Well, say whatever you like about this franchise bleeding itself dry, or the bugs with the last releases, but I'm not here for that. Check out the class anger in this trailer!
Transcript:
It’s a bloody marvellous time to be alive.
An age of invention.
So many clever blokes dreaming up impossible machines.
Sorting away more gold than Queen Victoria herself.
But none of those schillings ever make it into the pockets of the poor devils whose blood is spilt building this glorious empire.
Teh working class sleep walks through life uinaware of the machine that drives them
Let’s wake them up then shall we?
From the press release:
Developed by Ubisoft Quebec in collaboration with eight other Ubisoft studios*, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is an epic single player experience set in London during the height of the Industrial Revolution, an incredible age of invention that transforms the lives of millions. During this time, the gap between the poor and the rich expands exponentially, making workers’ lives little more than legalised slavery. The lower classes fight for survival by forming a new kind of family – gangs – and adapting to life in the criminal underworld. Players will embody both Jacob Frye and Evie Frye, twin Assassins raised to follow the Creed. Jacob, a determined, hot-headed and rebellious leader of an underground gang, is vastly different than his sister Evie, a master of stealth and control. Together, Jacob and Evie team up to challenge rivals, plutocrats and Templars alike to free the masses from poverty and corruption, and, ultimately, wrestle back control of London.
In Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, players explore the largest, most modern open-world city ever created in an Assassin’s Creed game. The fighting is more brutal than ever, as players combat rival gangs and grow their sphere of influence throughout London using new weapons, including brass knuckles, a kukri knife, a revolver and the Assassin’s gauntlet. Assassin’s Creed Syndicate also includes innovative navigation and transportation throughout the open world, including a rope launcher for scaling tall Victorian buildings, zip-lining from rooftop to rooftop or performing aerial assassinations, and horse-drawn carriages and high-speed trains for free-running, tracking down enemies or escaping after daring raids.
First Thoughts
It's nice to see something in set in England focusing on the working class for a change. Especially when not developed by British people, anglophiles are given quite a DR Who estuary accented idea of people here by the media. Whilst Britain isn't for the most part as 'gritty' as our own media tends to show, in general we prefer this kind of real and cynical angle. I'm also excited to see if there are any more steampunk elements within this. Just because I love that stuff, and playing with something like fast moving trains already seems fun.
I was a little put off by the caption about "clever blokes". Obviously there was little in the way of career for most women, but many great inventions and academic philosophies throughout the past involved great women too. Marie Curie was working in Poland at this time. Many of the suffragettes were born into this time. and Nelly Bly made it around the world in 72 days. They just often were not acknowledged. That said, most things were clearly male-dominated and the Victorian patriarchy somewhat laid down the foundation of modern patriarchy. And most of the women in Victorian Era were struggling to become doctors at all rather than innovators in the field.
I think possibly they just wanted to include a British working class word like "bloke" into their trailer.
On the other hand, in this instalment you can play as a male or a female character. As these are set characters like the previous games, its possible that the stories will play out differently for each and it be worth playing twice, but we shall have to see. There is gender stereotyping in terms of which have which attributes, but obviously changing the gameplay slightly makes it more re-playable, and plenty of women (and others) do like to play characters with 'feminine' attributes, so that isn't automatically a bad thing. It just adds to the pile. Personally I like playing stealth characters and as a female or genderqueer character, so she hold the most interest to me on both levels. Often in AC, through the histories, you learn a lot about working class women during these eras, for example courtesans and sex workers. I hope to see women amongst the crowds and gangs other than the one I am playing. I will be overjoyed if any female revolutionary characters are based on real life people.
I am most curious about the class element referred to in this, but I am not entirely convinced by its revolutionary potential. I do quite like how brutally it cracks open what life was like, and advocates working outside of the law to achieve things, as many of the previous episodes do. But I don't expect much more. This is mostly as the characters are described as gang members rather than an organised working class. It is common in games and other media to present revolution as a change in government, usually getting rid of a tyrannical government which gained its placed underhandedly, and replacing it with the "true rulers" who were usurped. Very autocratic in fact.
Also, because typically AC sticks within a narrow historical framework of what really happened. (It is actually quite a good learning aid.) I don't recall a radical revolution at this time in England. So I can presume that they are aiming to throw out corrupting elements of the ogliarchy rather than overthrow the whole government. Probably we are looking at something which changed democracy, such as the introduction of Peelites and Liberals into government or the Great Reform Bill. Many of the bigger movements of the time which affected the UK were from India and Ireland, and various other imperial pursuits of the ruling class. I expect to see some of the 1866 uprising perhaps, and maybe an insight into the Fabian Society, Some stuff to do with individual radicals (anti war, atheist, communist, anarchist) if I am very lucky, and probably a load of Jack the Ripper references just because. Most of the rights for the working class were won after this point in history. There were, however, prison revolts, and I expect some aspects of terrorism at the time will be woven into the plot. I'm not sure exactly what the final wins will involve. But with the gap between the rich and the poor, and the child poverty levels rising in ways which stagger those in Victorian London, I look forward to finding out!
At a time where crowds of the working class hate each other and their own welfare system, but go out to welcome the royal baby, maybe playing a game where we are standing together and killing off the bourgeoisie will wake up a few.
