Hang with Napoleon, Robespierre, and other famous French-folk in Assassin’s Creed Unity

By Will Fulton Published November 17, 2014

The latest trailer in the lead-up to Assassin’s Creed Unity‘s November 11 release introduces some of the actors behind the characters you encounter on your journey through revolutionary France. Fictional assassin protagonist Arno Dorian and his childhood flame-turned-Templar Elise are joined by a diverse lineup of historical personages, including the Marquis de Sade, Robespierre, and Napoleon Bonaparte.

Related: Dark deeds highlight this runthrough of a mission from Assasin’s Creed Unity

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Dan Jeannotte (Arno) and Catherine Bérubé (Elise) share some of their characters’ backstories, such as how their childhood play evolved into adult romance. The actors behind the historical characters talk about what it’s like to put their own spin on such famous figures while Jeannotte elaborates on how Arno’s original story intersects with theirs.

Assassin’s Creed Unity hits PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on November 11.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…

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

How to unlock and use fast travel in Assassin’s Creed Shadows

shadows

The Assassin's Creed games have always been open-world titles that set you loose in a variety of historical locations. Assassin's Creed Shadows is no different, save for the introduction of the long-requested Japanese setting and dual protagonists. While you're earning XP and getting deeper into the game's story, it will become less and less viable to travel by foot or horse between objectives. That's where fast travel comes into play, but the system works slightly differently in this entry than usual. Here's how fast travel works in Assassin's Creed Shadows.
How to use fast travel

The core of the fast travel system in Assassin's Creed Shadows should be familiar to anyone who has played the series before. You will unlock viewpoints at set locations by climbing up to high points and synchronizing to give yourself a fast travel point, but there is another map marker you can use to fast travel as well. A new building called Kakurega are featured in most major towns and villages in the game that need to be unlocked by purchasing them with Mon. Once you do, they provide you with another fast travel point.

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.