A number of Assassin's Creed fans have received a survey asking them where they'd like to see Assassin's Creed set. It's multiple choice, which means we get to see the options that Ubisoft are considering. Eurogamer got hold of a screenshot of the survey from Empire State Gamers, which offers eight different settings that range from Medieval China to the American revolution and Victorian London. But which is your favourite?


The violent conflicts of the Imperial Dynasties in Medieval China
The advent of the mighty British Empire during Victorian England
The culmination of the Pharaoh Reign in Ancient Egypt
The invasion of the Americas by the Spanish Conquistadors
The confrontation between British colonists and native Americans during The American Revolution
The overthrow of the Tsar Empire by the Communists during the Russian Revolution
The Warlord Battles in Feudal Japan
The rise of Cesar's Empire in Ancient Rome

 
Of which Victorian London is the correct answer. Okay, I'm a little biased, but hear me out. Assassin's Creed is great at giving major historical figures cameos. Think of the people you could meet in Victorian London. just replace Brotherhood's army of assassins with loyal chimney sweeps, Leonardo Da Vinci with Thomas Edison. Jack the Ripper can be a rival assassin. Queen Victoria could be a Templar commander. IT ALL FITS.

Medieval China would be great, too, as would the Russian Revolution and feudal Japan, and I'm surprised the French Revolution isn't being considered (Assassin's Creed in Paris, anyone?). Which of the choices above is your favourite? Or is there a setting not listed that you think would be perfect for an Assassin's Creed game?

The latest issue of PSM3 contains some interesting rumours regarding the future of the Assassin's Creed series, hinting that Assassin's Creed 3 could be set in ancient Egypt. The rumours have been spread by the ending of Assassin's Creed: Revelations, so beware of spoilers below the cut.

Near the end of Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Altair's son, Darim, tells his father he's taking one of the pieces of Eden to Alexandria, the ancient capital of Egypt.

It's a subtle hint, put it does suggest pyramid climbing could feature in future games. There's also the image below, which surfaced last year, and we now suspect is related to Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Encyclopaedia. Of course, Assassin's Creed hints have mislead us before, with the ending of the first game suggesting feudal Japan as a setting, rather than the Renaissance Italy we eventually got.

What time period would you like to see Assassin's Creed visit next? Our own Tom Senior desperately wants to see an 1800s version that sees you team up with Lord Byron.

 
"There comes a time in every man's life when revenge is not enough" grunts the Assassin's Creed Revelations launch trailer. That time came for me yesterday when my housemate ate the last cupcake, for Ezio, that time will come on November 29 when Assassin's Creed Revelations hits PC in the US, and on December 2 for those in Europe. No series does hitting men in the back of the head with maces better, and the third entry in the Assassin's Creed 2 trilogy should hopefully answer some big questions. Will Ezio get the answers he seeks? how does his fate tie in with Altair's? Will Desmond get a personality? If we don't find out this time round, there's always next year's entry.

http://youtu.be/uC-FSEdPW-c

All of the trailers for Assassin's Creed Revelations have so far concentrated on Ezio and Altair's interweaving story. There is an important third character that has been left out, the city of Constantinople itself. It has all the right ingredients for an Assassin's Creed city, rival rebellious factions, a clash of cultures, power struggles at the top and a sense of simmering social unrest.

More importantly, it'll also have lots of convenient poles, sturdy hanging flower baskets and an insensible number of minarets to climb. I was bouncing around Rome's crumbling Colosseum in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood last night, and it looks as though Ubisoft have significantly improved on the level of detail in their architecture for Revelations. It's out at the start of December after a bit of a delay on PC, filling in the gap between Batman: Arkham City and Star Wars: The Old Republic quite nicely.

RUSE might be my favorite RTS of the past several years, and one reason for that is because developer Eugen Systems seemed to design it with wargamers in mind. It could be frantic, but it also felt a bit like what would happen if you turned Panzer General into an RTS.

So it's fitting that their next game is explicitly called Wargame: European Escalation, and I got in touch with Eugen CEO Alexis Le Dressay to learn just how this would differ from RUSE. It turns out that Wargame will be very different, throwing out Ruse's deception mechanics as well as a lot of RTS conventions. The result could be an even more interesting real-time wargame set in the late Cold War.

PCG: First, I absolutely loved RUSE and thought it was one of the best games of 2010. Unlike RUSE, however, Wargame is not being developed for consoles. How did console development affect your design for RUSE? How does Wargame benefit from the focus on PC?

Eugen Systems CEO Alexis Le Dressay: I’m very happy and very proud that you liked RUSE! The main difference between PC and the rest of the consoles is that PC is an open platform. Thanks to this, we can provide more online features and services. We can also be much more reactive post launch of the game and provide patches and upgrades for the community.

Now, RUSE was published by Ubisoft, but this time you are working with Focus Home Interactive? Why the shift?

AD: Wargame is a real-time strategy game for gamers and hardcore gamers. This kind of game fits better with a medium-sized publisher.

How does the Cold War setting change gameplay from what we saw in RUSE? The technologies are completely different, but does that impact tactics?

AD: The difference is pretty big. Wargame’s period covers the years from 1975 to 1985. This period features helicopters, auto-cannon, ATGM (anti-tank guided missiles), electronic optical systems and a lot more new equipment. This means that the players will have to master new tactics.

For example, an ATGM can be wire guided. This means that the unit who fires it has to stand still to keep control of the missile and to have some chances to hit the target... But an ATGM can also be laser guided. In this case, the target tracking is manual but the tracking and control of the missile is automatic. This allows the unit to fire-and-forget!



Did deceptions work as well as you hoped in Ruse? How will ruses / deceptions work in Wargame, and are there any new ones you can tell us about?

AD: I think the deceptions worked well in RUSE. But, we should have done more of them and made them more deeply imbricated in the gameplay.

Even though Wargame doesn’t feature any deception tools, it has some a very strong information and spotting mechanics. The use of recon units is as vital as it was the case in RUSE. We have some similitude in the way the player will have to think of the where is the enemy hiding, what is his main plan...

One thing I loved about RUSE is that it had so many different factions, and they all played so differently. Hardly anyone ever includes the French and Italians in WWII game, for example, but in RUSE they were two really interesting armies. What kind of differences are you emphasizing between NATO and Warsaw Pact armies? How different can Warsaw Pact armies really be from one another, since they were so heavily controlled by the Soviets?

AD: I’m very glad you appreciate the idea of having a great choice of units and factions! With Wargame, we have gone much farther in this direction. We feature more than 350 different units in the game! Albeit there are only two factions, there are several countries involved: USA, France, West-Germany, East-Germany, UK, Russia, Poland and Czechoslovakia.

The main difference lies in the fact that the composition of the army is directly made by the players. There is no more pre-created army, which means no more factions. From theses 150 units available (there is approximately the same number of equipment around 150 units for each side) you have to pick up the ones you want to play with. This is what we call the "deck". It has a limitation of units and the players have to unlock the different units.


On your website, I noticed a lot of discussion of supplies and experience. Now, supply points were simply the money you used for building in RUSE. How does it work here? Is the economy different in Wargame?

AD: In RUSE we named supply points the money of the game. The supply in Wargame is not money, but real supply. This means that units consume fuel, ammunition and so on.

The economy system is different in Wargame than in Ruse. In Wargame you start the game with an amount of Deployment Points that are granted by your HQ. You use these points to call for reinforcement during the battle or to place units on the battlefield during the deployment phase. Also, you can gain more Deployment Points during the battle by controlling strategic sectors.

Also, you say that units level up across the campaign? Will units also gain experience within multiplayer battles? For instance, if I have an armored unit that keeps surviving combat during a match, will it be a better armored unit by the end of the match?

AD: This is true for the campaign but it is different within the multiplayer battles. The persistent element that one can find in multiplayer is the creation of the decks. As I’ve said before, the players will have to unlock all the units. This means that you’ll never know what kind of enemy equipment you’ll face...

Matchmaking and multiplayer features were not a strong point for RUSE. It was hard to get a sense of the community and how many people were participating. I found it very hard to find opponents for the kinds of games I wanted to play, particularly at middle skill-levels. How will you improve multiplayer for Wargame? What kind of features will Eugen Net offer to people who like to study statistics, replays, or participate in tournaments?

AD: We’re developing a much more powerful network engine for Wargame. We’ve also added more multiplayer services. For example, players can create a team and play against ranked teams. We have a replay system, a very detailed almanac for all the units featured in the game. As I’ve said, thanks to the PC platform we use for the game, we’ll have the availability to create regular tournaments, patches and other updates on the game.

Whoa. When did PC gaming become so damn... award-winning?

PC has cleaned up at the Golden Joystick awards with a wealth of exclusives. And the non PC exclusive games that took an award? We get to play most of those too, only more anti aliased, and in a better resolution.

The best bit? Gamers voted for these. Real-life gamers with strong opinons. A record-breaking 2.06 million of them in fact. Well done PC gaming community - you rose to the challenge and pwned.

Click through for the full results. Don't agree with some of the winners? It's time for a furious debate. See you in the comments.

PC dominated the Best Strategy category: Starcraft 2 took the number one spot, followed by Civilisation V and Shogun 2: Total War. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood was awarded Best Action game and Fallout: New Vegas took Best RPG.

World of Warcraft took Best Subscription MMO, beating Rift and Eve Online. One of PC Gamer's faves - Minecraft - was awarded Best Downloadable Game. We'll have Notch's acceptance speech on the site as soon as possible.

League of Legends scooped Best Free-To-Play Game - considering the numbers and constant updates, it's hard to disagree.

Portal 2 took Ultimate Game of the Year at the prestigious ceremony. Seeing as we have the ultimate version of Portal 2, we'll take that as ANOTHER win for PC gaming.

Skyrim took the One To Watch award. We've been keeping a close eye on that one. And yes, it is indeed one to watch.

Best Action
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Runner Up
Portal 2
Third place
L.A. Noire

Best Mobile
Angry Birds Rio
Runner up
Fruit Ninja
Third place
Infinity Blade

Best RPG
Fallout New Vegas
Runner up
The Witcher 2: Assassin's Of Kings
Third Place
Dragon Age II

Best subscription MMO
Winner
World of Warcraft
Runner up
Rift
Third place
Eve Online

Best Fighting
Mortal Kombat
Runner up
Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds
Third place
Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition

Best Racing
Gran Turismo 5
Runner up
DiRT 3
Third place
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit

Best Sports
FIFA 11
Runner up
Pro Evolution Soccer 2011
Third place
NHL 2011

Best Strategy
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
Second place
Civilization V
Third place
Total War: Shogun 2

Best Music
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock
Second place
Rock Band 3
Third place
Child of Eden

Best Free-to-play
League of Legends
Second place
World Of Tanks
Third place
RuneScape

Best Downloadable
Minecraft
Second place
Limbo
Third place
Dead Nation

Best Shooter
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Second place
Halo: Reach
Third place
Crysis 2

One to Watch
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Second place
Battlefield 3
Third place
Guild Wars 2

Innovation of the Year
Nintendo 3DS

Outstanding Contribution
Sonic The Hedgehog

Ultimate Game of the Year
Portal 2
Second place
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
Third place
Call of Duty: Black Ops

 
For a game all about killing, Assassin's Creed has some of the funkiest trailers around. Revelations is set to land in an extremely busy release period, arriving on November 29, just a few weeks after Skyrim. And Batman: Arkham City. And Modern Warfare 3. Will Altair and Ezio's adventures in Constantinople be overlooked?

Hopefully not, as it looks like it could be the biggest and most varied of the Assassin's Creed games so far, with several parallel storylines snaking through different period of history, new gadgets, new foes and a vast new city to explore. Will you be saving your money for Assassin's Creed Revelations, or will one of the other big releases get it first?

 
Get with the 16th century, Ezio! What do you mean you've never heard of a shrapnel packed tripwire bomb? They're all the rage these days among the assassins of Constantinople. The Templars seem to have grown from a sinister behind the scenes force infiltrating the upper echelons of the world's most powerful regimes into a loose collection of artfully armoured jerks who go around menacing peasants and stealing their apples. The Ottoman assassins idea of a proportionate response to this is a lethal explosive, but their experimental bombs look more interesting, the coin bomb that sends peasants scrambling for loose change is especially neat.

 
"When I started this fight, I did not think that it would span a lifetime," says Ezio. But then Assassin's Creed 2 sold so well, and he's had to come back for one game, and now another. That's no bad thing. Ezio's charm and exuberance has gradually turned into grizzled awesomeness. Now he has to track down the clues left by his more boring and angsty ancestor, Altair, and figure out what the hell is going on with those ancient gods and magic orbs, and all that stuff about the garden of Eden. The Assassin's Creed Revelations PC release date was pushed back recently. It'll now arrive on December 2.

The release of the PC version of Assassin's Creed Revelations has been delayed by a couple of weeks. It'll hit consoles on November 15, but Eurogamer report that the PC version will come out on December 2.

So that's another Ubisoft gamed delayed on PC. From Dust, Call of Juarez: The Cartel and Driver: San Francisco have all received similar delays. It could be worse, though. Previous Assassin's Creed games have taken months to reach our machines. We should just start mentally adding a few weeks to every Ubisoft release date to avoid future disappointment.