Use 19th century invisibility technology as Assassin’s Creed Syndicate’s Evie Frye

By Gabe Gurwin Published August 10, 2015

Last month, Ubisoft gave insight into the differing personalities of Assassin’s Creed Syndicates two protagonists, Jacob and Evie Frye. While Jacob was described as “brash” and more than willing to start a fight, his sister Evie is quite the opposite, preferring to stay undetected for as long as possible. In a new video released at Gamescom, we can see exactly how this dichotomy manifests itself in Assassin’s Creed Syndicate‘s gameplay.

Taking place during a “black box” mission, which was a concept originally introduced in last year’s Assassin’s Creed Unity, the latest gameplay video finds Evie sneaking into the Tower of London to locate an artifact called the “Shroud” and assassinate the Templar Lucy Thorne. As was the case with Unity‘s black box missions, you have a number of different explicitly-mentioned possible options for entering the tower, as well as the ability to create your own if you don’t like being told what to do.

Recommended Videos

Game director Scott Phillips shows off Evie’s “unique stealth capabilities,” including the ability to avoid patrolling guards on the ground level of the tower by activating Evie’s “chameleon” mode, making her almost completely invisible while she stands still. The ability is passive, triggering anytime she is completely still and in stealth mode, and is similar to the camouflage used in Ubisoft’s own Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. It allows her to sneak by several tower guards before closing in to eliminate Templar imposters.

The “knife master” ability — which not only gives Evie more throwing knives, but also increases their damage — allows her to take out distant enemies without being spotted. While staying invisible in chameleon mode, Evie throws a single knife at a guard below, quickly turning invisible again as he falls to the ground. After finding her ally disguised as a Templar, Evie pretends to be captured and walks by dozens of enemies as she approaches Lucy Thorne and quickly eliminates her.

Which style of play do you prefer: the combat-heavy, “go get ’em” aggression of Jacob, or Evie’s more measured approach? You’ll be able to try both out when Assassin’s Creed Syndicate launches for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on October 23, with a PC release following later this year.

Former Contributor

Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…

Topics

Gaming

How to get Knowledge Points and what they do in Assassin’s Creed Shadows

One of the protagonists in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

By the time we get to Assassin's Creed Shadows, most of us will be familiar with how the games work. Since transitioning more towards RPGs than stealth games, the titles have not only gotten longer but also embraced skill trees. Naoe and Yasuke each have unique progression paths to work through, but right away you will notice that most of the best abilities are gated off. Like Scouts, Knowledge Points are a new feature that you will need to master if you want to be the best assassin possible. We'll share all our knowledge about Knowledge Points with you.
How Knowledge Points work and how to get them

Knowledge Points are a separate system to XP that allows both Naoe and Yasuke to unlock the better and more powerful skills in all their skill trees. Unlike XP, you can't earn them by performing normal tasks or taking out enemies. Instead, Knowledge Points are rewarded for doing specific non-violent activities in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

Gaming

How long is Assassin’s Creed Shadows?

Yasuke in Assassin's Creed Shadows fighting an enemy. He's dressed in his samurai armor.

It's no secret that the Assassin's Creed games have gotten longer and longer over the years. This is typical for Ubisoft open-world titles, but many are hoping that Assassin's Creed Shadows has scaled back on the bloat a bit. There's always fast travel and finding the fastest ways to earn XP to cut down on the grind, but there's only so much time that can be saved. If you're worried that this game might be another 100-hour time investment to fully complete, let's use our Eagle Vision to scout out how long Assassin's Creed Shadows is before you start playing.
How long is Assassin's Creed Shadows?

As you would expect, the amount of time you could put into Assassin's Creed Shadows will vary wildly based on how you approach it. You can focus on just the story and nothing else, tackle a handful of side missions and activities, or attempt to complete anything and everything the game has to offer.

Gaming

Assassin’s Creed Shadows fixes my biggest problem with the series

The two protagonists in Assassin's Creed Shadows

The Assassin's Creed games have been on a steady path away from stealth ever since the series' first entry. I don't mean that stealth options were stripped out or haven't evolved, but it lagged behind the pace of a more direct approach. While Origins is seen as the major splintering point for the series into a full-blown action RPG, the series' identity crisis can be traced back much further. By the time we got Black Flag, stealth had become so inefficient and inessential that there was hardly a reason to bother with it at all outside of self-imposed challenges.

When the series did pivot into action RPGs, complete with weapon and armor scores, and made the protagonists more and more powerful, I fell off of the franchise. It not that I don't enjoy that style of game, rather that it wasn't what I came to Assassin's Creed for. With Assassin's Creed Shadows Ubisoft finally fixed that power creep problem without stripping those options out of the game. And that's thanks to its two character setup.
Jack of all trades, master of all
What caused me to fall out of favor with Assassin's Creed isn't that the series wanted to give players more options outside of a stealthy approach. Plenty of games proudly boast how they offer players the freedom to play sneaky or go in guns blazing. However, the issue with Assassin's Creed's for me was that one method invalidated the other.