The first previews of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag have been released. Long story short, you’ll be playing as Edward Kenway, grandfather of Assassin’s Creed III‘s star, Connor Kenway. The setting is 1715, roughly 50 years before Connor’s story really gets started. The story will take place through cities: Havana, Cuba, Kingston, Jamaica, and Nassau, Bahamas. But, naturally, you’ll be exploring other areas, including Mayan ruins and even the ocean depths where you’ll brave shark attacks to dive for hidden treasure. Naval battles return with a new option to send hooks into the enemy ships, letting you run across to fight hand to hand. Historical luminaries like Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, Charles Vane, and others will make appearances. Despite the fantastical “history” of pirates in modern media, Ubisoft intends to treat the story with same level of historical accuracy and respect shown to other eras in the series. In the modern-day front, the December 2012 prophecy remains closed and Desmond will not be appearing. How that affects your ancestral experience at Abstergo Entertainment hasn’t been made clear, but will likely work similar to ACIII: Liberation‘s treatment. The game has been confirmed for October 29th on XBox 360, PS3, and WiiU. A PS4 (and, presumably neXtBox) version was also confirmed but not with a solid date.
Last week’s VGQH reported that Square Enix had trademarked the name Deus Ex: Human Defiance, but it was unclear just what that would be. Since then, two domain names have been locked up by CBS Films, deusex-humandefiance.com and deusexhumandefiancefilm.com. This indicates we’re looking at the movie tie-in, not the next game.
Despite being ridiculous, Sony has apparently no given up on the Wonderbook. The next release, Wonderbook: Diggs Nightcrawler, will be coming in May. It is being developed by Moonbot Studios and is noir inspired story of Diggs taking on the three little pigs, actually “a group of highly disorganized police officials in Library City.” Keep trying Sony, maybe your half-assed peripherals will catch on some day.
It’s been far too long since we’ve seen a decent video game featuring shelled amphibians with martial arts training. Activision is looking to right this error later this year when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is released on PSN and XBLA. Inspired by the current Nickelodeon cartoon series, the four artistically named turtles are returning to gaming, weapons in hand, in a downloadable action brawler. Few details are known at the moment, but any return to turtle beat ’em up action has got to be good news. Current release is set for “Summer 2013.” Arse-bot has more details and a trailer.
Today’s update to the PlayStation Plus Instant Game Collection will bring Spec Ops: The Line for free. Many people skipped this title, remembering the bargain bin days of the franchise’s past on PSOne. This return is loosely based on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and comes with an emotional depth that was completely unexpected. Other updates to the PS+ membership this month (but not today) will add Joe Danger 2: The Movie, Ron Giblert’s The Cave, Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention (Vita), and Tekken 6 (PSP, Vita) to the IGC. A 20% discount for Bit.Trip’s Runner 2 is also on deck, in addition to the PS Vita anniversary sale.
Disappointing sales of Dead Space 3 has led EA to cancel the next title, Dead Space 4, despite already being in early development. This information comes along with details about troubled development on the recently released third title. Apparently EA cut the budget multiple times and Visceral was forced to make changes to the game’s ammo system in order to better utilize microtransactions (an addition that did not sit well with consumers). First week sales of Dead Space 3 were 26.6% lower than Dead Space 2 and it has continually slid down the charts post-launch. It’s possible the fourth game could begin development again, after EA has determined its focus for the franchise. The shift from survival horror to an action title (an attempt to reach a broader audience) also alienated some long time fans.
That’s it for this week’s early edition. Check back on Friday for the rest of the top stories in gaming this week.