The modern-day Animus user in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag appears to be You, The Player; the present-day sections are in first-person, and nobody uses gendered language when referring to you, and you never see your character's skin or hear their voice. You're hired by Abstergo to go through Edward's memories, presumably for some sort of sinister purpose, and you get a little brochure saying 'hey, Abstergo's the best company ever and definitely not a front for an ancient evil order, and we're really excited about working with you! You're going to lead us into the future!'
And - I swear this is true - it made my impostor syndrome kick in. It took me a moment to realise my sudden bizarre distress was coming from a sense of 'oh, no, I'm not good enough to work for this evil corporation!'
(This shift in framing device presumably means Shaun Hastings is no longer writing the database entries. I am heartbroken.)
I've only just started Black Flag, so I don't have a huge amount to say about it yet, but I cracked up at the optional objective in an early mission. You've infiltrated a Templar meeting (practically by accident), they think you're one of them, and you're given the opportunity to pickpocket everyone there while they're standing around and talking. It's just so cheeky!
In previous Assassin's Creed games, I'd try to avoid pickpocketing people and chasing down couriers and killing guards unnecessarily. I'm a lot more relaxed about it when I'm playing as Edward Kenway. The first thing we see him do is kill a man and steal his clothes, after all. Altaïr killed people out of duty; Ezio killed people in an effort to improve society; Connor killed people to protect the people he cared about. Edward kills people because, hey, his life's a little more comfortable if they're dead.
It's interesting to think about how the character I'm playing as changes my playstyle. It's not just 'the more amoral a character I'm playing as, the more comfortable I am with theft and murder'. I'd generally at least try to be stealthy as Ezio, even though I'm terrible at stealth. As Connor, who's more straightforward and hates deceit (I was really confused by his 'trick the enemy by flying the British flag' plan towards the end of the game, because it didn't fit with my understanding of his character at all), I almost always fought in the open. You do have to try to get into the mindset of the character you're playing, I think. (This is probably part of the reason I've never played more than a few minutes of Grand Theft Auto V, even though I loved Red Dead Redemption. I... I don't want to get into Trevor's mindset.)
And - I swear this is true - it made my impostor syndrome kick in. It took me a moment to realise my sudden bizarre distress was coming from a sense of 'oh, no, I'm not good enough to work for this evil corporation!'
(This shift in framing device presumably means Shaun Hastings is no longer writing the database entries. I am heartbroken.)
I've only just started Black Flag, so I don't have a huge amount to say about it yet, but I cracked up at the optional objective in an early mission. You've infiltrated a Templar meeting (practically by accident), they think you're one of them, and you're given the opportunity to pickpocket everyone there while they're standing around and talking. It's just so cheeky!
In previous Assassin's Creed games, I'd try to avoid pickpocketing people and chasing down couriers and killing guards unnecessarily. I'm a lot more relaxed about it when I'm playing as Edward Kenway. The first thing we see him do is kill a man and steal his clothes, after all. Altaïr killed people out of duty; Ezio killed people in an effort to improve society; Connor killed people to protect the people he cared about. Edward kills people because, hey, his life's a little more comfortable if they're dead.
It's interesting to think about how the character I'm playing as changes my playstyle. It's not just 'the more amoral a character I'm playing as, the more comfortable I am with theft and murder'. I'd generally at least try to be stealthy as Ezio, even though I'm terrible at stealth. As Connor, who's more straightforward and hates deceit (I was really confused by his 'trick the enemy by flying the British flag' plan towards the end of the game, because it didn't fit with my understanding of his character at all), I almost always fought in the open. You do have to try to get into the mindset of the character you're playing, I think. (This is probably part of the reason I've never played more than a few minutes of Grand Theft Auto V, even though I loved Red Dead Redemption. I... I don't want to get into Trevor's mindset.)
