Assassin's Creed Shadows will reboot Assassin's Creed's patchy modern-day story

rockpapershotgun.com:

Put your hand up if you'd forgotten that every Assassin's Creed game is, strictly speaking, set in the present day. I know I had. That's not the actual distant past you're parkouring through. That isn't actual Renaissance architecture you're clambering on. It's a holographic Animus simulation, conjured from ancestral memories flash-frozen within your DNA - convenient, inasmuch as it means that any inconsistencies are your DNA's fault, not Ubisoft's. If the ledge-mantling animations are glitchy, that's simply because you have bad genes.

We can both be forgiven for losing sight of Assassin's Creed's modern day narrative frame. Ubisoft themselves have downplayed it since the era of Desmond Miles, the watery Peter Parker figure who served as puppetmaster protagonist for AC games up to Assassin's Creed 3. In Assassin's Creed Shadows, however, they're planning to bring back the modern day setting in a big way, though details are scanty.

"Ending Desmond's arc was a difficult decision, and afterward, the modern storyline struggled to find its footing," Assassin's Creed franchise boss Marc-Alexis Coté observed last week at a BAFTA event attended by Eurogamer. The series has experimented with a new Animus wielder, Layla Hassan, but Coté feels Ubisoft have failed to weave an impactful and consistent narrative around her, not least because the overarching AC plot of warring Templar and Assassin orders has become a lacklustre hunt for ancient alien McGuffins.

"The continued focus on characters hunting for Isu artefacts made the narrative more predictable," Coté went on, "and reduced the conflict between Templars and Assassins to a straightforward pursuit of control over - let's be honest - magical relics. This shift pulled focus away from what had always been at the heart of the franchise: exploring our history.

"As this approach became repetitive, both players and critics felt the modern day storyline had become a secondary concern, more of a side-quest, rather than an