Picture: Ubisoft

An Assassin’s Creed streamer didn’t just beat a match on the highest difficulty without taking damage, he beat the entire 12-game series, from the first Assassin’s Creed to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. On April 11, Hayete Bahadori uploaded the second half of his damage-free run in Valhalla, completing his long and impressive feat.

When I play Assassin’s Creed, I hide in tall grass for 50 years as I shoot enemies one by one. Bahadori, on the other hand, runs free through the Holy Lands. And he’s not fazed when forced into direct boss fights in the newer games. One of my favorite boss fights he’s done takes place in Valhalla, where rather than dodging or blocking Hemming’s lightning attacks, Bahadori grabs them randomly and throws them back to the draugr. While watching his videos, I’m excited to see Assassin’s Creed games again.

Pandemic lockdowns are the mother of innovation, and Bahadori began racing without damage at the height of the covid crisis. Star Wars: Fallen Order of the Jedi was his first successful no-damage challenge race, but he wanted a bigger challenge. He told Kotaku that he likes games that reward “stealth, subtlety, precision, and various approaches to a given storyline.” Assassin’s Creed seemed like the perfect fit, as he was already a fan of the series.

Bahadori stuck to certain rules: the health bar could not drop below 100%, from the “first possible instance [of] damage to the end credits of the game.” From Brotherhood to Syndicate, all levels had to be 100% synced (meaning all objectives were completed), with no reloads or restarts for gameplay advantage. All races were played on the highest difficulty, starting with Origins (this is the first time the series had difficulty modes). He also didn’t use glitches to ignore game content, as he was very serious about the intentions of the developers. If he failed at a single objective, he would start the whole race again. He acknowledged that the series would often have instances of forced damage scripted by the developers, which he did not factor into his run. Each time he was forced to take damage, he wrote it down in his Youtube descriptive.

While Bahadori makes challenge racing easy, completing games without taking damage actually took a lot of preparation. In his first game, he focused on identifying problem sections. In his second part, he used an iterative process to find strategies that would help minimize or eliminate risk. Bahadori was not attempting a speedrun, but he adapted many techniques from the speedrunning community.

However, not all existing strategies were viable. In order to achieve a damage-free run in his lifetime, Bahadori focused on techniques that would reduce the risk of his attempts. They had to be repeatable and they had to be consistent. He rejected strategies that required relying on luck. Through diligent practice, Bahadori estimates he’s probably failed over a thousand times. Including his practice hours, almost every game lasted around 100 hours. Valhalla, however, took a huge 800 hours due to the length of its main campaign, and Black Flag took 250 hours due to how some of the challenges were based on luck.

Bahadori took up the actual challenge on October 16, 2021, from the original Assassin’s Creed. He took a break from his regular streaming schedule to avoid burnout from his engineering job and to spend more time with his daughter. He played the games in his spare time and uploaded them to YouTube whenever he succeeded. This gave him time to play Assassin’s Creed more quietly. I say quietly, but he still beat 12 games in nine months while encountering outrageously difficult conditions he had imposed on himself. Despite his efforts to minimize the effects of RNG, there was a specific section in Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood that forced him to rely on luck. When Ezio uses the Apple of Eden, he is sometimes hit by crossbow attacks that Bahadori had no defense against. The positioning of enemies was also “random”, causing a number of resets. And naturally, this segment comes towards the end of the game, so a bit of unlucky damage here meant abandoning what had been a perfectly good run and starting all over again from the beginning. Talk about painful.

In his Reddit post chronicling his achievement, Bahadori offers his own personal ranking of the series, along with his picks for AC games with best stealth, best story, best global aesthetic, and other categories. He says his favorite entry for the challenge was Odyssey, because game designers did not force the player to take damage. What he liked least was the first Assassin’s Creed, which he felt too “dependent on the camera” when protecting against attacks, which makes it “RNG heavy”. He thought Unity had the best stealth gameplay, while Valhalla had the best combat due to its more complex parry system. He said Syndicate needed the most reboots due to the number of bugs. Some of the most useful tools for his damage-free run were the Smoke Bomb, Hook Blade, and Rope Dart. It is also posted individual essays about the different challenges in each game, which might help you if you’re looking to take on your own challenge.

The streamer also does damage-free runs for other games, after clearing Batman: Arkham Knight and Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga barely take a hit. Bahadori said via email that he is currently working on a no-damage run for God of War. I have no doubt that he will succeed.

Picture: Ubisoft

Private equity firms could start circling Ubisoft, Bloomberg reported Friday. The talks are early, but include interest from companies like Blackstone Inc. and KKR & Co. While not private equity, current and former Ubisoft developers Kotaku has engaged with interviewed over the past few months believe the company will eventually sell to someone in the midst of a falling stock. price and ongoing production struggles.

Bloomberg reports that Blackstone and KKR & Co., the world’s two largest private equity firms, have “investigated the French business” and have “a preliminary buyout interest” in Ubisoft, but the company has not. yet concluded “any serious negotiations with potential buyers.

According to Kotaku’s sources, Ubisoft has worked closely with several external consulting firms in recent years to audit various parts of its business. While companies will do this to become more profitable and prepare for the future, sources Kotaku spoke to suggest this is a sign that Ubisoft is trying to put its books away for a potential sale.

On a flurry of recent major game acquisitions, including Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two buy zyngasony buy Bungieand Microsoft’s $69 billion deal to absorb Activision Blizzard, it looks like a game of eat or be eaten for those left behind. EA CEO Andrew Wilson said as much during an earnings call earlier this year, in which he placed the FIFA publisher firmly in the camp of “big fish looking to eat game”. other fish”.

Ubisoft has been more timid about its survival strategy. When asked on his last earnings call why the French publisher had apparently received no interest in the offer, chief financial officer Frédérick Duguet said he would not speculate on why any offer had been made, before being corrected by CEO and co-founder Yves Guillemot. The company, says Guillemot, neither confirms nor denies “if” potential buyers had approached him.

Beyond Good and Evil 2 has been bleeding money and MIA for years. Picture: Ubisoft

If someone wanted to buy Ubisoft, they would potentially get it at a huge discount. The stock was above $110 per share in July 2018. It is now at $41. But they would still need to go through the Guillemot family, which is currently estimated at 15% of the market capitalization company of just under $5 billion.

CEO Yves Guillemot celebrates repelled a hostile takeover attempt by French media conglomerate Vivendi after securing funding from Tencent and others in 2018. But some current and former sources within the company now believe the 35-year video game industry veteran may be seeking an exit strategy.

They point the departure of his son Charlie Guillemot last year which means that there are no more parents to take over the family business. Ubisoft was also hit by a continuous wave of attrition among his senior talents. He continues to struggle with the aftermath of a consideration in the workplace for sexual misconduct which began in the summer of 2020. And some of its biggest projects continue to face upheaval, delays, or being trapped in development hell.

Like Bloomberg communicated in February, Ubisoft has decided to turn one of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s planned DLCs into a standalone interim game instead to help fill holes in its release schedule over the next 18 months. In the meantime, the next Far Cry, Ghost Recognitionand full-fledged Assassin’s Creed games remain further away than Ubisoft previously anticipated, according to three sources familiar with their development.

When asked for comment, a Ubisoft spokesperson sent Kotaku the following statement:

We do not comment on rumors or speculation. Ubisoft has unrivaled creative and production capabilities, with more than 20,000 talented people collaborating in our global studios on game development. Thanks to them, our long-term approach and our appetite for creative risk-taking, we have built some of the strongest proprietary brands in the industry and have many exciting new brands and projects on the horizon. We also have one of the industry’s most comprehensive and diverse portfolios of cutting-edge services and technologies, and a large and growing community of engaged players. As a result, we are uniquely positioned to capitalize on the rapid industry growth and platform opportunities that are emerging right now.

Correction: 4/23/22, 1:51 PM: A previous version of this article referenced the wrong Ubisoft stock symbol.

Screenshot: Ubisoft / Kotaku

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has always been a huge game, and yet Ubisoft continues to expand it. Its latest DLC, The Siege of Paris, finds Viking assassin Eivor facing off against a mad king, aiding a French rebellion and saving a viking clan whose leader is determined to wage endless war and bloodshed. Needless to say, she is very tired of it all, but I am not tired of Valhalla. This latest DLC breathes new life into the game, even though it suffers from annoying performance issues.

The siege of Paris begins with a few Danes visiting the growing colony of Eivor. They come to bring gifts, build a house and have a big feast. Everything is very beautiful, maybe a little too beautiful. Visiting Vikings say they need help fighting a growing French army led by a dangerous and mad king, Charles the Fat. Though hesitant at first, Eivor realizes that this deadly monarch could pose a threat to his clan in England one day, and agrees to travel to France to help the Vikings and rebels topple the big royal cat. However, once you get there and you start talking to people on both sides of the conflict, it becomes clear that anger, revenge and bloodshed have blinded many in France. Eivor must therefore balance the different actors of the conflict, while trying to save both the innocent people living in Paris and the Vikings looking for a place to live in peace.

Screenshot: Ubisoft / Kotaku

If that sounds a bit complicated, it is, but fear not. The roughly 10-hour campaign in Siege is well-written and expresses its complexities in an easy-to-follow way, even if the situation Eivor finds itself in is a mess. It’s also worth noting that Siege of Paris spends a lot of time explaining how, whether the Vikings settling in England are peaceful or violent, their presence means that generations of families will lose land and resources. Eivor herself seems tired of it all, at one point telling her pet crow that she didn’t expect to end up traveling the world just to see more kings and thegns complaining and killing each other. As someone with over 130 hours in this game and its DLC, I can relate. Same, Danish. Same.

But if you don’t care about the storytelling, character arcs, etc., then don’t worry. headquarters of Paris, unlike the latest DLC set in Ireland, is more alive and full of things to do. You’ll find side quests, plenty of hidden areas to explore, and a whole system where you help the rebels topple the kingdom. If Wrath of The Druids and its Irish setting were too calm and boring for youParis Headquarters will probably be more in your wheelhouse. There are more people to meet, kill, and talk to, plus a chance for a light romance.

The big star of this DLC is the return of ““Black box” missions last seen in older, stealthier AC games. These missions feature large areas and a single target or objective that is hidden somewhere in space. You have to explore and find out how to kill your target or reach your goal. These missions offer great freedom in your approach, letting the ninja super assassins fight their way and leaving the goofy fools to punch and stab until the messy end. I really like these missions; they felt more like classics Assassin’s Creed. There aren’t too many of them in the DLC, but enough that I think players who miss the more underhanded action of past games will be satisfied.

Screenshot: Ubisoft / Kotaku

The real siege of Paris is awesome too, involving multiple quests and exciting build-up to an explosive climax. When the siege begins, it’s loud, exhilarating, and unlike any other questline featured in the main game. From that point on, all of your decisions and actions quickly head to a memorable finale. I’m not going to spoil anything, but trust me, it’s a great standalone story worth experiencing on your own.

I wish I could end the blog here, saying that I liked this DLC a lot and think it is worth buying it if you still want to play more Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, or if you miss the more stealthy action of the classics. However, this new DLC has been working like crap for me since I started playing it a few days ago. I played on PS5 using the game’s 60fps mode, and it often dipped well below that point. Screen tearing and audio slowing were also prevalent in certain areas of the map, such as Paris. Others have also reported these problems.

It’s a shame because Valhalla and its first DLC performed pretty well in 60fps mode. Hopefully a future patch can fix some of these issues so that this excellent expansion can shine brighter.

Image: Electronic software association

Last year, amid a mismanaged pandemic and sweeping social distancing regulations, the Entertainment Software Association canceled its annual event E3. But the stretch between late May and early November was littered with digital storefronts and press conferences. If you’ve followed video games closely, you’ve logged into a new event on a weekly basis.

This year looks the same. E3 is back, but as a fully digital event. Many of the industry’s biggest players are following suit, turning to digital presentations to relay the frenzy of trailers, updates, disclosures and “one more thing” to the masses. Here’s what we know to come, and we’ll update this article as organizers confirm details of upcoming events.

Wholesome Direct – May 2021

Twee indie showcase Wholesome Direct will return this spring, organizer Wholesome Games ad in March. The idea behind Wholesome Direct is simple: to present a list of relaxing, low-stress games as a sort of antidote to the loud and explosive games that tend to define this business. Date to be confirmed, but Wholesome Direct Submission Form (since closed) says accepted presenters have until May 10 to line up their ducks, so the event likely won’t happen for some time afterward.

Summer Game Fest – June 2021

Last year, Geoff Keighley kicked off the inaugural Summer Game Fest, a months-long show of appreciation for ouroboros for the video game hype. For the most part, that meant slapping a Summer Game Fest logo in front of partner streams, lending the promotional muscle of Keighley’s device to already existing events. (In July, Summer Game Fest made more than 70 demos indie games available on Xbox.) The whole shebang is coming back this year. According to the Summer Game Fest’s website, it will “present a more condensed calendar of events spanning less than a month.”

E3 – from June 12 to June 15

The mother of all gaming events, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, is back after the 2020 liftoff in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic. This year it returns as a fully digital event which, despite rumors suggested, will be completely free. The schedule for E3 2021 has yet to be revealed, but confirmed exhibitors include Nintendo, Xbox, Ubisoft, Capcom, Konami, Take-Two, Koch Media and WB Games. Of these, only Ubisoft has confirmed a time and date. For now, Sony, Rockstar, Activision and EA have not confirmed their attendance.

Ubisoft Forward – June 12 at 3 p.m. ET

Ubisoft’s big summer press conference, Ubisoft Forward, will land on the first day of E3. So what could the French mega-publisher reveal? At present, Far Cry 6, Rainbow Six Quarantine, and Rider’s republic do not have release dates. Ubisoft’s three big card games from last year – Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Watch Dogs: Legion, and Immortals Fenyx Rising – all have behind-the-scenes expansions. And that doesn’t mean anything about the other venerable franchises under the Ubisoft umbrella. Maybe this is the year we finally get a new Splinter Cell?

PC Gaming Show + Future Games Show – June 13

This year, PC Gamer’s PC Gaming Show and GamesRadar’s Future Games Show will be broadcast as a double header. The long-running PC Gaming Show will probably be what it always is (an upcoming PC game series), but the Future Games Show is newer to the circuit, so everyone’s guessing what we might see. the recent spring showcase, as of March, broadcast over 40 games in two hours. (Two! Hours! Full!)

Pax Online – July 15 to July 18

Pax East, initially scheduled for early June, has been cancelled and replaced by a fully digital event called Pax Online.

Game Developers Conference – July 19 to July 23

Directory Game Developers Conference will return this summer, but as a fully digital event, yet with the same buffet of discussions, panels, question-and-answer sessions and networking events. Fair warning: it’s not free, and it certainly isn’t cheap. Passes start at hundreds of dollars.

GamesCom Opening Night Live – August 24

Despite problems and setbacks in the deployment of covid-19 vaccines throughout the European Union, GamesCom, famous in Cologne, Germany, will be a physical event this year. But the opening ceremony – a flagship event rightly called Opening night live—Will be broadcast worldwide. Like last year’s event, Geoff Keighley will host. Expect “global exclusives” and “global reveals”.

Image: Ubisoft

When I think of Assassin’s Creed games, I often remember big cities, cool assassinations, climbing high towers, and maybe a few sea songs. I rarely remember how these games end because they often have forgettable or boring endings, sometimes with bad boss fights. Assassin’s Creed Syndicate therefore stands out as an exception with its fantastic final mission and boss fight.

Oh, and in case it’s not obvious, spoilers for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate below.

I’m not going to explain the whole story of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, but here’s a quick recap to get you up to speed. A bad Templar controls London and is an asshole. Twins Evie and Jacob Frye come to London, meet another stabbed man, Henry Green, and work together to defeat the big bad Templar, Crawford Starrick. (He’s got a bad mustache and things.)

Finally, after many missions and side quests, you reach the end of the game. Starrick goes to attack and kill the Queen of England in her palace during a grand ball and the two twins and Green must sneak, stop him and find an ancient Isu artifact buried under Buckingham Palace. (It’s an Assassin’s Creed game, so it’s legally required to be part of the ending.)

What makes this mission so wonderful is the way Syndicate uses both twins at the same time. For most of the game, the twins are separate characters that you swap between whenever you want. But this final mission brings them together and creates one grand final mission that uses them both in different ways. Evie, clad in a full dress, must rely on social stealth to reach the blueprints that will reveal the location of the vault, which is located somewhere below the palace. Meanwhile, Jacob must climb around the palace, taking out the impostor guards and freeing the kidnapped and tied up real royal guards.

Allowing you to play with both twins at the same time is not only a great way to use Syndicate’s two main characters, but it also helps the entire final mission feel bigger and more exciting than any other mission in the game. game. You even meet the queen. It’s a big problem.

Finally, after the wily Starrick obtains the key to Isu’s Hidden Vault, Jacob and Evie pursue him and a grand final boss fight ensues. But again, like the first part of the mission, this final fight alternates between the two twins. You attack Starrick as such, then get knocked back, then the other twin dodges Isu’s magical walls of light and attacks again. On paper, this may seem repetitive. But in practice, you tend to feel like you and your twin are working together. And that makes Starrick a more intimidating and interesting villain.

Screenshot: Ubisoft / Kotaku

This is the biggest criticism I have with this ending. Starrick is supposed to be the big bad in the game, but he’s so far removed from what’s going on while you’re playing that I didn’t really care about him or his goals. But the final mission works despite this by using the twins as tandem weapons. Maybe it would have been nice if more of the game used them as partners like this, but holding back until the end makes the final mission and the fight more exciting and compelling.

While more recent Assassin’s Creed games have allowed players to choose between male and female main characters, neither succeed as well as Syndicate. By having the two characters playable and fully realized as separate people, with their own goals and personalities, it allows the story to better build on them and it allows Ubisoft to cast them both into the final mission to create. the best ending of the series to date. .

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