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Assassin's Creed Rebellion: Preview
Markuz & Sorrosyss, September 2nd, 2017
Assassin's Creed Rebellion is a free-to-play mobile strategy RPG, developed by Behaviour Interactive (who are known for Fallout Shelter) and is planned to be released on iOS and Android platforms. Some of us recently had the chance to try out the game in its soft launch version, ahead of its global release, and were able to conduct playthroughs both on iPad and iPhone, so here are our thoughts on the title! Premise
The game is set during the Spanish Inquisition, and includes many characters from the Assassin's Creed movie such as Aguilar, Maria, Torquemada and Ojeda. The storyline to the game appears to be non-canon – if you’re looking for new lore elements this might not be the game for you - but intersperses with the events of the movie and, following a brief tutorial starring Ezio (who is also in Spain), you are introduced to the main concepts of the game. The primary objective of Rebellion is to form a large Brotherhood against the Templar presence within Spain,
As you build the base, you gradually get access to new rooms that grant functionality options to you. For example, you can build a Treasury room, that will passively generate currency for you over time, or perhaps create a Training Room - that allows you to level up your Assassins. Missions / Gameplay
Before you launch a mission, you choose from three Assassins within your Brotherhood. Each Assassin can be one of three archetypes: Shadow – Your classical Assassin, strong at Assassination and Parkour but less effective in combat and against traps. Enforcer - A brawler / tank type that excel at combat with extra attacks and usually have a lot of health points but are pretty weak in all other areas. Specialist – They are brilliant at dealing with traps and stealth, but in turn are very weak in combat.
The Assassins differ in their “rarity”(Common / Rare / Epic / Legendary), which is identified by a specific color in the menus (respectively white / light blue / violet / yellow) and their unique abilities, and you will find that using a combination of different characters is often the best practice to progressing through missions. The missions themselves are where the main gameplay begins. You are presented with a 2D viewpoint of enemy buildings, and usually have to reach an objective at the other end of the area. Herein lies the strategy. You are often presented with a choice of different directions to take. Do you go via
For some players it might be very unusual at first, but you do not actually directly control your character, much like what happens in Fallout Shelter. Rather, each room usually offers visual indicators of what action can be taken, along with a percentage chance of success for each action. As such, you will scroll around the screen looking at your options within the area before choosing one by touching an ability and watching your Assassin animate into action. For example, you may enter a room that has a crossbow rope trap, a guard, and an open window. You could potentially elect to disable the trap with your specialist. Perhaps use your enforcer to directly engage and defeat the guard. Or finally, use your Shadow to parkour out of the open window and stealth past the guard. As such, looking ahead at each room before choosing your Assassin can be very important, taking into
In essence, it makes the gameplay feel very much turn based. Combat is determined by initiative, which determines who attacks first. Most Assassins have a few different attacks, and as expected they can hit or miss for health damage. If all three Assassins lose all of their health bars, the mission will end in failure. As such, it can sometimes be to your advantage to use stealth opportunities as often as possible to reach the next room unscathed. Success in missions will lead to gaining XP, resources, DNA (more on this later), currency, and furthering the storyline itself. This in turn will allow you to upgrade your base and Assassins in kind. Presentation Rebellion has a pretty unique art style. It is very reminiscent of your typical Japanese 'Big Head' modes you see in other games or chibi art style.
Going back to the presentation of the game, the environments fit with the location and time period, with some of the interior artwork impressing on occasion. You often see Templar crosses and paintings, and it is nice to see a fair variety of guard types, a lot of them with similar strengths and weaknesses to the Assassins.
The animations are akin to what you would expect for a mobile game, with combat and traversal actions resulting in you witnessing your character perform them. Attacks do not produce blood effects, and there is no clear collisions between characters, but finishing moves can be quite artistic – such as a specialist multi stabbing a guard rapidly with a dagger. Sound wise, the effects are passable with your typical weapon swings and clashes, as well as audible grunts from characters during combat. Given the slow and tactical pace of the gameplay, it is nice that the musical selection is really good and helps to build some adrenaline. The chosen tracks all tend to be some of the more upbeat combat tracks from the earliest Assassin's Creed games (Assassin’s Creed II to Assassin’s Creed III), as well as some fan favourites like Ezio's Family, Modern Assassin, and In The Simulation. The main menu has a lovely variant of What Came Before, which fits the tone perfectly. Progression & Economy Levelling your Brotherhood is the key to progression in Rebellion. The primary method of doing so is through missions, with the storyline evidently going up to Level 50. For perspective after about five hours of play, our Sorrosyss was still at level 7 while our Markuz and Sary after eight hours of
Upgrading your base relies on you acquiring resources such as wood and stone. Training your Assassins requires Codex Sheets. Crafting items such as Armor and Weapons (which you can upgrade your Assassins with) not only need resources, but also money. Thus everything you acquire on missions is funded directly back into the betterment of your Brotherhood. The game also features a special resource called DNA fragments that can be used in two ways. Firstly, the majority of the Assassin roster is locked off to you, and in order to unlock them you need to obtain their complete DNA pattern. Once you have that, further DNA fragments can be used to rank them up in quality – which provides extra abilities as well increases in statistics and ability charges.
Of course if you feel you are not making progress quickly enough, the game features an item shop. Items can be purchased for in game currency, as well as a special currency type known as Helix credits. As with most mobile games, this is a currency that is tied to real world money. Purchasing Helix credits allows you to purchase special 'Loot Boxes' known as Encryption Cubes. Some of these offer to unlock an Assassin, DNA fragments, or resources. It is your traditional microtransaction method, and whilst many people have a stigma towards the concept, one has to consider that Rebellion is offered
As you progress nearer to the 'End Game' of the title, you will have to upgrade the rooms of your base, the skills and equipment of your Assassins, as well as grinding to obtain the numerous resources and currency you will need to achieve these goals. If we were to hazard a guess about how long it would take to complete the five regions of the map, it would be worth mentioning that the first region took us about five hours. As such, it would not be a stretch to imagine it taking 30+ hours to complete the story, especially taking into consideration that, at least in the build that we tried, sometimes it took us a long time to level up to be ready for the next story missions. If you intend to play the game over multiple devices, you can save your progress by linking your account to Facebook. This then allows you to continue your save game from a server save. It’s also possible to set up notifications, so that you can be made aware when certain in-game timers have elapsed. Nitpicks No game is perfect, and it would not be fair to not point out some of the minor flaws we experienced. Thankfully the game ran almost flawlessly, with no crashes or frame rate loss for Sorrosyss on iPad, and only one game freeze for Markuz and Sary on the iPhone. However, there were a few examples of oddities;
Conclusion If you loved the Brotherhood recruitment and Base Building mechanics of the early Assassin's Creed games, you will find a lot to enjoy about Rebellion. The content does appear to extend to quite a substantial playtime, and for a Free-to-play game that's quite rewarding. Despite the varied mission types, the gameplay between them varies little in substance. Our only concern, at least at this stage of development, is that without that variety the grind for XP and Assassins may begin to feel a little repetitive after a time. With that said, the game still remains in limited release in some countries, and with ongoing content updates such as those added to Identity, the title will likely evolve and continue to improve before its global release in the near future. We do applaud Ubisoft for taking a unique approach with this title though. It’s nice to see Assassin's Creed as an IP trying new things and we hope Rebellion is a success, as it may well pave the way open for the franchise to explore other unique gameplay styles in the future.
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