Leaks have become somewhat expected in the marketplace in this day and age. Some gamers are firmly against learning anything before the game release, others want to gain knowledge on any facet of the game they can: I fall somewhere between those two extremes. I steal glances at online leaks regarding games I am personally anticipating and today’s news falls right into that category. The official achievements have been leaked for Assassin’s Creed III and for those who are interested in extrapolating what they can from them, new possibilities are opened within the game.
One of the underlying stories within the Assassin’s Creed franchise is Desmond Mile’s present day adventure. It appears that some of the new achievements will have new opportunities to explore with Desmond. The secret achievement Daddy Dearest (20) and Criss Cross (20) are awarded for exploring a present day stadium and skyscraper respectively. I really enjoyed the aspects of Assassin’s Creed II where I controlled Desmond and was free to explore, even though they were somewhat rare. The first-person platforming with Desmond in Revelations was ill conceived in my opinion. There could have been much better platforming puzzles while staying within the third person view. I firmly hope that these exploring achievements are awarded for exploration through the stadium and skyscraper environments with the usual third-person view. However, I love the prospect of exploring in the present day and scaling modern day architecture.
A group of achievements that are interrelated within ACIII are in relation to the Homestead. Similar to how you could decorate Monteriggioni within ACII, there are a handful of acheivements for decorating and populating your manor within ACIII. Patent Not Pending (10) is awarded for decorating your Manor with one of Benjamin Franklin’s inventions, House Party (10) is awarded for recruiting any of the artisans and see them settled in the Homestead – additionally, A Complete Set (20) is awarded for seeing all of the optional characters settled in the Homestead, and Original Gamer (20) which is awarded for winning a game of Fanorona, Morris and Bowls on the Homestead. I have no idea what these mini games even mean, but I instantly thought of the random games you could play within Red Dead Redemption: games that are entertaining, but do not add anything to the campaign. From the low point values, I am assuming these achievements will either be very simple, or easily attainable by just progressing through the campaign mode.
The last little group of achievements that ingtrigued me are the ones relating to multiplayer. I am pretty firmly against achievements being granted for online gameplay. I do not like how randomly specific some online achievements are and how a player can’t focus on attaining them. These ACIII achievements are not too bad in terms of how randomly specific they are: Abstergo Entertainment (20) – reach a level 20 in multiplayer mode, Hunter/Killer (20) – reach sequence 10 in a map on Wolfpack multiplayer mode, Winning Team (20) – be on the winning team at the end of the a multiplayer session, and Personalized (10) – customize your multiplayer profile and character. For the most part, I think these are landmarks in the game a player would pass naturally through the course of online gameplay, which in my opinion adds an incentive to continue playing the online multiplayer mode. The single player campaign and story has always been my favorite portion of the AC franchises, even after the inception of multiplayer, but as bad as it may sound, the extra 70 gamerscore will be enough for me to delve into multiplayer more.
The achievement list in its entirety can be seen below. The three groups of achievements mentioned above are the ones that caught my eyes the most. I am exremely excited to see how each one is specifically unlocked once ACIII drops on October 3o in North America.
