Assassin's Creed. From PacMan to Hitman - Stealth in games

In hindsight, it's hard not to consider the original Assassin's Creed as a sort of a technological demo. Not everything worked. By the end of the game, it was rather boring, the plot was like... well... it didn't match the grandiosity of the very concept of the game. Missions were very repeatable. But as a prototype, the game contributed a lot to the genre.

Gameplay stood in the cut between action-adventure and stealth. If the number of opponents allowed it, we had the tools to take them headlong – if not, we could just flee to the rooftops and hide in the crowds. Ah, right, the roofs! Roofs and medieval parkour. We ran swiftly, like a deer, leaping from great heights to avert the pursuit and disappear, unnoticed. Back then, it all was damn impressive. Moreover, the game was set in an open world, giving us large cities with unique, spectacular architecture. This game was the proving ground, where the concept of stealth in sandbox flourished.

The mechanics of blending in the crowd and running until we lose the tail also added to the game's atmosphere and freshness. And if the original fell short in some aspects, all these blemishes were addressed in Assassin's Creed II – a complete game by any measure, exciting and powerful, this was the installment that really spurred the unrelenting popularity of the franchise, which prevails to this day. Assassin's Creed threw stealth into an open world long before Hideo Kojima did it in Metal Gear Solid 5 (regardless of whether he'd planned that already with MGS3).

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