Assassin’s Creed Unity’s side-missions include sending (innocent) people to jail

Besides the usual story-missions, every main entry in the Assassin’s Creed franchise features a plethora of side activities, and – as expected – the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Unity makes no difference. In a recent interview with Total Xbox, Unity’s creative director Alexandre Amancio has revealed that one of protagonist Arno’s activities while off-duty from his creed is to investigate various crimes, and punish those responsible by sending them to jail, for example. What’s more interesting is the fact that you can even punish innocent people. Gone are the days when you would get “desynchronised” for doing something wrong; now, you’ll just have to live with the consequences.

“We have the single-player story and we have the co-op with different missions which are each a standalone story, and then we have all of the stuff that populates Paris”, said Amancio. “With street murders, you find corpses, and you work with [Eugène François Vidocq] – he’s sort of the father of French modern criminology. You can put people in jail, you can accuse and interrogate people – you can accuse the wrong person. You might go to the jail and find that it’s all filled with innocent people by the end of the game. It’s all done through investigation and exploration.”

Another type of side-activity in Assassin’s Creed Unity involves hunting down treasure chests created by Nostradamus – 16th century prophet who’s said to have foreseen the rise of Napoleon. “Nostradamus, who lived in Paris long ago, left these riddles”, Amancio went on. “And you know how we have these huge databases that nobody ever – well, some people like them – but we felt that if you have a real reason to read them, then more people will.” These “treasure hunts” involve observation of the environment and knowledge of the city’s history, rather than testing your blade-skills. “They offer clues that lead you to monuments, but they’re all in riddle form”, continued the director. “So, if you learn about the monuments, you’ll know that there was only one clock in Paris at the time. ‘Where did I see that? Oh, there’s a clock here.’ Then you go to the clock and find the next clue.”

Assassin’s Creed Unity launches on November 11th in North America, November 14th in Europe, and December 4th in Japan, on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.