The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

One of the most recent things I've been thinking about is lethality. Most of the time we are facing off against the city guard. corrupt as some of them may be, that can't be the case for all of them in every city. The Assassins are not specifically fighting against the law, though they have little regard for it. The focus should be on killing those who are pulling the strings of the masses, not killing the ordinary men and women who are their pawns.

I have a vision for an Assassin's Creed game where when you do stealth perfectly, almost no-one dies except your target. Sure, maybe you knock a few of them out, and double assassinations of any kind + air assassinates + running assassinates should require your blades. But a normal non-combat "assassination" from any location is a non-lethal choke-out or use of pressure points.

The exceptions to this are when you're assassinating either a target or a heavily armored guard, which is always carried out using a hidden blade.

Obviously people would be apprehensive to this at first, so making sure that non-lethal kills are interesting to look at and have varied and smooth animations is key. Make people still feel rewarded for sneaking up on someone. Pressure point kills have potential to look really cool, and give you the feeling of being someone trained in how to shut down the human body efficiently.

As for ranged weapon kills, the only ranged weapons you have are knockout darts and berserk darts, one type fired from your left hidden blade, and one fired from your right. Berserk darts are in my opinion too powerful right now, and should be changed so that they just make the target run around and create a distraction, not kill anyone or be killed by anyone. On the other side of that, make knockout darts permanent, but decrease their range, as well as the range of sharpshooter guards. (if they are in the game)

This way, the only melee and ranged weapons carried by the Assassin (besides the sword... unless there is no need for a sword in the new combat system) are concealed, allowing them to look less conspicuous.

Lethal rope darts don't really fit into this new approach, and they've now been associated with a certain functionality, so a non-lethal rope-dart-like tool that simply stuns or trips unarmored enemies at a short (but not melee) range would be good to fill that gap.
Maybe a whip, or the chain dart that was cut from AC3. it would not be consumable, and could work as something to make combat more interesting, stunning unarmored enemies and allowing you to do damage to them, like a long range version of batman's cape swoosh from Arkham. It would be inconspicuous, attached to a very thin chain, and quick, so as to avoid making it appear too fantasy, like the artists on AC3 were worried about.

If the combat system were changed to use one button for light, fast attacks, and one for heavy, slow attacks, the sword would be only mapped to heavy attacks, and not the light attack/assassination button. Therefore you COULD kill enemies with swords, but it would always be loud and slower than stealth kills.

More about the combat system later.

I just hope they stop doing all the contextual bullshit. NO, I don't want to climb on that stupid wall. And NO, I don't want to get up the fence. And NO, I do not want to tackle this one guy on the streets. And YES, I want to swing my sword around whenever I want. And YES, I want to be able to grab guards in combat.

And can we please do away with the fifteen-hour long kill animations? Kill the guy, move on. No need to stab his solar plexus five times, shoot him in the left kidney seven times, punch his right kidney, castrate him by pulling your balls off with your teeth and then gouging his eyes out with your left little toe.

^ this.
Very annoying, both.

I'm not too bugged about Edward having long kill animations, but I agree that professional Assassins should be quick and concise. Edward is a pirate, so he'll always be a brutal killer, but not a regular Assassin.

I like the name of the topic, since it doesn't specify any particular future AC game, for example AC5. What the AC series needs the most right now is the next game to be released later than 2014! I would say two years from now, but even that isn't good enough. Make it three years.

I'd doubt that they would hold off on releasing another AC next year, mostly because sales are still going strong. Though I wish they did, they should take the GTA approach with these games, allow the suspense to build, get people excited for the next setting/cities.

For the next big AC game I'm hoping that they bring back some focus on the cities, similar to AC 1, that these 3 cities are the focal points of the game. No more trips to the forests/oceans/other exotic locations, I want to have assassinations back in the cities, with full on social stealth, etcetera. Having 3 major cities the size of Florence/Venice would be ncie, with perhaps 1 or 2 smaller ones similar to San Gimiagno (Or whatever the spelling is).
Perhaps have the cities spread out over multiple countries, this way they don't have to pick a certain continent/country when deciding the next setting and it would provide an opportunity to make the cities visually distinct from one another.
For example, 1 city could be london and another Amsterdam/Paris, though that would be a lot of work probably.

In other words, why do that when you could make more money? I remember it was mentioned on here Ubi promised not to make a game the year after ACB came out. Does anyone remember where they said that?

AC was pretty much founded on the concept of contextual controls. I don't expect them going away, but they could become more intuitive and precise. I would be fine with allowing the player to attack when out of combat, but I don't have any real problem with it just being flourishes.

Edward's kill animations were not really much longer, but they were rough and brutal, which made them seem less efficient. Fit his character, but I really missed Connor's precise kills.

In the combat system, I'd like them to bring back health bars, and allow you to kill enemies with normal strikes instead of requiring you to use an animation or ranged weapon. A system where countering is one button press with no time-stop, and counters are quick animations that do damage, but don't kill unless health is low enough. (like the older systems) One counter should not be enough to kill any enemy, and hanging back and relying on counters should not be a good way to fight. No killstreaks where you automatically get the kill animation, but increased damage if your streak hasn't been interrupted.

Legs and weapon hand = light and heavy attack, light is hidden blades, heavy is sword (Or dagger?), pressing one immediately shifts you into using the other. (with transitionary animations, but nothing that slows down the switching)

So you only have two default melee weapons which you have selected at the same time, switching to fists turns countering into disarm like usual, using fist attacks on enemies with swords results in you taking damage, you can't fight weapons with fists. (as it is you finish a fight with fist-based counter animations)

This gets rid of a lot of useless weapons, allows you to focus more on customizing your hidden blades and sword, and means that the combat designers know what two main weapons you'll have access to at all times and can design for that.

Bring back starting fistfights w/ thugs or civilians, guards won't interfere unless you pull a weapon/are in a restricted area.

And most importantly*: the only reason you should shove an enemy into a wall is because you actually threw them. If not, that should stay out of normal kill animations. Kicking enemies off buildings should only happen if you attack them near a ledge, and if you're in weapon-mode, the animation should involve said weapon, not a kick.

*not actually that important, it just bugs me the way it is now.

They need to bring back the classic lock-on they dropped for AC3 and AC4. I hate having to wait for Edward or Connor to realize there's an enemy nearby before I can actually do anything to them. It's a convenience that's more frustrating than it's worth.

A more direct solution would be to improve Assassin's ability to know when to enter combat stance.

Also, if the Assassin can attack when outside of combat stance, (Only with the sword, since the hidden blades need to work for low-profile animations) the problem will be more or less gone, as the difference between combat and normal stance will be basically cosmetic.

First thing that needs to change is the AI. Make them more smarter, more cleverer. I like the addition of a bell that alerts all guards whenever one of them find his comrade's corpse. Make them start conversations, and when you kill one in mid sentence, that should alert the guard to your area.

Kill animations do need to be GREATLY reduced. I like the addition of a free-aim system. Makes things more balanced.

I was hoping that they'd go for a more RPG feel of the game with experience points and leveling up, similar to Deus Ex. Perhaps they can implement that into the story: Abstergo already alters the contents of their found memories to a mass market. They might as well alter it so that it appeals to gamers...in the AC universe (insert Inception gong).

Also, a consideration of how many weapons/ammo that you carry. More shit to carry = more weight = SLIGHTLY slower free-running animations. Oh, and mission/map editor would be nice - similar to the VR room.

And a more interactive cinema experience. Remember Shadow of the Collosus, where you can slightly move the camera in different directions while a cutscene is taking place? That's what I'm talking about!

Oh, and missions that ALWAYS LEAN to SILENT NON-PROJECTILE KILLS. Here's how it should be set up:
OPTIONAL OBJECTIVE: kill X target without using ANY projectile weapons.
CASH REWARD: $1000
EXTRA CASH: $200, kill without being spotted.

The mission ONLY ends when you leave the restricted zone, so you can't shoot him from a close distance, use explosive barrels, or shank him while you're running towards him. You have to silently kill him, and THEN find a way to get out there quietly.

it would be great if killing/knocking out a guard mid-sentence would alert the dude he was talking to.

The way it works right now, gold is basically XP, and you use it to buy upgrades/consumables for Edward or other things. The system itself can be refined, but I see no reason to mess with that framing.

I would be OK with weight if it was only a factor with your outfit. Choosing tougher outfits that weigh more, and lighter outfits that let you move faster. I'm not thrilled by the idea of bringing less ammo just to get bonuses. If you want players to have less ammo, just make the ammo cap smaller. I don't want to min/max it.

No it's not. Other than the freerunning system (the actual running part, NOT the climbing), there was very little in the way of contextual controls in AC1 or AC2.

I found myself actually shouting: "get a bloody move on" to the screen several times playing AC4 when in combat. That hasn't happened in any other game, and I don't think my patience levels have changed much.

The next AC has to be in China.

And the hand-to-hand combat animations have to be that of Bruce Lee's Jeet Kun Do.

And we all know how fast Bruce Lee was...

You may not think of it as contextual, but the face buttons doing something different depending on if you're pressing the right trigger or are in combat or not is an example of contextual control.

I don't know dude, even back in Altair's day, counter animations have always been pretty long. Knock a guy to the ground, twirl around... and... STAB.

But instead of assuming that I'm right, I'm going to go test it out right now! Will be back with results.

As I suspected, counters take 3-4 seconds in both AC1 and 4, varying on the kind of animations. Only in AC1, enemies can't hit you or be countered when you're in said animation, meaning there's no way to break out of it.
Edward's animations do involve a lot of him wasting time being brutal, but they last just as long as Altair's efficient kills.

This test was just done with me counting out seconds during about 10 animations for each game, but I feel like that's pretty accurate.

Speaking of unskippable annoying things, was greeted by the entire end credits sequence for AC1 after booting it up, and then I loaded into a memory and sat through a five minute Al Mualim speech.

It'd be really great if you can skip dialogue. They did that with Deus Ex.

Most of the non-cutscene dialogue in AC4 was given while you were sailing somewhere or doing something. I can only think of one or two times where you're stopped from moving in-game and made to listen to something.

I didn't know you could skip in-game dialogue in Deus Ex: HR, been a while since I beat it. If they made it work, I'm sure Ubi could look into it.

EDIT: Cutscenes at the end or beginning of a mission were not skippable in AC4. all the other ones were, but I think it would be best to let people skip everything.

I take it Jeet Kun Do translates to "the way of the intercepting fist". China sounds like a great idea. Of course the freerunning and climbing should be like in the movie Onk-bak the Thai Warrior. That kid has some mad vaulting skills!

Did some more messing around in AC4 and AC3. Connor's counter animations are about 2-3 seconds compared to Altair/Edward's 3-4.

I also found out that AC3 and AC4 both have a health system. I got into a fight with one guard, and slowly hit him over and over, without getting into the combo animations. Eventually, a single normal strike killed him. Funny that it's in there even though you'd think that there is no health considering the way normal combat usually goes.

As well, I'm once again reminded of how much I like playing as Connor.

Fair enough. Most occurences of "get a bloody move on, you fuckstick!" were when I saw a dude loading his gun to shoot at Edward, while Edward was busy smashing another dude's metatarsals one by one. Then when he got done smashing, the first dude had loaded his gun and shot Edward in the face for half his health.
So my problem is not necessarily the length of the kill animations (though I think your method is far from accurate, but it'll have to do for now), but the addition of gunmen to the combat system makes them annoying as fuck. A good fix would be to shorten the kill animations, or allowing you to interrupt the kill animation to grab a shield. Do you agree?

Fun, innit? If you go back into the animus and hit a checkpoint the credits won't play anymore, but you'll still have to sit to old-Al blabbering about.

Indeed.

This is not what I mean when I say "contextual", and IMO calling different inputs doing different things "contextual" is a horseshit.

It's not different inputs doing different things, it's the same input doing something different depending on if you're holding the right trigger at the same time, or if you're locked on and not pressing the right trigger, or if you're climbing on a wall, or if you're swimming, ect. All things that were in AC1.

One button does different things in a different context = contextual. Almost every game has some amount of contextual controls, but AC has more than usual because it was intended to be a game that you could understand intuitively.

Hence the head/legs/weaponhand/openhand thing, which in another game would probably have been less vague and more like "attack, grab, talk, jump". But they're not called that because they all have many functions depending on the context.

There is no enemy in the game that can load and shoot a gun in 4 seconds, so it's more that the combat requires you to be more aware of gun-wielding enemies, and maybe even avoid killing a weaker enemy and wait until they try to shoot, then use a human shield. It's always in your best interest to take out the more powerful guys first, which at least makes sense, though it can bring down the flow.

I do feel like AC3 was more conducive to flow, since you were given more time and a more obvious warning about gunshots while in combat. The crowded nature of ship battles can also make it a lot more difficult to be aware of your surroundings.

At this point, the combat needs a radical change. Animations need to be cancelled in more ways at almost any time, and you should be able to react to something like a gun being pulled no matter what you're doing. It should still be about a flow, but it could be a much smoother and less shallow flow.

Also, in AC1, I did go back into the animus and get a checkpoint previously (since I didn't just abandon the game after beating it ) but the whole credits thing just keeps happening to me. I don't know what's causing it.

I vehemently disagree with this definition. Inputs that do different things in different contexts are contextuals. Inputs can be one button, or a combination of buttons. Talking about actions in the game world and then including whether or not you're holding the right trigger in the context is just inconsistent.

That's true. But even though I didn't word that properly, I did offer specific examples of different contexts: being locked on in combat, being out of combat, and climbing on a wall. The same INPUT can do different things in all those contexts.

Rewinding back to the actual thing that got us here, making weapons just do a flourish when out of combat was clearly a change designed to make it harder to kill civilians, since now assassinations are the only attacks that can be initiated outside of combat, those can only be done on targetable NPCs, and the only targetable NPCs are guards.

If the trade-off between being sure that I won't accidentally stab the old lady next to my target is that I can't swing at nothing on rooftops, it makes sense.

However, if the targeting and combat system were made accurate enough that you would never hit a civillian unless you were purposefully trying to, I would of course be glad to have the ability to attack normally outside of combat back. Though some of the flourishes are really cool. Adewale's Machete in the Freedom Cry DLC is probably the best.

Combat does need to be overhauled. Perhaps distancing the camera a bit more, speeding up the killing animations, or whatever...

changing the FOV and animation speed is far from an overhaul.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=It5ZQpJq7_c

I'd love an AC game in Egypt. But then again, I'd also love one in feudal Japan, or China, or the Mongolian empire, or Victorian England, or the French Revolution, or 17th century Holland, or even Viking Scandinavia. As long as they work it out well, I think they can make nearly any setting work.
I was skeptical when they introduced pirates, but IMO they worked it out well and I'm really satisfied with AC4.

China or Japan in no less than two years.

YES! I miss having one blade, but if they made the second one an upgrade rather than an automatically equipped weapon at the start of the games, it would feel better. It would be like having a hand tied behind your back with one blade.

OR maybe just put in an extra hidden blade slot on the D-pad. So we press Up once to get a single blade and Up twice to get double blades after getting the upgrade.

I mean, from a historical standpoint, the material needed to mine the stone/elements must have been easier due to advancements in technology. I like that idea - having the player choose between using either one or 2 hidden blades.

Believe it or not, AC4 was originally gonna have the hook-blade because they didn't want to increase the idea of "hook-handed pirates".

if the gameplay and control is a significant step up + feels new, plus two blades actually play differently than using 1, a significant time of having only one blade would be easier for most people to take.

Here's a new and innovative idea: different ground type and crowd type.

So you know in AC3 and onward, you don't really fall down anymore when you sprint in a crowd? You merely shove them away?

Well, a new addition to the crowd would be a really big guy carrying some sort of cargo on his back or on front of him. That way, when you sprint into him directly, he'll fall down (as well as you), get mad for you breaking his cargo, and began a fist-fight.

How 'bout puddles? If you sprint into them, you might wobble a little bit, or it might get hard to control the direction you're running towards to. If you change direction while ON a puddle, then you'll slip and fall. There could some new, unlock able equipment like rubber boots that nullifies that effect. And in combat, whenever you try and break a guard's defense, the character would flick water at them, stunning them for a sec.

I like the idea of having to change your tactics according to the environment. Also, when it's raining heavily, you slip easier, right?
Stop me if I'm taking this too far, but is it a good idea to use the sun in combat? Think of positioning yourself in a way that your enemies look into the sun and therefore don't counter as effectively?

The sun, eh?

That seams like a great idea. If it's behind you and you're at the top of a roof, guard's SSI should fill up MUCH slower when they look up towards you.

That seems like a bit of tricky work - not sure how that's gonna be implemented, but I want to see it developed, nevertheless...

If they implemented environment tactics it seems more likely they'd be for certain scripted missions instead of all the time, who knows.

What I'd want to see is a better change to cinematic kills. First off there shouldn't be slow motion at the end of every single battle; that just gets old. Instead it should happen less, depending on things like how long the battle lasts or the number of enemies.

Now most other cinematic kills should be reserved for targets, both in the story and for contracts/missions. Remember the AC3 fort demo where the camera angle changed for the air assassination? That's what I'm talking about. Also kills with melee weapons on targets should have a zoomed in camera angle like the assassinations in AC1. And maybe ranged weapons can have a kill cam.

I like the kill cam ideas. Maybe if we used a gun from long-range, we could follow the bullet in slow motion as it reached the target.

I don't like the ideas about the sun being in the eyes of enemies or slipping in puddles. Not that it's not realistic or anything, but they would be annoying on different levels. The sun effect would confuse players' assumptions on how blinded the enemies would be and cause a lot of rage quits for stealth purists. The puddles are fine the way they are already, I feel. You just run through them and you're not frustrated that [insert protagonist's name here] couldn't "make an extra-longer step" over a small puddle. It would just take away the fun of movement.

I think a great thing to do would be, rather than making some Ground Types difficult for the Assassin to fight and move on, do this instead;

On most kinds of ground, Guards/Enemies are difficult to fight. This should also mean there's a more realistic system for how guards get Reinforcements. You should be able to flow through them with a button dedicated to moving through and around Guards in combat, similar to Prince of Persia's Vault button in the Sands of Time games. Just something like a Counter, but you could do it just to reposition yourself and flow through a group of Engaged enemies without dealing damage. And it needs to be more fluid and done more quickly, more repetitively than the Dodge from previous AC games that was a GOOD DODGE, don't get me wrong, but it was slow and felt kind of rigid. That way, you can catch a guard trying to run away and call for help from a Garrison or something.

Now, on difficult ground (snow, sand, water) the Assassin is better equipped (less armor, more light cloth, more short blades/hidden blades - rather than guards and soldiers who have big armor and actual swords) to deal with that terrain.

It's like the AC3 thing - where Connor is better in Snow and the Frontier than Redcoats, but taken up a notch.

You are inferior everywhere, except on terrain where you can strategically use it to mess with the enemy.

This is good for two reasons;
1) There's never the annoying feeling of "I have to avoid this otherwise I'm screwed due to a single misstep"
2) You're always on edge and trying to stay alive, and you can use that Special terrain to actually make a significant difference in a battle

People slip on sand strewn over pavement easier than through a puddle, by the way.

It's easier to do a running slide through a layer of sand on a street than it is through a puddle. More painful, depending on how you do it, but easier to do.

Just so I can understand you clearly, there were two 'dodging moves' in the Ezio games (at least AC2, don't recall about ACB and ACR).
First there was the 'sidestep', a swift stepping away to the side or to the rear to reposition yourself, done by + .
Then, there was the actual 'dodge', that you performed when an enemy would strike to leave them vulnerable, done by + .
Which one of those are you talking about here?

I'm talking about both, honestly.

They felt out of place in comparison to the rest of the fluid Assassin's Creed animations.
They broke up flow, I felt.
I'd like a Dodge to allow you attack immediately out of it, to be completely smooth and fluid and to have Cancellable ending frames in favor of allowing a nicer, smoother looking gameplay. The Dodge I'd like for a Future AC game would involves much more flow, would even involve putting your hands on an enemy to move yourself around him. Think sort of like Aikido, or like the Assassin is SWIMMING through a group of enemies and positioning himself in an extremely fluid way.

The Arkham games kind of had the right idea, but I'd like the dodge for future AC games to remain more grounded and have more flow that way.

Important thing about a dodge is there needs to be an actual reason for it to exist, rather than just to be another way to avoid damage and start killing a guy. The same function in the Ezio games could be fulfilled by simply counterkilling or attacking if your aim is to kill, or turning around and running and/or using a smoke bomb if your aim is to escape without killing.

Too many tools in your toolbox that all do the same thing is a pretty big problem in the Ezio games. AC1, AC3, and AC4 all had more defined roles and uses for the weapons and abilities you had.

So in my mind, it would be infinitely more efficient if the dodge simply replaced the counter attack: if you dodge and hit attack, you counter-kill/counterattack. If you dodge and hit grab, you grab and throw, ect ect. And if you simply dodge, you've evaded the attack and can run without fear of being hit.

I agree about slow motion + dramatic camera angles like the one in the AC3 demo being reserved for important story targets. Maybe slow motion when you complete a mission, so that the mission complete screen flashes up without pausing the scene abruptly?

Regarding freerun surfaces, I don't want legit tripping in puddles. However, hazards like gravel and sand and tall grass which slows you would be interesting. I think it would be cool if free-running worked on a momentum system, where you accelerate in speed the longer you freerun optimally. Hitting a wall after gaining a lot of momentum could change and speed up your animation. Overall, it would bring a larger element of skill to chases, and more kinetic feeling to moving in general. Imagine attempting to maintain top speed for as long as possible. It would ideally be implemented alongside a more precise and intuitive tuning of the free-run system.

Some people complain that the safe-freerunning system removes the skill of the platforming element. I don't think that AC is suited to being a platformer, and changing the focus to momentum management could appease those people. Gaining momentum to clear a large gap or reach a high handhold. These things would necessitate a massive change in level design, as gaps requiring momentum must be surrounded by areas large enough to allow the player to gain that momentum.

just considered allowing it to extend your air assassination ability. Too complex and unintuitive to merge those systems, simply extending your unsafe jump length does essentially the same thing, as long as a landing can be instantly comboed into an attack.

Agreed. This is something I've actually wanted for a while. It would look cooler than most of the Counter Kills as well. For me personally, the Counters I found most satisfying were the ones in AC1-R, where countering with Hidden Blade or Short Blade would sometimes cause the Assassin to pure dodge and make the enemy whiff his attack, then stab him. Making your enemy hit nothing but air, and returning his attack with death. It's beautiful. It's poetic.

The Momentum System was not something I considered, but it was something that was in Mirror's Edge and it worked decently fine there. I just want our startup speed to be quicker than it was in Mirror's Edge. It took a bit too long to get up to top speed from a stop in that game. An Assassin should be able to start sprinting from a dead stop fairly quickly, but only get faster from there depending on the things you've outlined. This would make sense to do for Next-Gen, as it could convey a greater sense of speed and fluidity, as well as environmental mastery. Another thing, Aiden Pearce from Watch_Dogs behaves this way, if you notice some of the gameplay demos - which is a good sign.

(Anyone notice how similar DedSec is to Erudito? The only difference is that in Watch_Dogs, DedSec is almost certainly against us. However, that could just be because Aiden is renegade, he's still technically doing things for them that would make the world 'wake up' to how bad ctOS really is.)

Base speed should not feel sluggish, but maximum should feel worth getting to. I'm sure a lot of testing would be required to tune that, but I think it would be a worthwhile system if implemented properly.

In other words, replace parry with dodge. I'm all for it, especially since it won't make it look like AC copied Arkham Asylum.

I want a game with a long term wanted. One where you are an assassin, you gotta track down your target in the city. I want a realistic police system that slowly tracks you down over time and tries to arrest you at your safe house etc ( there could be things to do in your safehouse). You would have to move about, you need to sleep etc. Basically a simulation of being a lone assassin. Don't know how they could ever pull it off though.

Agree about the guards changing their setup, maybe creating checkpoints that you must circumvent or be detected. High notoriety meaning they find your hideout... I don't know if that could work. Why would they ever leave it alone after that? "Nah, they killed everyone we sent there and then we forgot about them"

It's a danger making a simulation that has to be able to repeat too detailed. The conceit should never go any further than that guards think you're in town.

Regarding sleep, it's important to remember that, at it's core, this series isn't a simulation of being an assassin. It's an action-adventure/stealth game. The focus is an authentic experience, not an accurate experience.

Yh my post wasn't really directed at the AC series, more of a thought I have had for a game for a long time.

The police wouldn't leave your hideout alone after you take them out, they would be everywhere on the street and you would have to somehow escape the area. You would have to live on the streets hiding from the police until you find a new hideout.

Also dying would be punishing, like a total game over or a huge loss of wealth, you lose everything you had on you or something like that. This would make it more intense.

Ah, that makes sense, I assumed you were still speaking about AC. A game with survival-based mechanics and permadeath but framed in an urban environment would be cool.

Hard, maybe as a modern part of an AC game? You also have to find your own animus to get into the game. You can get killed in the real world if the cops find your location while you are in the animus, so you gotta know how safe you are etc.

The Matrix.