‘Assassin’s Creed 4′ E3 Gameplay Demo; Missing Naval Multiplayer Explained

At Sony’s E3 2013 Press Conference, an Assassin’s Creed 4 developer took the stage to show off his team’s latest game. Unfortunately, as is sometimes the case with a live demo, the footage fell victim to a few technical problems. The AC4footage wasn’t unwatchable, it just “hiccuped” numerous times.

Thankfully, Ubisoft has been kind enough to put the full demo online (sans technical glitches) for all to see. Now fans can see how protagonist Edward Kenway stacks up against the likes of Ezio, Altair, and his grandson Connor.

There’s nothing new about the demo (aside from the smooth frame rate) so those gamers who felt adequately sated by the live presentation won’t get much out of this footage. At the same time, those gamers that missed Sony’s presser and wanted to see some of the new naval combat options Ubisoft is adding forAssassin’s Creed 4 have come to the right place.

In this iteration, players not only have new options available for naval combat, they can also board enemy ships in a variety of ways. The demo features a very direct (and the most visually exciting) approach, but the Ubisoft dev narrating the footage explains that players can also swim up the side of a ship for a sneak attack.

Speaking of naval combat, the topic of a naval multiplayer component was brought up to Game Director Ashraf Islamil, who confirmed the development team had attempted such a mode. Unfortunately, they couldn’t “get it to a good enough level for this iteration.”

With an annual release like Assassin’s Creed, it’s likely a major undertaking to introduce a new feature, especially a completely new multiplayer component. Not to mention the amount of time it would take to make the naval battles fair and balanced. There is a multiplayer component to the single player naval battles – with players controlling ships using the game’s companion app – but no PvP, ship vs. ship experience.

However, if Assassin’s Creed stays in a time period where naval combat is justified, we’d venture to guess such a multiplayer component might make an appearance. Assassin’s Creed 3‘s naval combat was among the game’s major highlights, so we can only imagine how exciting sea battles might be if Ubisoft replaced AI enemies with real opponents.

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag will, however, once again feature the series’ now-trademark multiplayer, which sees players doing their best NPC impressions to fool and then stab opponents. We went hands-on with the multiplayer at E3 to see what Ubisoft has added so make sure to read our preview.

What do you think of the Assassin’s Creed 4 E3 demo? Did it get you as excited as in past years? Would you like to see naval multiplayer included in a futureAssassin’s Creed release?