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Was reminded tonight by @theshroffage how good AC2 was and remember that this came out at a time when I was working on open world games at Pandemic. Some thoughts as to why this game was so revolutionary:
1. At the time, many open world games leaned towards "fun sandboxes" with various toys. Other than GTA there was often a big disconnect between world mechanics and the story. In ACII everything was either an Ezio motivation or an Animus motivation. It actually made sense.
2. Many open world games at the time did "a thing" that was well executed but struggled to get quality across the board. Hulk Ultimate / Prototype had the best navigation, Crackdown had the best collection, GTA had the best story, Mercs had good meta, ACII put it all together
3. There's a lot of Open world protagonists that really struggled to be as memorable as other 1st / 3rd person character games. Under the hood, Ezio is pretty similar to Batman/Bruce Wayne but it's a great example of a character that was instantly easy to like and understand.
4. The Italian layout of ACII is a great compromise of "real world history" and making a fun playground for navigation. ACII really put a nail in the coffin against some old-school 'True Crime' type layouts that were built from real maps and were 1:1 with the real world.
4b. But what is awesome about ACII's take on Italy is that it also didn’t fall into the trap of being a mini-golf / Disneyland version of an open world city. It still feels historical and remained dedicated to scale and key sites. its still authentic enough to ancient history.
5. They nailed the 7-14 second reward loop that SO many games have copied for the last 10+ years. Like Walt Disney with the hot dog wrapper, there is always something to do every 7-14s. Even if its just a nominal chest, your brain is constantly in a drip-drip of reward/exploring.
6. It nailed the "mini map compulsion" that love/loathe become iconic to Ubi games of the era. There's an undeniable compulsion to clearing tasks off the mini-map. Other games (Eg. Saboteur) were trying it but ACII got the tuning right. 'Just one more'. A bit like crackdown orbs
7. It had "Endgame Lore" that was a really unique reward type for the time. Nowadays lots of games have a marvel-style post credit moment but ACII had 'The Truth' which you could only unlock by exploring the maps (It was sort of like unlocking a secret ending in a Treasure game)
8. Ezio is a bit like Batman and blacksmiths give you access to better suits. However to do this, you have be a 'patron' and sacrifice your cash to set up shops for townsfolk. So it doesn’t just deliver on the Batman experience, it also delivers on the Bruce Wayne experience!
9. They took the simple concept of a "heart container" and made it modern. You always have your armor chits onscreen so you're constantly thinking about how to manage them, set up more blacksmiths, repair armor and increase slots. Simple design, deep use!
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
