Assassin’s Creed 3 to Feature a New Control Scheme

Are you used to Assassin's Creed's control scheme? If so, you might want to throw all that muscle memory out of the window as Assassin's Creed 3 will feature an all-new control scheme.

Why are they changing it? According to Lead Game Designer Steve Masters, it's because the old control scheme wasn't up to snuff in regards to the game's new environment (via PS3Center):

The previous controls were really set up for a city environment where you didn't have a huge amount of choice in 3D about where you wee going. What it meant was that when we translated that into the frontier environment where you had trees and the choice of going forwards, up, around or jumping down, the previous controls weren't set up for handling that range of motion. Now, when you get into the trees, you feel safe as you navigate around. You can control the camera while you're free-running, which is something that has always been missing and lacking. And it means you can be tracking a deer and you know with perfect certainty that you're going to stay in the trees and not jump down and startle it.

Based on the gameplay we've seen so far, this control scheme change is for the better. 

Staying with Assassin's Creed 3, Ubisoft has released a rather interesting image of franchise protagonist Desmond doing something rather peculiar…and that's watching a Mixed-Martial Arts (MMA) event.

Ubisoft released the image as part of their "Hacked History" community challenge. It's a Flash-based game where players find hidden items throughout three historical paintings. Once enough players have found the items, the image below was revealed.

Is Desmond just a fan who wants to watch an event or is this an actual level where players can free-run across the stadium's railings? Come to think of it, how would you feel if Desmond himself came down to the cage and fought? At least now we know Desmond won't be spending all his time in the game hooked up in the Animus, no? Oh, and he also has his hood down for the first time ever if I'm not mistaken…that should count for something, right?

Assassin's Creed 3 will be out on October 30 for the PS3 and Xbox 360.