2011 Most Anticipated Games #2: Assassin's Creed Revelations

The Assassin's Creed goes from strength to strength on an annual basis now, with ACII (9.5/10) succeeding where the original failed in providing a cohesive narrative and innovative gameplay and Brotherhood (9.5/10) going one step further and giving you a team of Assassins to play with. You may notice that the score for the latter is lower than it was originally given in the initial review, and that's only because on reflection the multiplayer component was a weak addition and Ezio's story was a little less memorable than before. If, however, there's one way of fixing those flaws, it's giving Ubisoft another twelve months to craft the final instalment in the Ezio trilogy. What we get this time is an epic climax in Constantinople where our Italian protagonist searches for the key to an ancient vault containing a weapon which may end the Templar War. To do this, Ezio must use seals left by AC1's Altair to live out the latter's memories and find out the secrets of the past, present and future. That's right: the developers at Ubisoft Montreal have said they don't want this franchise to become the new Lost (barely anyone understood Brotherhood's ending, or the endings of the first two games for that matter), so this time around the plot will provide answers to all of the questions raised so far about the connection between modern character Desmond and his ancestors, not to mention the fate of the Earth and the identity of Subject 16. There will also be a revamped multiplayer component, placing more focus on a storyline of its own and with any luck having more sustainability than Brotherhood's did so that it can match up to the Call of Dutys and Battlefields of this generation. Unless something goes drastically wrong in the final stages of development, expect an amazing lead-in to AC3 when Revelations ships November 18th!