The story of Assassins Creed had previously always been meta. You’re a character that’s playing another one in a simulation. You’re simulating a simulation of a simulation. Now it’s getting even weirder, with the reveal that you’re personally going to be playing a character in Assassin’s Creed 4, according to Ubisoft. You’re a person, playing yourself, interacting as a separate digital character. We think.
What does that mean? We aren’t sure at all, actually, with Ubisoft content to tease the idea and not really talk it up any further. The direct quote featured in the Gamefront article about it suggests that AC4 is “removing a layer between you and [Lead Protagonist] Edward Kenway.”
This could mean that the Sci-Fi modern day stuff is being dispensed with entirely and you’re just having direct control in this story, or it could have something to do with Abstergo Industries’ interest in providing consumer entertainment (which is the basis for the inclusion of Multiplayer in AC3, it’s within the narrative a competitive simulation that regular people are playing in their alternate universe, instead of software that’s delving deep into your DNA to try and unlock your hidden potential like Desmond uses in the Animus).
What does this mean for who your character is, though? Does this suggest that everyone alive and playing this has to be a descendant of Edward Kenway, or are we just playing an entirely fictionalised set of events that aren’t tied to the ongoing fiction?
We can’t say. All we can say is we’re… we’re way more interested in Assassin’s Creed 4 now.