What are your thoughts on the modern day sections?
There has probably been similar posts before but anyway. Personally I never really liked Desmond's storyline, it always got in the way of what I really wanted to play and interrupted the flow of gameplay. The first person abstergo modern day parts of AC4 and Rogue were straight up annoying, with all those pointless hacking mini-games.
Having said that, I think it would be interesting to see more of a modern day brotherhood. We never really see that with Desmond cause he was off doing his own thing. It would probably be really difficult to do cause you can't really have the abstergo animus without abstergo so unless it's a straight up modern day game with no historic events at all I doubt we'll get that. Without spoiling much, I think the best chance we have at seeing a modern day brotherhood story would be if they made a sequel to the movie as it seems to be heading in that direction.
Posted Jun 22, 2017, 8:12 AM UTC
You need the modern day to contextualise such vastly different games within the series.
The modern day is EVERYTHING.
You need to remember that you aren't Altair / Ezio / Connor / Edward / Arno / whoever their names were in syndicate playing in whatever time period the game was set in.
You're a modern day person sitting in a machine re-actioning the memories of an ancestor in order to find an ancient artifacts location in the modern day to further the goals of either the Templars or assassins.
Without the modern day there is no assassins creed.
If you didn't get the overall vibe of the thing, I love the modern day and I want it back bigger and better than ever.
I was going through this article on Origins and it was so infuriating reading that people don't want the modern day because it 'breaks immersion'. I mean, that IS the point, you need to realise that you're reliving the memories of someone. And then there were people saying that the UI artist needs to be fired because the HUD seems so modern and tech-y. I mean, GAH! There isn't even a point trying to explain the importance of the modern day to them.
Unfortunately it's all going to come down to which portion of the fan base Ubisoft wants to piss off.
They'd have pretty extensive market research and analysis into the people that buy these games, and what they want.
For a time that research and analysis clearly pointed towards a larger portion of the audience NOT wanting a large modern day portion of the story. That lead AC to a place where they had to take a year off so it will definitely be interesting to see where Ubisoft goes.
The entire fan base is mostly unified on this game making or breaking the series, whichever portion of the fan base they piss off is likely gone for good.
People^who^detest^modern^day^aren't^fans
Honestly it's not new players' faults for hating the modern day though. Most people saying they hate the present day probably started off from Black Flag and since then the modern day has been given no care. I'm sure everyone can agree, old and new fans alike, that Bishop needs to be punched in the face and the Helix storyline has to go down the drain. If Origins puts effort into the modern day and gives us fun segments with an interesting protagonist I'm sure nobody will have a problem with the MD
Of course there's an argument for that, and I agree, but people who aren't fans of the modern day still buy the game. They represent a portion of the market that spends money on the franchise. Their thoughts on the game have to be taken into consideration for the series, overall, to be a financial success
One possible solution would be to make the modern day entirely optional. I wouldn't mind a question when you start a new game: "modern day sections on/off. I would probably even use that since the modern day sections are pretty boring in the second or third playthrough.
Interesting points, however I feel that the "we have to find this ancient artifact through your ancestors eyes" plotline, is just an excuse for having the modern day story and could just as easily been cut. At the end of the day, the location of the artifact becomes a minor detail and it's more about the ancestors character arc. Its just that the modern day is part of the established formula of assassin's creed games and they need the artifact excuse to incorporate it.
There is absolutely no way to explain how a game set in the third crusade, two games in renaissance Italy, one in the post Byzantine era, one in the American Revolutionary War, one in the age of pirates, one in revolutionary France and one in the Industrial Age of England all belong to the same series without the modern day.
Yes there is, loads of different games do it. Crusader Kings series, Total War series, even GTA to a certain extent with 3 of there games being set in the 80's and 90's. We already know that the assassins and Templar orders are ancient and have been around for thousands of years. It's not like people would get confused by the different settings.
Edit: Even CoD went from world war 2 to modern day to the future and didn't need an animus plotline to explain it and the CoD fans are not the brightest bunch.
Wait what? Crusader Kings and the Total War series release standalone strategy games and are not part of an overarching narrative. Assassin's Creed, from the beginning, has been a third-person action game about one guy getting into an Animus and by the end of the day, getting out with newfound knowledge. What's the point of throwing that out and just having random ass games with different assassins? It wouldn't make any sense, not to mention we'd lose out on the Animus technology/explanations for things.
It just wouldn't make sense. This series, without a modern day, would not exist, period.