right? and we humans tend to connect more with mistakes and simple events. An example scene can be, when little Kruger sets out in the rainy street, in tears and anger to avenge the death of his mother. In this mission, players would have to help a constantly falling Krueger to rise and move forward in the crowd, meanwhile requiring inputs from player to wipe of his tears. This will be followed by a playable cinematic hybrid sequence of confronting the murderer. Few other situations would include, faulty enemy weapons, occasional slipping on rooftops, unpredicted dialogues and actions. In AC Anarchy, players would be able to call reinforcements more easily upto a certain upgradable limit which will bring the overall game-genre slightly towards hack-and-slash. This means going toe-to-toe with 100 enemies at once with your 30 allies in a open ground, while the Eden special abilities being completely at the player's disposal. One of the main objective of the game is to establish a sense of familiarity with characters and streets in the mind of the player, not just randomly running around streets and killing bad guys. The player would understand the true meaning of brotherhood as a result of their loyalty and relationship. Keeping this in mind, certain levels will be design in such a way to introduce important allies and venues in the most remarkable way possible. This would involve an intense event of the story with the full fledge of allies while players are able to utilize the environment more easily. Inorder to express the personality of the character, there would be more semi hack-n-slash missions fending off gang infiltration or attending a scheduled face-off. Several missions would involve characters from Syndicate to connect to the parent world. Such a mission would feature Krueger facing off Jacob Frye in a gang war of almost 100 men at a dock near the Thames river. AC Anarchy would pay close attention to the process of empowering and expanding Krueger's gang of anarchists with every constructive decision made by the player. Few missions would also engage with a variety humane tasks, act of kindness, mystery solving and humour-filled objectives. The game would also feature several intense present-day missions where Mccain eliminates most of his abductors in an attempt to escape.

User Interface: The AC franchise bears a very simple, responsive and efficient user interface which has improved a lot over the multiple sequels. The UI of Syndicate will reprise in AC Anarchy with added features for artifact abilities and some enhancements. It would also feature dedicated keys and combinations for special executions. Few mentionable improvement would be, responsive interface, with self-customized options in sync with actions taken by the player, ingame-weapon customization and suggestive information at close calls and complicated events.

Artificial Intelligence: AI plays great role on sustaining the interest of players and keeping the game alive. It creates self-concieved situation and surprise events for players. The smarter the AI, the greater the possibility of such events. It also plays great role in leaving an image in people's mind. AC franchise has a very responsive, well-scripted and remarkable AI. This same program would act as the spine for the CPU bots in AC Anarchy with slight manipulation to suit the new game design, environment, character personality and combat scripts. This project aims at embedding more personality into the AI system with a slight self-aware tweak.

Why Assassin's Creed: Anarchy?

1. AC Anarchy tells the story of a non-assassin character yet possessing the skills of an elite assassin.
2. For the first time, players will get to utilize the ultimate power of an Eden artifact throughout the game.
3. Parkour system highly enhanced more fluent with effects such as longer and higher jump, faster sprint, faster war crawling, ultra-stealth executions, enhanced senses, etc.
4. It is heavily story-oriented and more immersive with surprises unfolding at every turn.
5. The game story will occur in the same city as that of its parent game, hence the low cost of production.
6. Enhanced UI with self-customization depending on players' actions and more interactive environment.
7. New primary story-orient dual weapons with tons of customization options and new savage hidden-blades with expanded abilities.
8. Semi hack and slash missions involving massive gang wars of more than 100 people, with the power of Eden artifact completely at the player's disposal.
9. Easy intuitive gang recruitment and expansion with simplified reinforcement calls.
10. New savage mode for main character reflecting his gruesome dark past.
11. Sub-customizable outfits and accessories such as hood-off, jacket-off, gauntlets on-off, hidden blades on-off. Other outfits available too.
12. Tons of unpredictable interactive dialogues and reactions from smarter AI characters in the game.
13. Cameos of important characters from predecessor and third party games from the same creator.
14. New added levels such as act-of-kindness, scheduled gang wars and duels, intense mystery solving, bounty-hunters and hooded protector.
15. The project bears great potential to push the title further and provide player with a new taste of the franchise.

Conclusion: Overall, AC Anarchy has been concepted over the famed Assassin's Creed franchise with the sole objective, to provide players with expanded gameplay possibilities, immersion and intuitive interaction with the game. It is to show a new face of development induced by desires of players coded into the game. Moreover, the project aims at contributing new mechanisms and entertainment techniques to the gaming industry. Coming to an end, I would like to thank Ubisoft for creating this wonderful IP for us players and keeping it alive all this while with great sequels and innovative improvements.

Thank you!