Hello Everyone, The following is a discussion piece on the disguise/persona/outfit system in the 2012 PS VITA game Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation developed by Ubisoft Montreal, Sofia and Milan and has been remastered for 7 and 8th gen. We will begin with a brief intro to the game, look at how the suits work, their positives and negatives and how I would suggest the suits be improved if this concept was ever tried again. I assume you're already familiar with the Assassin's Creed Franchise but I will still try to make my points understandable to a wider audience
To summarize my points quickly, the Assassin suit is too versatile while the others don't offer enough interesting gameplay or opportunities to take advantage of or stand out.
With that said, let's get started:
Running on AC3's AnvilNext Engine, the game plays as a diet version of The Main Assassin's Creed 3 but with a few extra differences like a different protagonist (Aveline de Grandprie, an Assassin of French and African Decent with a goal to help slaves), setting (late 18th-century Louisiana after the 7 Years War) and the topic for discussion, a disguise system where the player can wear an outfit that changes how they can operate.
While the game was decent overall, I feel its new mechanic wasn't really as great as it could be. It ended up being a gimmick rather than an interesting tool or addition to facilitate new strategies and tactics for play.
To summarize, the player in the game can wear one of 3 outfits from changing points scattered throughout the maps, each with their own pros and cons. The Assassin suits gives the player all their tools and abilities (as well as a "mark and execute" move similar to Splinter Cell Conviction) at the cost of always having at least minimal notoriety (so guards will always be suspicious at least whenever they see the player) and being unable to blend in with any groups or hide with crowds. The Slave outfit restricts the player's gear to hidden or easily disguised common stuff like small knives and gains notoriety quickly when climbing but allows the player to blend in with select groups and crowds. The Final outfit, The Lady, takes away the Player's ability to run and climb, all weapons and tools except for the hidden blades and poison umbrella but as positives, slows notoriety gain and allows the player to charm some guards onto the player's side to fight opponents or to turn a blind eye to your actions.
Let's start with the positives of the current system, it's cool on paper and gives the player 3 minor avenues of progression (especially with side quests). It would allow players to specialize in a particular approach and prevent players from being so OP and loaded that they can't be challenged like prior AC Games as well as encouraging the player to swap their approach. It can increase replayability as well as encourage players to better plan their approach. It also makes the gameplay line up more with the story because Aveline isn't armed to the teeth or dressed like a slave during aristocratic events and vice versa (A common "Mario breaks bricks with his head but dies when touching a turtle" style complaint about the prior games).
Now let's look at the negatives.
The lady suit does not compliment the game. Firstly, imagine playing GTA and you have a suit that lowers your ability to get a wanted level but you can't use vehicles. The lady can't run or climb so navigating the city is very tedious and uninteresting. In addition, 2 of the 3 maps, don't have anything for the lady to use as they are all parkour based due to being set in a bayou and rainforest (not to mention having few to no changing stations). The combat limitations aren't really limits because the player can counter and chain kill everything with no difficulty and take little damage from attacks. This was always a problem with the pre-Unity Combat. All your weapons are equally OP so taking away one or 3 doesn't lower your effectiveness (consequently this also makes similar sections in past and future games like AC4's diving sections lack the tension and effect they should have). So charming guards for combat is redundant. So all the lady has left is being able to charm guards for stealth, which far less practical than sneaking past or parkouring over, and use her poison umbrella in public, while the other outfits have a blowdart the player can use just as well and in more situations.
The Slave suit fares a bit better for stealth on the streets but isn't really all that useful because opportunities to blend in are few and far between (Unlike prior games with already shallow social stealth mechanics, Liberation makes it so the Slave can only blend in with preassigned groups and crates as opposed to any group of people). Especially in the Bayou where you're better off just wearing the assassin suit. As for fewer weapons, they don't really matter given the combat system. The suit doesn't even work well as a harder difficulty option.
By the way, there is a nice post on the blog of the eponymous Stanislav Costiuc,
a game designer who for several years has been employed by Ubisoft (not
on Assassin's Creed). I'd recommend reading it- he has several interesting
arguments against the idea that social stealth was better in the old games.
One of them, for example, is that groups of people function exactly the
same way as stalking zones and bushes in the newer ones, being ways of
breaking line of sight with enemies. Another is that many of the older
games' apparent social stealth systems are instead designed to bypass the
social aspect entirely, such as distracting guards with one of the factions.
He does acknowledge that there are some examples of true social stealth
gameplay, such as throwing coins to disrupt the system (which hides the
player by making everyone else act in a socially unacceptable way), but
argues too that they still leave much to be desired.
https://stanislavcostiuc.com/2016/08/28/why-assassins-creed-series-isnt-social-stealth-and-what-to-do-about-that/
I'd love to see ideas from that incorporated into the suits.
The Assassin suit, with its guns, ends up being the best choice with very little reason to pick the other suits. The notoriety penalty is easy enough to deal with and swapping to the slave suit where needed for a bit is possible but doesn't really feel like a major tactical decision. This means the suits feel like a gimmick rather than an element you need to consider and plan around.
Other problems include the structure of the story. Since it's taking AC2's story-based design over AC1 or Unity's mission-based design, the player can't really plan a strategy and act on it. They'll likely take the assassin or occasionally slave outfits as they are multipurpose.
Now, I don't blame the devs for the shortcomings. They just made a new engine and a new style of game and made a spin-off using that on a new handheld system. The fact that Liberation works as well as it does is very likely a huge undertaking. In the grand scheme of things, this was probably the best they could have done with the disguise system given the circumstances. I imagine if Liberation had been a major console title with fewer constraints and more resources the system might have been more fleshed out.
With that said, I still think this idea has potential. if I were to design an Assassin's Creed Game with the persona idea on current tech, how would I do it? It isn't impossible given the performance of modern tech and games like Hitman show it's not out of reach.
Firstly, it's important that such a feature be made first and the game is built around it rather than taking the established formula and putting the mechanic on top. It needs to be the latter to allow the mechanic to interact with all aspects. It shouldn't be a gimmick but a core feature that influences all aspects.
Now, the game's structure would probably need to be closer to AC1 and Unity. Being able to collect info and plan means the player has the info to decide if another suit may be necessary and using the suits themselves to collect info. The map would also need to be a dense urban environment rather than have entire regions dedicated for parkour. This means even the lady suit with its limited movement always has an avenue of attack and the slave outfit constantly has enough civilians around to blend in. This also means the downside of the Assassin outfit, the increased notoriety, now becomes a more present threat.
Combat should be closer to that of Unity's (I'd argue Odyessy's combat is the best overall but Unity's might be better suited for this job). It needs to be tough enough where it's possible to be overwhelmed and worth avoiding but fun enough to engage in if needs be. The end result needs to be something where Slave and Lady taking away weapons and tools needs to be a serious detriment worth considering rather than a mild change.
Stealth needs a major overhaul. The later games have done a good job on the typical Line of Sight Based stealth. But there should be more ways to interact with the world as different personas. Perhaps the slave can start a mini-uprising with other slaves to provide a distraction, bribe others, allow themselves to be captured to access other areas etc. The blog linked above should provide more ideas for that.
The lady suit should allow the player to gain access to hidden areas in the upper class and make some chaos accordingly. Perhaps the player can untie a chandelier, poison drinks and not look suspicious, charm guards into doing many of the deeds and crimes they'd have to do themselves, forge letters and documents and use them to manipulate others and acquire info etc. Basically, Using The Lady Suit should feel similar to playing HITMAN. With this, to adjust my earlier GTA example, imagine if that GTA game has missions where the player frequently infiltrates police hideouts. Now the wanted star removal suit with no vehicles has more utility.
The Assassin suit needs more drawbacks to make the other suits more valuable. For example, the player is always pursued by bounty hunters when in the Assassin suit (Revealtaions had a cool idea where after a public fight the player may end up getting caught by a spy in the crowd who may stab the player if they don't react fast enough. That could be worth expanding on), spending a long amount of time as an Assassin will have civilians recognizing you on sight and reporting you instantly to guards.
As for progression, Unity and Odyessy's RPG systems are worth looking at. Because now that combat is risky and challenging, Liberation's current system of "having all the skills and where buying stuff is worthless" no longer works, if it ever did. I have 2 ideas for skills. The first is a system where each suit has its own specific progression system and you get points and the like by using the suits. Like Splinter Cell Blacklist, if you use the Lady Suit, you get the means to unlock perks and abilities related to what the lady would use. Using the Assassin suit gives you more combat abilities etc. The benefit here is increased replayability, and a better understanding of what and how to upgrade since you're experiencing all the suits' functionality before expanding them. The second a general "you get exp for doing whatever and put them into whatever" like Unity and Ody did. So the player can do missions in the Assassin suit and put the EXP gained into the Slave suit and vice versa. The value here is players can use this to buff suits they aren't immediately using rather than grind them out or have to play with a more limited set at first, especially if they've been neglecting a particular suit. Personally, I'm leaning on the former but I understand the latter may be more flexible and accessible. I wonder if a difficulty option can allow both systems to be options the player can opt into? The player should also be able to buy gear and upgrades and they should also be given out for certain missions. Crafting and their materials could also be strewn around to reward exploration and thoroughness and provide another path for progression. Under this system, it's actually worthwhile to do side content beyond their immediate quality as they can award EXP, materials and gear to make the player stronger in a way they can actually use. Especially if enemies level up and get more powerful. Now, even the trading sub-activity from 3 and Liberation has value as a means of generating money the player can influence. As for cosmetics and visual customization that doesn't effect gameplay, there are 2 approaches, One is like Ody's system where the player can swap to and wear whatever they like regardless of what's actually equipped. I think this is worthwhile because of what everything else can cost, players can focus on spending there rather than dividing their funds on both. Or if we need a sink for player money they could be made purchasable like older AC Games. The player should be able to buy property, Liberation's system already provides a good reason for its existence over its predecessors, they can provide more changing stations and even double as Fast Travel points as well as being a good money sink. I also imagine Quests tied to them like Vice City and they can generate income and resources for trading and crafting.
One idea is that notoriety should also be based on a cooldown or missions so the player has to wait out the penalty instead of being able to instantly undo it by removing a few posters or bribing/killing a few people (AC3 had a version of this idea but for Assassin recruits who were injured). Perhaps a high notoriety may even prevent the player from accessing certain vendors or have to pay higher prices or even prevent access to certain missions. This would encourage swapping to other suits to keep the heat down. In fact, correctly juggling suit usage could be made the focus, with side quests being a way to spend time with low heat suits to allow time to pass for high heat suits. The Racing Game Need for Speed Most Wanted 2005 had a system like this where cars you'd drive would rack up a higher notoriety as you drove and if you wanted to limit and reduce it, you'd have to swap to another car for a while. But unlike NFSMW, I don't think adjusting your suit's cosmetics (like dying the suit a different colour, wearing a different version of the same suit etc) should lower notoriety as that would take away from swapping the suits themselves and makes it easier to rely on a single suit which limits gameplay.
Another more radical idea (or more of a thought experiment) is to make the personas a customizable spectrum. So the player starts out on a blank slate and can add or subtract whatever elements and in the end receive the appropriate position. So if I add heavy armour and weapons, I can't move or run or sneak as well but are great in a fight. Conversely, if I remove all my weapons and wear rags, I can pass off as a beggar and use that to infiltrate places. But that might be too much of a departure from Liberation's set up.
As for Multiplayer, I would suggest it not be included as it would be too tough to manage and balance, not to mention hurt overall exploration if anyone ever takes the Lady Suit. But I do suppose it's possible to do Unity's Co-op missions and make some adaptations to allow multiple players to tackle them with different playstyles.
With that said, here's how I feel a typical Sequence may go down:
The player would start at their HQ and be told a rich aristocrat is having a party and must be eliminated. The player could immediately run and attempt an Assassination, or they could see that a bunch of investigation missions opened up. They could do these which involve various tests of gameplay like eavesdropping, pickpocketing, conversing etc as well as few side activities by swapping through their suits. Once they have enough, they start the assassination and realize they made their Assassin and Slave outfits have too much notoriety. But they know this party's plan. So they swap to the Lady outfit and use that to avoid guard patrols and mingle in the party as a guest then poison the target's cup or something. Then as the target dies, they get the typical Assassin's Creed confession, then the player escapes by pretending to be as shocked as everyone else.
I feel this setup would be cool because it would follow up on all those positives I listed above earlier. I can imagine a replay may involve the player using the target's slaves as cover to get into the party from another angle or using the Assassin suit to play it more typically.
There are some negatives I feel from this approach, the narrative and accessibility
There's a reason why HITMAN's narratives aren't generally regarded as amazing, their very structure doesn't allow for a clean telling and acts that films and most AAA games go for. HITMAN 2 tries with specific sequences and cutscenes but I feel they are too detached at times from what you're doing. That's why Absolution is the way it is. It's the only way the HITMAN games of telling a traditional story. Assassin's Creed 1 and Unity also suffered from this though Unity wasn't even firing on all cylinders to begin with.
With that said, I feel my hypothetical game should embrace that as well as the animus for its attempts at narrative. Liberation as is has a feature where you're playing the game as developed by Abstergo (literally the premise is you the player are playing Assassin's Creed 3 Liberation on your PSVITA developed in collaboration by Abstergo and Ubisoft. And Abstergo has tweaked the game so you see what they want). The player can kill targets hacked in by Erudito to see what Abstergo removed/changed. Unity also had documents the player could read, AC1 had Atlair's character being developed through conversations and Hitman 2 had its thing, and MGSV had Casette tapes the player could listen to as they played that developed the overall plot and characters. I feel the hypothetical game could take notes from all these and make mini side quests, optional reading and material etc to flesh out and compliment the game through some interesting narratives. Hell, a Codec Like prior MGS games that the player could use in the Animus would go a long way. It may not be as inherently engaging for straightforward as AC2-Ody but I feel it would be the best it could be. Besides, I'm kinda tired of Open World games being basically linear games that just happen to be in an Open World.
With regards to accessibility, I know many players may not like the higher difficulty and requirements the game would require. Which is why I feel there should be an easy mode that significantly reduces the penalties and drawbacks of the suits for players who just want to blaze through it.
