Assassin's Creed for Kinect is perhaps one of the most beautiful and famous pranks ever designed for an April Fools' Day prank. That fake trailer works so well because the idea of using your body to climb, fight, stealth kill, and take dizzying leaps of faith is one of the (not-so) secret fantasies of fans of the series. In short, feeling like real killers. Well that day has arrived and this time it is not a joke. Assassin's Creed Nexus VR puts players first-person, literally, in the lives of three Assassins acquaintances of the franchise, namely Ezio, Kassandra and Connor.
However, the true protagonist of the series has always been only one, who has fallen into oblivion over time and has been somewhat mistreated on a narrative level: the Animus. This is the cornerstone on which all of Assassin's Creed is based and without which no one would have been able to live the countless adventures that have accompanied us in recent years. Assassin's Creed Nexus VR is therefore not proposed as a traditional Assassin's Creed spin-off but as a true Animus simulator. Unfortunately, it is inevitable to find some bugs in the code and even Nexus is not a bulletproof product, but it can defend itself well. We immerse ourselves with Meta Quest 2... sorry, with the Animus, in the genetic memories of the three Assassins and In this review of Assassin's Creed Nexus VR we try to tell you about our experience between a leap of faith and a parkour sequence.
The story in the Animus.
Assassin's Creed Nexus VR begins with an opening set in the present day. The player takes on the role of a talented hacker (who chooses his gender at the beginning of the adventure), recruited by Abstergo to help Dominika Wilk, a big shot at the multinational, with some investigations. needless to say the protagonist is actually a mole from the Brotherhood of Assassins, ready to gather information about the enemy and their sinister plans. These moments of the adventure are very suggestive, because they are able to give true meaning to the parts of the game "outside the Animus." There has always been strong controversy among fans about this, and one of the first questions people usually ask when a new Assassin's Creed comes out is how much of the story takes place outside of the genetic simulation.
The story of Assassin's Creed Nexus VR doesn't tell anything really surprising, but Virtual reality manages to give cohesion to narrative moments that in a traditional game would be disjointed and forgettable. Conversations with the Brotherhood take place in an encrypted space in which Meta Quest 2 switches to passthrough mode, thus projecting lines of dialogue and some hacking minigames onto the images of what the headset's cameras see, as if it were a phone call in augmented format. reality. Instead, those with Wilk take place directly inside the Abstergo Cloud, a huge virtual reality space on which the woman's hologram is projected and which then becomes the mission menu.
virtual reality killer
All jokes aside, Assassin's Creed Nexus VR throws the protagonist into the Animus simulation, and things get really interesting from there. It is true that we are talking about the first first-person Assassin's Creed of the franchise, although Stripped down to a minimum, the game is extremely linear and follows in the footsteps of any traditional Assassin's Creed.; in fact, it may be a little more educational than usual. A choice that we did not discuss and that we consider necessary given the debut of the series in virtual reality. We appreciate the map management, which combines the traditional eagle view, recreating a kind of large model of the game area that can be explored with your eyes, improving virtual reality support. In addition to the content related to the main campaign, there is no shortage of collectibles and secondary parkour challenges, which increase the degree of synchronization of the protagonist with the Animus.
Nexus, therefore, is no different from a traditional first-person action adventure for virtual reality, where the experience is governed by three axes: exploration, combat and stealth. Also in this case we are talking about extremely linear activities already seen in many other virtual reality games: hide from the guards, distract them and rob or kill them; sword and bow fights, exploration phases and acrobatic climbing. Describing it like this everything seems very flat and banal, right? But no, because The success of Assassin's Creed Nexus VR lies not in what the player does, but in how they do it.. When in the tutorial they teach us how to extract the hidden leaf we feel a certain excitement, because for the first time it is there, on our wrist. The parkour and climbing phases are full of adrenaline and require momentum (in the sense of approaching the obstacle at high speed) and a bit of skill. The act of faith then, which must be done running towards the void and with open arms, is a beautiful emotion.
Stealth, combat and parkour
The Assassin's Creed Nexus VR campaign, which lasts approximately a dozen hours, organically alternates acrobatic, combat and stealth phases, each of which benefits from the possibilities offered by virtual reality. Stealth is perhaps the most unstable: while there is no doubt that peeking out from behind a corner or cover adds an element of tension to the experience, it is also true that the artificial intelligence of the enemies is not as refined. The guards are very receptive to the sound of footsteps, thrown objects, and the whistle (creating a ring with your fingers and holding it to your mouth will make our assassin whistle), but they seem more visually impaired than usual.
Then there is the whole action part of the game, represented by the fights, which are layered and with a little familiarity offer great satisfaction. Each assassin has slightly different equipment: Ezio fights with a sword and crossbow, Kassandra with a sword and bow, and Connor with a battle ax and bow. There are also throwing knives and smoke bombs in the arsenal and all three characters are equipped with hidden swords, Connor and Ezio have a pair and Kassandra only one. Combat works with a very linear mechanic based on parries and counterattacks, which activate windows of action in which the enemy is exposed. The fun part comes from the possibility of combining different attacks depending on the player's coordination.: You can enter combat with an aerial kill with Hidden Blade, melee one enemy, and finish off another with a ranged weapon.
Finally We come to the parts dedicated to parkour, which are perhaps the most immersive since they require much more attention than in a traditional chapter of the saga.. If you have the platform in your hand, all you have to do is press a button to ask our assassin to run on beams, swing on a pole or slide on a ledge, here the player will have to do it. Therefore, your gaze should always focus a few steps forward, to see the next obstacle or handhold on the path. For someone new to virtual reality it is not a very simple operation, since the tendency is to look down. Bad idea, especially if there is a lot of height below. And for those who suffer from vertigo? Ubisoft thought of that too.
Comfort and accessibility
The real obstacle in the development of Assassin's Creed Nexus VR was undoubtedly combining the traditional gameplay of the series and the fantasies of the players with the comfort factor. How can you create an immersive experience by incorporating action, speed and high altitudes into a virtual reality game? Playing Assassin's Creed Nexus VR you can clearly perceive the reflection made by the development team, which tried Provide as many options as possible to customize the gaming experience.. From the most striking to the most detailed options, Nexus can be played either sitting or standing, with free movement or teleportation, with free view or instantaneous (in-place rotation that occurs with an instantaneous movement of the camera). You can activate vignetting and choose its width; You can also configure the shadow of the nose, which creates a black mark on the screen simulating its position (an option that helps focus the eye on the center of the frame). The only flaw here is the speed of using teleportation, extremely slower than free movement. There is a noticeable heaviness in the processing of scenarios using this navigation mode, which pushes the player to prefer the other option.
However, the option designed for those who are afraid, or in some cases even afraid, of heights is very interesting. The Internet is full of videos of people feeling or hurting themselves with headphones, and the most common accidents are hitting objects or losing balance due to dizziness (the suspended walkway simulator has claimed many victims). For this in Assassin's Creed Nexus VR A true virtual safety network designed to manage heights has been implemented.. If activated, a grid is projected on the screen indicating the position of the floor, to mitigate the feeling of emptiness and inform the player of the true depth of the room.
Even in the accessibility aspect, the game has numerous options, including the non-obvious presence of understandable and non-obtrusive subtitles. Normally, in virtual reality games, lines of dialogue are particularly difficult, especially if they do not move in perfect synchronization with the movement of the player's gaze. The Nexus ones, on the other hand, are pleasant, visible but not intrusive. Unfortunately, the big missed opportunity is the game menu, elegant and functional but with submenu texts that sometimes become almost illegible due to the transparency of the screen.
Game mechanics and optimization.
By now in the review you will have understood: for an Assassin's Creed fan, this Nexus VR is an exhilarating experience. However, the simulation is not always able to contain the player's enthusiasm. The biggest flaw, but also Ubisoft's great achievement, is optimization. Nexus is a rich and ambitious game that requires a lot of computing power, and to be able to play it on Meta Quest 2, the developer had to make a long list of concessions and in some cases it's a shame. Some objects have completely wrong physics compared to their real counterparts (for example, plates that have the same weight as stones), water is completely lacking, it simply looks like a transparent solid that does not react in any way if touched, and the textures are a bit flat.
During our test there were no shortage of very annoying bugs., especially in the acrobatic phases. On the other hand, however, the impact felt when hitting passers-by is realistic and with free movement the game is fluid. Nexus really pushes Meta Quest 2 to its limits, and as mentioned, it's both a flaw and an asset - there are a few bitter pills to swallow, but at least Ubisoft has pulled off a minor miracle by putting a game like this together. Of course, if it had been native PlayStation VR2 it would have been a completely different matter.
Conclusions
Holygamerz.com 8.0 Readers (20) 7.7 your voteAssassin's Creed Nexus VR is the dream of every fan of the series, making anyone who uses a virtual reality headset a real assassin. The narrative interludes are reinforced by the virtual reality platform, finding a dignity now forgotten in the classic chapters of the franchise. The exciting thing, however, is to literally experience first-hand fragments of the lives of Ezio, Connor and Kassandra, giving free rein to the fantasies of fans of the saga. If the stealth phases are a little weak, the combat is satisfying and the parkour immersive and exciting. The thrill of performing some of the saga's most iconic moves, such as the hidden sword assassination and the leap of faith, is priceless. The price to pay is the technical commitment, because Assassin's Creed Nexus VR is a demanding game from all points of view, including the software. In Meta Quest 2 you can play it, but you constantly feel the limitations of the platform.
PRO
- First Assassin's Creed in first person
- Become a killer for a day
- L'animus protagonist
AGAINST
- You can feel the technical commitment.
- Not fault free
