China
When I first heard about the upcoming downloadable title Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China, I was ecstatic. This upcoming installment (originally set to be bundled in with the Assassin’s Creed: Unity Season Pass), will see players take control of Chinese Assassin Shao Jun. First introduced in the animated short Assassin’s Creed: Embers, China is set to follow through on the potential of both an Eastern-flavored setting and a strong female protagonist – tackling both in the form of a Freedom Cry-sized downloadable adventure that – given its prefix – could open the door for all sorts of cool projects later down the line.
Then, of course, I read the fine print and discovered that China is actually not a full Assassin’s Creed title but a 2.5D platformer. Which is fine – I like 2.5D platformers, but it feels like such a waste to take a setting as historically expansive as China and restrict its presence in the Assassin’s Creed universe to a mere spin-off title. My hope at this point is that Ubisoft are using China to test the waters for a future Assassin’s Creed title that could follow on from the plot and characters of China to do justice to the setting.