Assassin's Creed III Remastered launches March with a healthy golden glow
Taking 'gold edition' a bit literally here
We now know where all the golden haze went from the Director's Cut of Deus Ex: Human Revolution - it was pilfered for use in Assassin's Creed 3 Remastered. Ubisoft have released a trailer for the upcoming polished-up version of arguably the wonkiest of the numbered main Creed games, and while I can't deny it looks nice, it's conspicuously golden. Every before and after shot is a deluge of gilded sunsets and aurous haze. The game launches on March 29th and is included with the Assassin's Creed Odyssey season pass as well as sold separately. See for yourself if it looks good as gold below.
This being Assassin's Creed - a series increasingly well known for its never-ending content - there's a lot to the AC3 Remastered package. On top of polishing up the game, they're including all the DLC, plus remastering Assassin's Creed Liberation, an AC3 spinoff originally released for the Vita. While the brief glimpse we get of it doesn't look quite as hugely upgraded as the main game, it's a nice extra. While I love my Vita and will continue to do so until the day its analogue sticks fall off, it never really did so well in the west, so best to get the game out there and to a wider audience.
I can't deny that - odd colour-correction choices aside - the game does look a lot nicer. Textures are sharper and shadows especially are a lot prettier. The decision to give the game a mostly-graphical makeover still strikes me as an odd one. Assassin's Creed 3 had its issues, but they were mostly in its senseless padding (see Alec Meer's less-than-glowing review here), mission structure, shortage of fun rooftops to bound across and its writing. Ubi have promised improvements to "gameplay and ergonomics", so fingers crossed that they've got some improvements to its mission failure-states worked out.
Assassin's Creed 3 Remastered launches on March 29th. The game will be available standalone, but will be a free bonus for anyone with the Assassin's Creed Odyssey season pass.