Assassins Creed Unity - Exciting

I have been watching the trailers released at E3 and I'm really quite excited about the new Assassins Creed game coming out later this year.

I have to confess that I boycotted the last one - Black Flag - completely. Assassins Creed 3 was, to be frank, a disaster and when they announced the next one would include pirates my respect for the franchise vanished through the floor. It was clearly an attempt to garner mass appeal after the disaster of 3 and I was not wasting money on that. Perhaps, I'll pick it up cheap at one point, but I was not going to be queuing for it on release.

Anyway, back to Unity. It looks, at first glimpse, to be a return to form for the franchise. Emphasis is being placed back onto stealth with the combat being made harder. One of the main issues with 3, in my opinion, is that combat was so easy that gameplay generally came down to hacking and slashing through dozens of enemies rather than sneaking around or using your assassin tricks. The free running element, also broken in 3, is reported to have been fixed, but I have yet to see actual evidence of this, so I'll reserve my comments here for a later date.

With so little information, I can't really comment on the new protagonist, as yet, Arno. Connor's issue in 3 was an almost complete lack of personality, and I can't really judge on Arno's personality from a profile but the setting of the French revolution is promising. In 3 the rather boring and low height architecture of America didn't really lend itself well to an Assassin's Creed game and stifled the free running element. In Unity it looks like a return to majestic cities of the type of Rome and Florence in 2 and brotherhood, with much more character and opportunity for up high action.

Overall, I'm quite excited with this title, but i'm still holding on to a little caution. It's too early to label this a success and the proof will be in the playing, but I'm optimistic that I may well get back one of my favourite game series that I had lost faith in. Here's hoping.