DON’T: Go full cockney stereotype. We hereby present a list of banned phrases: “OWRIGHT GUVNAH!”, “Apples and pears!”, “Two and eight”, “Dog and bone” and so on and so on ad nauseum.
DON'T: Include Sherlock Holmes as your mate, or a character who it turns out Sherlock Holmes is based on, or Arthur Conan Doyle acting like Sherlock Holmes, or any narrative device that lets you meet and solve crimes with a human sharing a strong resemblance to the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes.
DON’T: Put a red bus in it. You may have an overwhelming urge to put a red bus in it even though buses weren't invented until much later. Stay strong.
DON’T: Make the player collect pages from Charles Dickens’ manuscript for A Tale of Two Cities to unlock bonus missions in Paris.
DON’T: Allow player character to swim in the the Thames, unless you’re prepared to code a procedural turd generator.
DON'T: Include a skybox that isn't some variation on gunmetal grey.
DON’T: Allow even a glimmer of pure sunlight touch the upturned faces of the populace.
DON’T: Use some weird Animus trick to put Shakespeare in it. Not even the ghost of Shakespeare. Not even zombie Shakespeare.
DON’T: Include an interactive rooftop dance number. Or maybe do.
DON’T: “Air assassinate floating nanny.”
DON’T: Include that mission you’ve built that involves escaping a burning building as it collapses around you. You know the one.
DON’T: Let Brian Blessed into the voice booth. He can’t enter if you don’t invite him in.
DON’T: Spend considerable effort creating, animating and voicing David Livingstone, just so a character can say “Dr Livingstone, I presume?” in a cutscene.
DON’T: Ask Dick Van Dyke to voice a character. Even a minor one.
DON’T: Mess up the inevitable climactic Tower of London mission.
DON’T: Have upgradable speed pants. Come on Ubisoft, we shouldn’t have to tell you these things.
DON’T: Accidentally go a bit Steampunk.
DON'T: Blimps. No blimps.
DON’T: Use the Animus to manifest the ghosts of Christmas past, present or future.
DON’T: “Skin ten tabby cats to upgrade your boots.”
DON’T: Contrary to the words of Warren Zevon and the films of John Landis, there are no werewolves in London.
DON'T: Danny Wallace. Danny Dyer. Ricky Gervais. Stephen Fry. John Cleese. Patrick Stewart.
And that just about covers it. What would you like to see from the next Assassin's Creed? Andy has a few ideas in his article about fixing the series.
