Paris was a pretty happening place during the French Revolution, with all kinds of places to go and things to do, especially if you happened to be an elite operative of the Assassin Brotherhood. But how will you go about deciding the best way to spend your free time in the open world of Assassin's Creed Unity ? Well, you might try reading a newspaper.
Open world games, generally speaking, give players all kinds of stuff to do above and beyond the requirements of the plot, but Assassin's Creed Unity writer Russell Lees said Ubisoft wants more from the game than just randomized side quests. "We realized that we had Paris, France, and there was tons of historical content there that we wanted to take advantage of," he said in the latest Assassin's Creed Unity DevBlog . "As a result, every single one of the side content activities has a historical tie, either to some interesting person or event that took place during the period."
Much of that content will be centered on relatively minor characters, but Lees said the historical connection "should give a lot more narrative impact to the open world activities." And while some of those missions will be assigned to players directly by the Brotherhood, others may "spin off" from plot-related characters, or can even be discovered independently.
"Although you can stumble upon some of the mission-givers around the city, you can also read the newspapers that are scattered around the city for clues," Lees said. "If you read an article of interest in the newspaper, you might suddenly see a new icon appear on the map, which you can then go and investigate. So it pays to really explore the open world."
Assassin's Creed Unity comes out November 11.
