Assassin's Creed 3 is arriving a bit late on PC, but according to comments from the Ubisoft team in a recent Reddit AMA, it'll come with some extra visual polish. DirectX 11 features like tessellation will smooth out those polygons and we can look forward to textures that, in some cases, will be four times the resolution of the console versions.

Community developer "UbiGabe" also says that "when PC launches, it will include ALL of the console patches out at the time (so, that includes any patches we might be releasing in between now and PC launch). In addition, PC has a special patch designed to ensure that everything runs as smoothly as possible."

Textures will be "double-res in most cases, but quadruple in some," and there will be "some other shader improvements that will have an impact, but aren't all that sexy to enumerate in a reddit post." UbiGabe should drop us a line, NOTHING IS TOO UNSEXY FOR US.

But seriously, other important issues were raised during the Q&A, like the vital question "Do you think Connor would rather fight 100 duck-sized horses, or one horse-sized duck?" to which the predictable response was "I think Connor's speed and size would prove to be the difference maker in the battle against the mob of horse-ducks so I lean towards them."

This brilliant Assassin's Creed Kinect April Fool video also came up again, which is all the excuse I need to embed it on my forehead to amuse everyone I meet today. Also here:

After the appearance of listings for in-game "Erudito Credits" yesterday, Ubisoft have confirmed that there will be microtransactions in Assassin's Creed 3.

"The Erudito Credits are a new way of unlocking content in Assassin's Creed 3's Multiplayer," Ubisoft told Eurogamer. "People who have little time can use Erudito Credits as a shortcut to unlock game items from level 1 to 50 (excluding Prestige levels and relics rewards). This is not mandatory, all items sold in Erudito Credits are also available in Abstergo Credits and can be unlocked through normal progression like previous years."

Assassin's Creed 3 isn't the first full price game to contain optional microtransactions, boxes can be bought in Mass Effect 3's multiplayer mode to unlock new weapons and classes a bit quicker, though it's a bit of a lottery. It sounds as though this system will be a more straightforward 'pay for credits buy the item' deal though it won't be clear how expensive those upgrades are until the game goes live.

Assassin's Creed 3 goes on sale today on consoles in the US. It's out on November 20 in the US and November 23 in the UK on PC. The console launch means there is a new launch trailer, which is different from last week's launch trailer, in that it's longer in order to fit in more hitting with axes.

Console players will get their paws on Assassin's Creed 3 next week. We'll have to wait until November 20 in the US and November 23 in Europe, sadly, but you can absorb a 90 second montage of the action courtesy of the launch trailer, which features fighting on the high seas, some great big battle scenes, a bit of tragic back story and one particularly cruel groin kick.

Find out whether your rig will run AC3 with the help of these system requirements and get a sense for how the sequel's shaping up with an account of some adventures in the wilderness in our Assassin's Creed 3 hands-on.

The two British soldiers guarding the riverbank don't know it, but there's an assassin in the water plotting their demise. I'd spotted the pair from half a mile away, while perched in a tree atop a cliff. It took less than five minutes to vault through the canopies, avoid a pair of fighting stags and cross the river under cover of a swathe of low reeds. Now I'm right behind them, wondering how to make the kill.

I've been wandering the wild frontier areas of Assassin's Creed 3 for about fifteen minutes. I've already shot a Racoon, fled a bear, discovered a rustic British tavern and dodged a marching platoon of redcoats. The forest feels huge. There's room to observe prey from the tree tops and plan an attack. For the first time in an Assassin's Creed game, I actually feel like an assassin.

The two guards are standing on a small wooden platform a few metres into the river, which has given me room to swim behind them. I could retreat to a treetop and kill them with my bow easily enough. I could hide in a stack of leaves and whistle one over to take him out silently. Instead, I decide to improvise.

I clamber out of the water right behind the man on the right. I stand at his shoulder dripping water for a few moments. He doesn't react. Oh. They must be friendly.

I take another step forward to say hello. The guard turns and screams wordlessly. He raises his musket, backs away and falls into the water. I never see him again.



His friend is more competent. He takes a couple of steps back and brings his musket to bear. A yellow icon appears above his head. Ah, that'll be the "I'm about to shoot your ass" icon. I charge him with my tomahawk. At a distance of about five feet, he shoots me in the leg. At a distance of two feet I activate Assassin's Creed 3's new "running assassination" ability and Connor slams the Tomahawk into the guard's midriff. It's over.

That couldn't have gone much worse. I loot the guard's corpse, throw it into the river and hope that there are no Templars in the bushes witnessing the debacle. The gunshot doesn't seem to have damaged me much, so I'm free to continue up the long trail towards Boston. I need to talk to a man about some tea.

I want to linger. The forest feels like fresh territory for Assassin's Creed. The new engine does a fine job of realising the dense foliage and haphazard layouts of the colonial wilderness, and its various elements cleverly mimic familiar scenic staples of former Creed games. Large bushes act much like hay bails, providing a place to hide and a position from which to stealthily assassinate passing soldiers. Cracks snaking up cliff faces signify useful climbing points and, much like convenient staircase box stacks in towns, splintered, half toppled tree trunks offer a quick route to an elevated plane. In a city, that means rooftops, in the wilderness, it's an organic canopy of twisting branches.

Associate producer Julien Laferriere refers to these signifying marks as a "clue code" for the player. It was one of the two major design challenges facing Ubisoft when they committed to woodland environments. The other was animation. Connor glides through the treetops with a grace that's both superhuman and somehow entirely believable. A revamped animation system was needed to make Connor's tree-skulking look realistic.

"We redid the climbing system because of the forest, to support more organic surfaces, and that translated into the cities," Laferriere explains. "We have a much smaller climbing grid so we can have differently placed elements on the façade of buildings. We booted up Brotherhood last week and the climbing had changed so much we didn't realise."



The wilderness zones feel like a test bed for new technology and ideas that may foreshadow greater changes for the series on the far side of the next-gen console divide. I didn't encounter any quest markers during my time in the forest, but there was always something happening. I'd have to take a long way around a glade on account of a family of bears, or I'd find animal tracks for Connor to examine. "A rabbit ate flowers here"a pop-up message informed me after one such stop. Connor is a freakishly good tracker.

At one point a procession of redcoats marched past, guarding a wagon full of supplies. An objective marker popped up inviting me to kill the troops and loot the wagon. I parked my horse further down the road and ambushed them from a nearby leaf pile. The guards fell quickly, and I made away with some meat and a fine sabre dropped by the redcoat officer.

Boston, by contrast, felt much more familiar. You can visit elevated viewpoints to reveal local side quests and points of interest. Main objective markers hover above cutscene trigger, ready to propel Connor into the next stage of the story. If you run afoul of the authorities, you can reduce your notoriety by bribing town criers and tearing down wanted posters. This is the Assassin's Creed you know well.

Connor's long term target in Boston is a man making moves to sell the land upon which his people live. In the short term, there's plenty of unrest to deal with. It's 1773 and Boston's streets crackle with unresolved tension. Protesters are in the streets in force, loudly decrying the influence of the East India Company. Tax collectors tussle with disgruntled citizens and marching redcoats pass through Boston's wide open thoroughfares, menacing citizens who look as though they're about to launch into a full-scale riot.



In terms of scale, young Boston can't hope to stand up to the spectacle of Rome and Constantinople. Its landmarks can't match the coliseum for grandeur, but it feels spacious, rugged and busy. As Laferriere notes, "Boston itself at the time was a pretty big – it was bustling, there were famous landmarks that you can still find today like the Faneuil Hall and the churches."

Much of Brotherhood was about restoring Rome to its former glory, which was established long before Ezio's arrival. Assassin's Creed 3's story is set in the formative years of an emerging superpower. Ubisoft hope that the defining events surrounding the civil war will infuse AC3's smaller townships with enough drama to make up for the lack of staggering monuments. "Instead of witnessing the glories of the past, as in Rome, you get to live the events as they happen."

It's fun to watch Assassin's Creed weave its paranoid assassin vs. Templar plot around historical figures and events. After half an hour in Boston I found myself running around a cargo ship, throwing boxes of tea into the dark port waters as British soldiers charged up the gangplanks. Traditional depictions of the Boston tea party neglect to show the hooded assassin diving off the ship's rigging with an axe. More's the pity. Connor's a spectacular fighter.

Altair fought like a snake, killing in a single deadly blow. Ezio was a dancer, outwitting opponents with shimmering swordplay. Connor is like a bear. A bear with an axe. He uses his weapons to bludgeon his way past enemy defences. Sometimes he'll use his off-hand knife to land distraction blows ahead of a fatal Tomahawk strike. Sometimes he'll use his Tomahawk to land distraction blows that let him get behind and break their neck. He's the series' most dangerous fighter yet.



You need a tougher hero in an era of gunpowder. Muskets are everywhere. In large fights, some opponents will back out of range and form a gun line several metres away. The camera pulls back moments before they fire, giving you a chance to activate a contextual "use meat shield" ability. This lets Connor grab a nearby enemy and spin him into a hostage grab a moment before the line fires, filling the hapless guard with shot. It takes a minute or so for redcoats to reload. More than enough time for Connor to dash past their bayonets and forcefully deny a second volley.

This is the most current Assassin's Creed yet, in terms of setting and engine tech. That big number "3" seems to demand some great step forward for the series, but this is no leap of faith. Part of me wants Assassin's Creed to go wild and embrace the experimental spirit of those forest areas, but it's a lengthy series with many expectant fans. "It's a matter of balancing what fans like and innovation. That's our take on it," says Laferriere. "The forest is purely new, purely fresh. How can we apply that strategy to the city as well by not completely changing everything?"

Assassin's Creed 3 is out on PC on November 20 in the US and November 23 in Europe.

The two British soldiers guarding the riverbank don't know it, but there's an assassin in the water plotting their demise. I'd spotted the pair from half a mile away, while perched in a tree atop a cliff. It took less than five minutes to vault through the canopies, avoid a pair of fighting stags and cross the river under cover of a swathe of low reeds. Now I'm right behind them, wondering how to make the kill.

I've been wandering the wild frontier areas of Assassin's Creed 3 for about fifteen minutes. I've already shot a Racoon, fled a bear, discovered a rustic British tavern and dodged a marching platoon of redcoats. The forest feels huge. There's room to observe prey from the tree tops and plan an attack. For the first time in an Assassin's Creed game, I actually feel like an assassin.

The two guards are standing on a small wooden platform a few metres into the river, which has given me room to swim behind them. I could retreat to a treetop and kill them with my bow easily enough. I could hide in a stack of leaves and whistle one over to take him out silently. Instead, I decide to improvise.

I clamber out of the water right behind the man on the right. I stand at his shoulder dripping water for a few moments. He doesn't react. Oh. They must be friendly.

I take another step forward to say hello. The guard turns and screams wordlessly. He raises his musket, backs away and falls into the water. I never see him again.



His friend is more competent. He takes a couple of steps back and brings his musket to bear. A yellow icon appears above his head. Ah, that'll be the "I'm about to shoot your ass" icon. I charge him with my tomahawk. At a distance of about five feet, he shoots me in the leg. At a distance of two feet I activate Assassin's Creed 3's new "running assassination" ability and Connor slams the Tomahawk into the guard's midriff. It's over.

That couldn't have gone much worse. I loot the guard's corpse, throw it into the river and hope that there are no Templars in the bushes witnessing the debacle. The gunshot doesn't seem to have damaged me much, so I'm free to continue up the long trail towards Boston. I need to talk to a man about some tea.

I want to linger. The forest feels like fresh territory for Assassin's Creed. The new engine does a fine job of realising the dense foliage and haphazard layouts of the colonial wilderness, and its various elements cleverly mimic familiar scenic staples of former Creed games. Large bushes act much like hay bails, providing a place to hide and a position from which to stealthily assassinate passing soldiers. Cracks snaking up cliff faces signify useful climbing points and, much like convenient staircase box stacks in towns, splintered, half toppled tree trunks offer a quick route to an elevated plane. In a city, that means rooftops, in the wilderness, it's an organic canopy of twisting branches.

Associate producer Julien Laferriere refers to these signifying marks as a "clue code" for the player. It was one of the two major design challenges facing Ubisoft when they committed to woodland environments. The other was animation. Connor glides through the treetops with a grace that's both superhuman and somehow entirely believable. A revamped animation system was needed to make Connor's tree-skulking look realistic.

"We redid the climbing system because of the forest, to support more organic surfaces, and that translated into the cities," Laferriere explains. "We have a much smaller climbing grid so we can have differently placed elements on the façade of buildings. We booted up Brotherhood last week and the climbing had changed so much we didn't realise."



The wilderness zones feel like a test bed for new technology and ideas that may foreshadow greater changes for the series on the far side of the next-gen console divide. I didn't encounter any quest markers during my time in the forest, but there was always something happening. I'd have to take a long way around a glade on account of a family of bears, or I'd find animal tracks for Connor to examine. "A rabbit ate flowers here"a pop-up message informed me after one such stop. Connor is a freakishly good tracker.

At one point a procession of redcoats marched past, guarding a wagon full of supplies. An objective marker popped up inviting me to kill the troops and loot the wagon. I parked my horse further down the road and ambushed them from a nearby leaf pile. The guards fell quickly, and I made away with some meat and a fine sabre dropped by the redcoat officer.

Boston, by contrast, felt much more familiar. You can visit elevated viewpoints to reveal local side quests and points of interest. Main objective markers hover above cutscene trigger, ready to propel Connor into the next stage of the story. If you run afoul of the authorities, you can reduce your notoriety by bribing town criers and tearing down wanted posters. This is the Assassin's Creed you know well.

Connor's long term target in Boston is a man making moves to sell the land upon which his people live. In the short term, there's plenty of unrest to deal with. It's 1773 and Boston's streets crackle with unresolved tension. Protesters are in the streets in force, loudly decrying the influence of the East India Company. Tax collectors tussle with disgruntled citizens and marching redcoats pass through Boston's wide open thoroughfares, menacing citizens who look as though they're about to launch into a full-scale riot.



In terms of scale, young Boston can't hope to stand up to the spectacle of Rome and Constantinople. Its landmarks can't match the coliseum for grandeur, but it feels spacious, rugged and busy. As Laferriere notes, "Boston itself at the time was a pretty big – it was bustling, there were famous landmarks that you can still find today like the Faneuil Hall and the churches."

Much of Brotherhood was about restoring Rome to its former glory, which was established long before Ezio's arrival. Assassin's Creed 3's story is set in the formative years of an emerging superpower. Ubisoft hope that the defining events surrounding the American revolution will infuse AC3's smaller townships with enough drama to make up for the lack of staggering monuments. "Instead of witnessing the glories of the past, as in Rome, you get to live the events as they happen."

It's fun to watch Assassin's Creed weave its paranoid assassin vs. Templar plot around historical figures and events. After half an hour in Boston I found myself running around a cargo ship, throwing boxes of tea into the dark port waters as British soldiers charged up the gangplanks. Traditional depictions of the Boston tea party neglect to show the hooded assassin diving off the ship's rigging with an axe. More's the pity. Connor's a spectacular fighter.

Altair fought like a snake, killing in a single deadly blow. Ezio was a dancer, outwitting opponents with shimmering swordplay. Connor is like a bear. A bear with an axe. He uses his weapons to bludgeon his way past enemy defences. Sometimes he'll use his off-hand knife to land distraction blows ahead of a fatal Tomahawk strike. Sometimes he'll use his Tomahawk to land distraction blows that let him get behind and break their neck. He's the series' most dangerous fighter yet.



You need a tougher hero in an era of gunpowder. Muskets are everywhere. In large fights, some opponents will back out of range and form a gun line several metres away. The camera pulls back moments before they fire, giving you a chance to activate a contextual "use meat shield" ability. This lets Connor grab a nearby enemy and spin him into a hostage grab a moment before the line fires, filling the hapless guard with shot. It takes a minute or so for redcoats to reload. More than enough time for Connor to dash past their bayonets and forcefully deny a second volley.

This is the most current Assassin's Creed yet, in terms of setting and engine tech. That big number "3" seems to demand some great step forward for the series, but this is no leap of faith. Part of me wants Assassin's Creed to go wild and embrace the experimental spirit of those forest areas, but it's a lengthy series with many expectant fans. "It's a matter of balancing what fans like and innovation. That's our take on it," says Laferriere. "The forest is purely new, purely fresh. How can we apply that strategy to the city as well by not completely changing everything?"

Assassin's Creed 3 is out on PC on November 20 in the US and November 23 in Europe.

In interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, Stephanie Perotti, Ubisoft’s worldwide director for online games, has said that the company has decided to remove the need for a permanent connection to play its PC titles.

In fact, she claims the decision was made way back in June, after which point Ubi’s singleplayer games have only required a one-time activation upon install.

Ubisoft’s approach to DRM has been widely lambasted by gamers, partly because of the inconvenience for the consumer, but mostly because it often didn’t seem to work, dropping connection to the server mid-game, booting you out and erasing progress. And now, finally, it seems Ubisoft have heeded this wail of despair, with Perotti explicitly confirming that the singleplayer component of Assassin’s Creed 3 will not require any online connection.

She also suggests Ubisoft will be doing more to get their games onto PC quicker - so good news all round. We’ve got a man in the field, chinwagging with Ubi bigwigs as we speak, so we’ll be bringing you more news on Ubisoft’s plans for PC, and specifically their intentions with uPlay, very soon.

Ubisoft designers have told CVG that Assassin's Creed 3's multiplayer mode will take a more prominent storytelling role than its predecessors. The ongoing tale will be told through a series of monthly challenges that can be completed to unlock "new content."

"The multiplayer is so big today that it's already a game on its own. We've been given the right to develop the Abstergo storyline since the beginning, which is a big responsibility," game director Damien Kieken told CVG. Abstergo is the company behind the Animus, the magical techno-chair that lets users access inhabit genetic memories. It looks as though the technology has been made public as an entertainment device in Assassin's Creed 3, for nefarious reasons, no doubt.

According to a disembodied voice in a recent trailer, "Abstergo Entertainment will give you insights on the company's future initiatives by granting you access to files and information on products that will soon hit the market." These dossiers could be a useful storytelling device, but according to Kieken we can look forward to more than a few files over the coming year.

"As you progress in the game and level up your character, you access these files and videos. Every month you'll have new challenges to unlock new content that will continue the storyline throughout the year," he said.

This chimes with a Gamestop employee memo picked up by Kotaku, which mentions a Call of Duty Elite/Battlefield Premium style season pass.

"we are currently in the process of creating a complementary development team that will begin working on post-launch episodic content," said the note. "We know you're familiar with the "Season Pass" concept and, beginning shortly, we'll start to take pre-orders of our very own."

Assassin's Creed 3 will arrive on PC on November 20 in the US, and November 23 in the UK. Would you put down money for a multiplayer season pass?

There's troubling news on RPS regarding a potential security risk associated with Ubisoft's Uplay plugin software that could allow hackers to remotely install programs onto your PC. The problem seems to centre around the Uplay browser plugin, which is easily disabled. In Chrome, search for about:plugins and disable Uplay. In Firefox, head to tools - add ons - plugins and then disable Uplay and the UPlay PC Hub. To be safe, you might want to consider deleting Uplay and related programs from your PC.

The problem is detailed on Hacker News, which exposes a backdoor thread that allows a website to install and run programs remotely. We've contacted Ubisoft for comment and they're "looking into" the problem. We'll update with any further statements. Meanwhile, here's a list of Uplay associated games that you might want to steer clear of until we know exactly how serious the problem is.

Update: Ubisoft have sent over a statement saying that they've patched the problem out. Here it is:

“We have made a forced patch to correct the flaw in the browser plug-in for the Uplay PC application that was brought to our attention earlier today. We recommend that all Uplay users update their Uplay PC application without a Web browser open. This will allow the plug-in to update correctly. An updated version of the Uplay PC installer with the patch also is available from Uplay.com.

Ubisoft takes security issues very seriously, and we will continue to monitor all reports of vulnerabilities within our software and take swift action to resolve such issues.”

Assassin's Creed II
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy
Assassin's Creed Revelations
Beowulf: The Game
Brothers in Arms: Furious 4
Call of Juarez: The Cartel
Driver: San Francisco
Heroes of Might and Magic VI
Just Dance 3
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Pure Football
R.U.S.E.
Shaun White Skateboarding
Silent Hunter 5: Battle of the Atlantic
The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom
Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 2
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction
Your Shape: Fitness Evolved

Assassin's Creed 3 put in a good showing at the Ubisoft conference earlier with some balanced in-game footage showing life in the wilds, some man on dog combat (a regular sight already at E3), camp life and a spot of assassination. It would be hard to describe Connor's style as subtle. His idea of an explosive diversion is one that you walk straight through afterwards, and he's startlingly unconcerned about dropping down directly in front of gun lines. See some of Connor's more choreographed, but equally reckless moves in action in the E3 trailer below.

As reported on Eurogamer, an author is suing Ubisoft for copyright infringement relating to the Assassin's Creed franchise. John Beiswenger claims that Ubisoft have lifted various aspects of the series' plot from his 2003 novel, Link.

The novel features a link device, where ancestral memories can be accessed and relived by the user of the machine. According to his complaint, references to assassinations, a bio-syncronizer, ancestral memories, and various bits of religious imagery - including the Garden of Eden and Jesus himself - are evidence enough that Ubisoft are in breach of copyright.

Thanks to the popularity of the series, the author is asking for $1.05 million, or $5.25 in total damages depending on whether Ubisoft intentially pulled the plot, or if they did it accidentally. Gametrailers.com are also involved in the case thanks to this trailer, advertising an Assassin's Creed II PlayStation Home space.

Until a few days ago, Link had just one review on the Amazon marketplace. Since the complaint, 16 more have been posted. And the scores aren't pretty. "This book is terrible; its not worth the time it takes to read, and i will rage if it delays the AC3 release," says one user.