This year can be said to be the year of Ubisoft Waterloo. The failure of "Ghost Resolution: Breakpoint" in sales and reputation hit Ubisoft a heavy blow. Although "Local Blockade 2" has a good sales volume, its reputation has also fluctuated with the update. Therefore, Ubisoft has had to postpone several games that are ready to be released early next year, such as "Watchdogs: Legion" and "The Legend of the Gods".

Of course this is not the first time Ubisoft has encountered such a crisis. The shrinking incident of "Watch Dogs" and the continuous optimization and bugs after the launch of "Assassin's Creed: The Revolution" also encountered a huge public opinion crisis, so that during that period, mocking Ubisoft became a common thing.

But if you look at Ubisoft in recent years carefully, you actually have some good results, which have evolved a lot compared to "Watch Dogs" and "Assassin's Creed: The Revolution". For example, the reputation and number of players online after the release of "Rainbow Six: Siege" have always been very good.

In addition, we should not forget that Ubisoft has made small and beautiful works such as "Son of Light" and "Brave Heart: World War".

However, what I want to mention in this article is the DLC of "Horror Crime" in "Assassin's Creed: The Heroes". Because the level of this DLC is so high, it can be said that Ubisoft has rarely been present in recent years, but because it is attached to the main body of "Assassin's Creed: The Heroes", and there is no such thing as fighting adventure in terms of gameplay, so although it has a good reputation, it is not very well-known and rarely seen related analysis. However, if you analyze why this DLC is successful, it will be of great inspiration to Ubisoft today.

Tremlessness of the body and other DLC

The reason why the DLC of "Horror Crime" looks very dazzling is that in Douban and STEAM, we can see many players praise this DLC, especially mentioning the DLC separately, but the game body and other DLCs do not have this treatment.

This is because as a masterpiece of 3A, seeking stability is the most important task, especially games like "Assassin's Creed: The Heroes" are Ubisoft's masterpieces, so the performance of the ontology is greatly limited, so the main focus is on the structure of grand scenes and grand narratives. For example, in the game, the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace consume a lot of manpower, material resources and financial resources. Moreover, the protagonists encounter most of the big figures in the ontology, such as Dickens, Marx, and Queen Elizabeth. Even in the special tasks of traveling to World War I, they can reach Churchill, and solve some major events related to history.

In addition, in recent years, Ubisoft has often had a patterned approach to designing game tasks, such as there are several villains in the game, each villain controls a certain region or industry field.Only after destroying these villains can we face the final super villain. The original body of "Assassin's Creed: The Hero" generally continues this model, but some changes have been made in some aspects such as the villain's personality, which makes many players who oppose Ubisoft's modeling less highly in the evaluation of the original body. In fact, in the original body, the protagonist's siblings and his party are really too smooth to deal with these villains, which makes the entire original body process lack enough surprises.

In addition to the original body, this game not only launched the DLC of "Horror Crime", but also the two DLCs, "The Last Lord" and "Jack the Ripper", but the reviews of these two DLCs were also mixed.

"The Last Maharaja" focuses on the encounter of Dorip Singh, a last local monarch in India. The plot and gameplay have not improved much compared to the original, so it is not impressive. Although "Jack the Ripper" has added new weapons and props, the number is not large, and there are not many surprises in the unveiling of Jack the Ripper's identity. However, in the end, the boss and Jack the Ripper increased the difficulty, which is refreshing.

The DLC of "Horror Crime" is so different from the above. This DLC has no combat elements and has completely become an AVG form. It mainly focuses on the experience of small characters, but the gameplay is not as complicated as some common crime-solving games. It is precisely this difference that touched many players, and many of them were also surprised that the assembly-lined Ubisoft can also have such a brilliant and eye-catching work.

Little People in the Great Era London by Dickens

I have written so much before to lay the groundwork, and I am all mentioning some problems between the ontology and the two DLCs. In fact, it is to explain why the DLC of "Terror Crime" has a good evaluation. The most fundamental reason is that the DLC solves some problems that the ontology and the other two DLCs cannot solve.

I think the greatest thing about the DLC of "Horror Crime" is that it solves the problem that many games focus too much on grandeur and ignore individuals.

Simply put, "Assassin's Creed" is full of big events, and there are some historical players who are involved in it. Finally, it involves topics such as pioneers and the era of civilization. However, "Horror Crime" is full of joys and sorrows between small people. In these events, players can feel the various lifestyles of citizens in the famous Victorian era. Many people say that Ubisoft is not good at making games, but it is indeed great in shaping a cultural atmosphere. Regardless of whether this sentence is right or not, just say that "Horror Crime" DLC has really made the cultural atmosphere vividly through the experiences of these small people.

In these ten cases, we can see all kinds of characters, such as a doctor who fell in love with his female patient, but he was introverted and shy and did not dare to approach this woman. So by making strange drugs, he turned himself into an extrovert and slick-mouthed person who was good at pleasing women, and became a dual personality. As a result, he killed the woman because he could not control the personality in his body. In this story, we can see some changes brought about by the development of medicine in that era and some concerns about it, and we can also think of some stories such as Frankenstein.

For example, in another case, we will find that a victim is a famous music critic. The music reviews he wrote are extremely sarcastic and ridiculed the performances of some symphony orchestras that he did not like. This made a symphony orchestra eventually collapse because of his remarks, and a musician who lost his job then assassinated the music critic with grudges. In this story, we can feel the entertainment life and the status of music critics at that time. After all, in that era without TV and computers, going to the concert hall to enjoy symphony was a common upper class entertainment activity in London. The quality of a performance is in the writings of these music critics. In fact, in real history, many new works of classical musicians or the performance of symphony orchestras have been greatly ridiculed by some music critics at that time, and there are many conflicts and disputes arising from this.

Not only that, some of the NPCs that appeared in these cases are also impressive. For example, those child laborers and coal miners have allowed us to deeply understand the oppression of capitalism on the working masses in that era. If some tasks related to Marx in the ontology made us experience Marx's revolutionary propositions from a macro and historical perspective, then the experiences of these child laborers and coal miners in "Terror Crime" have made us more deeply understand the sufferings of the working people of that era. In these cases, through conversations and some written materials, we can feel that those workers are often oppressed by capitalists, and some even want to revenge those capitalists. In addition, it is like a gravedigger who is willing to dig out a scholar who pretends to die in a coffin for a little money. Such deeds are also touching.

For example, in the case of "Make a Murder", there was a fraudster who was cheating under the banner of psychic media that could hold ceremonies to talk to the customers' dead relatives. However, in fact, he bribed the relatives of those customers and mastered the customer's information to gain their trust, and then deceived them constantly, using these people's emotions towards the dead relatives. The reason why these customers' relatives betrayed the information to the liar also had their own purposes. Some were to seize the property, and some were to manipulate the purpose. In this case, the destruction of human nature and the decline of morality can deeply understand that the rapid development of capitalism at that time made some people take risks and use any means for the sake of money and interests.

Many of our generation have been exposed to world famous works since they were in junior high school and high school. They have learned about Dickens, his famous works such as "Orphans in the Mist City" and "Two Cities", and even know some of his famous sayings, such as his famous statement that this is the best and worst era.

But, although we have learned some of the bizarre London, England, adapted from his classic works, we are just bystanders after all.

"Horror Crime" DLC is a largely paying tribute to Dickens, because what Dickens is best at describing the encounters of those little people, deeply reflecting the complex social reality of Britain at that time, and making outstanding contributions to the development and development of British critical realist literature. His works have had a profound impact on the development of British literature.

Of course, there are also Dickens, an NPC and some related tasks in the game, but these tasks mainly involve some ghost stories and surreal things. It was not until the DLC of "The Horror Crime" appeared that we truly appreciate the London style of Dickens's writings in the game world. Those NPCs seem to have come out of Dickens' novels, and those taverns and factories, those evil deeds hidden in the alleys, and those who sell their souls for profit all outline a real London picture with sins growing in the prosperity of Victorian society, with a literary image.

To a certain extent, the extent to which the producers love Dickens actually shows why Dickens has such a noble literary status and why so many people have read his classics to this era. "The Crime of the Horror" DLC can be said to be one of the most important works in the field of games to pay tribute to Dickens.

From a larger perspective, now, both film and television and games, the fate of small characters under the background of major eras is very important. For example, in "Darkest Moment", Churchill gained strength from those small characters, and finally broke his self-doubt and made a firm decision to start a war against the Nazis. In the famous work "The Witcher 3" released in the same year (2015), many side missions are also related to the fate of small characters. Of course, the DLC of "Horror Crime" appeared in 2016. We do not know whether the production of this DLC was influenced by "The Witcher 3", but in the later "Assassin's Creed: Origin" and "Assassin's Creed: Odyssey", we can find that a large number of side missions are more related to the daily lives of ordinary people, and the ultimate goal is to show the characteristics of that era through the daily lives of these civilians.

Simplify the gameplay

《Terror Crime》This DLC is considered by some players to be the best detective game, which is actually a very interesting thing.

In fact, pure detective games have not appeared many times in recent years. There are still Sherlock Holmes series in Europe and the United States, and the Japanese are the Saburo series of Khonji Temple, etc. The JB Harold event book series on NDS is also worth mentioning. In general, the audience of this type of game is not very large, and because it involves a large number of dialogues, it is difficult for ordinary players to accept. Moreover, there are some quite complex puzzle solving elements in detective games such as the Sherlock Holmes series, which makes some players stay away from it.

As a game DLC, "Horror Crime", does not have that much burden, so we can see that most of the dialogues in this detective DLC are concise and clear, unlike in common detective games.

And this DLC also does a lot of subtraction in terms of gameplay. What players have to do is observe and collect various evidence and interrogate. There are basically no puzzle elements. For example, in the game "Shelmes: Crime and Punishment", we need to assemble some models or crack the mystery in the machine box, but there are no these elements in "Horror Crime". Players only need to concentrate on observing and collecting, and then constantly interrogate the relevant suspects and finally identify the murderer.

It is this simplification that makes it easier for some players who are not so good at solving puzzles to get started with this type of investigation, and it only takes about ten minutes to solve a case, and the overall pace and experience are relatively fast.

Some breakthroughs and regrets

If you look at this DLC from the perspective of inheritance, there are still some breakthroughs and regrets.

The biggest breakthrough lies in the expansion of the region. In fact, the design method of "Horror Crime" appeared as early as the time of "Assassin's Creed: The Revolution". There is a series of missions called "Murder Mystery", with a total of 15 missions.

But the problem with the Murder Mystery series of tasks is that each task is relatively simple, and each task is limited to the crime scene, so both the depth and breadth are not enough.

The characters and plots appearing in each case in the DLC of "Terror Crime" have become much more complicated, and the murderer's motives and behaviors are also more complicated. For example, a murderer uses a drug to make a professor pretend to die in his room and then bribe the gravedigger to drag the professor to another place and try to commit the crime, but the professor finally escapes back to his room and dies.

This makes many cases no longer restricted to one place, some of which involve several distancesThere is even a case in a remote building that requires the player to operate the protagonist to catch a speeding train, and the last case requires the player to travel between Buckingham Palace and several places. Fortunately, the special element hooks appearing in the game make the player travel back and forth much faster than the previous Assassin's Creed works.

As for the regret, it is because this kind of mission was finally inherited from the Mystery of Murder series and made various improvements to form a system, and even some stage play elements were added, such as the expressions and actions of NPCs when they spoke. As some players said, if Ubisoft walked along this path and designed an independent detective game masterpiece, the achievements might be limitless.

But the current situation is that this design has not been passed down since then. One player commented on this situation that Ubisoft is not without talents. You can find many designer inspiration from "Horror Crime" DLC. However, because of Ubisoft's huge company system and overly stable style, these wonderful aura designs are difficult to be passed down, and finally submerged in the assembly line production system of 3A masterpieces.

Conclusion:

Although we have criticized the lukewarmness of the original body of "Assassin's Creed: The Hero", it has to be pointed out that if there was no ontology structure to form a relatively complete scene in various London cities, the DLC of "Horror Crime" could not be produced so easily.

This has a great inspiration for Ubisoft. We all know that the reputation of "Ghost Resolution: Breakpoint" has completely collapsed. If Ubisoft can launch some interesting DLCs in the future and make its employees fully utilize their personal creativity and talents, then "Ghost Resolution: Breakpoint" can still be saved. Recently, there have been rumors that after the failure of "Ghost Resolution: Breakpoint", Ubisoft asked its studios to come up with more unique ideas instead of copying themselves.

In fact, judging from the DLC of "Horror Crime", Ubisoft is not unable to produce such a work, but they seem to be too smooth in recent years to lack a sense of crisis, and now they have to return to the right path.

But if Ubisoft held high the banner of innovation after "Terror Crime" that year and attached more importance to such personalized creativity, why would it have made today's mistakes?