Assassin's Creed III is a 2012 action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the fifth major installment in the Assassin's Creed series, and a direct sequel to 2011's Assassin's Creed Revelations. The game was released worldwide for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, beginning in North America on October 30, 2012, with a Wii U and Microsoft Windows release in November 2012. A remastered version of the game was released in 2019 for Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, and in 2021 for Google Stadia.
The game's plot is set in a fictional history of real-world events and follows the millennia-old struggle between the Assassins, who fight to preserve peace and free will, and the Templars, who desire peace through control. The framing story is set in the 21st century and features series protagonist Desmond Miles using a machine known as the Animus to relive the memories of his ancestors and find a way to avert the 2012 apocalypse. The main narrative is set in 18th-century Colonial America from 1754 to 1783, and follows two characters whose stories are interconnected: Haytham Kenway, a British Templar who attempts to build a presence for his Order in the colonies during the French and Indian War; and Ratonhnhaké:ton / Connor, Haytham's half-Mohawk son, who becomes an Assassin to protect his people and avenge his mother's death, and battles the Templars' attempts to influence the outcome of the American Revolution.
Assassin's Creed III is set in an open world and presented from the third-person perspective, with a primary focus on using each playable character's combat and stealth abilities to eliminate targets and explore the environment. Connor is able to freely explore 18th-century Boston, New York City, and the American frontier to complete side missions away from the primary storyline. The game also features a multiplayer component, allowing players to compete online to complete solo and team-based objectives including assassinations and evading pursuers. Ubisoft developed a new game engine, AnvilNext, for the game. Assassin's Creed III was one of the first major video game releases to prominently feature Mohawk people (), an Iroquoian-speaking Indigenous people of North America. The team sought to capture Mohawk culture as authentically as possible and consulted with cultural experts about the depiction of Connor and other Mohawk characters. A number of downloadable content (DLC) packs were released to support Assassin's Creed III, including The Tyranny of King Washington, a story expansion set in an alternate timeline from the base game's events.
The game received positive reviews from critics, who praised it for its gameplay, narrative, setting, and ambitious scale, while criticism was directed at the unevenly developed gameplay mechanics, mission design, and pacing. It was a commercial success, selling more than 12 million copies worldwide. Assassin's Creed III was released alongside a spin-off for the PlayStation Vita titled Assassin's Creed III: Liberation. A sequel, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, was released in October 2013. While its modern-day narrative continues from the events of Assassin's Creed III, the main plot is set during the Golden Age of Piracy in the early 18th century and follows Haytham's father and Connor's grandfather, Edward Kenway. Another prequel, Assassin's Creed Rogue, detailing the rise and fall of the Templars and Assassins in Colonial America, respectively, was released in November 2014.
Gameplay
Assassin's Creed III is an action-adventure, stealth game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective. The main narrative of the game follows Ratonhnaké:ton, also known as Connor, an 18th-century Assassin from Colonial America, and his involvement in various events during the American Revolution and the Revolutionary War. In the game's prologue, consisting of the first three main sequences, players control Connor's father Haytham Kenway, the leader of the Colonial Templars, while in the modern-day sequences, the player character is series protagonist Desmond Miles, who searches for a way to protect the Earth from an upcoming solar flare on December 21, 2012. The game world consists of three main areas: Boston, New York City, and a large wilderness known as the Frontier. Portions of the Eastern Seaboard and Caribbean Sea can be explored during the naval side missions.
Free running has been simplified to allow for more fluid parkour in the cities and wilderness, such as climbing and running on trees, mountains, cliffs, etc. Close combat has been modified, allowing Connor to dual-wield weapons and take down multiple opponents at once, and players no longer need to manage the lock-on mechanic. Connor has access to a wide range of weapons which include muskets, swords, pistols, native weapons such as the tomahawk and bow and arrow, the Rope Dart (used to pull foes or hang them from above), and the Assassins' signature Hidden Blades. Human shields can be used against firing lines of enemies. Medicine is no longer used as health recovers automatically. Stealth is revamped, allowing players to use natural elements such as tall grass and trees to hide, along with the ability to blend between any two people.
Assassin's Creed III features weather simulations such as snow, fog, and rain. The seasons can change i.e., Summer and Winter, which affect visuals and gameplay. Snowfall can reduce visibility for the player and enemies, aiding stealth. The game features a wide variety of animals, both domestic (such as horses, cows, and dogs) and wild (deer, wolves, bears, etc.). Wild animals are found in the Frontier and can be hunted for meat or marrow in order to be sold. The quality of the kill determines the price, encouraging the player to hunt silently. For this, traps and bait can be used.
The economy is based on the Davenport Homestead, which acts as Connor's adoptive home. The site can be visited by people such as carpenters, tailors, etc., suffering from displacement due to the war. Helping and interacting with these non-player characters (NPCs) encourages them to settle in the Homestead. From there on, the player can craft various items and trade with them, and sell the goods to the cities via caravan. The player can help them build relationships with each other, which will result in the formation of a small community.
A revamped version of the recruitment system introduced in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood returns as players can enlist citizens to the Assassins' cause by completing optional "Liberation" missions. Unlike previous games, the player is limited to six Assassin recruits, but these recruits are each given distinct personalities and backstories, and have a much larger skill set, allowing them to start riots, provide a cover escort, and set up an ambush, among others. Other side missions include collecting Benjamin Franklin's lost Almanac pages, exploring underground tunnels to unlock fast-travel stations, joining hunting and fighting clubs, investigating various frontiersman rumors like UFOs and Sasquatches, and "peg-legs" missions in which Connor goes to various forts and wastelands to uncover the legend of Captain Kidd's treasure. In addition, minigames such as Bowls, Checkers, Fanorona, and Nine men's morris are playable for the first time in the series.
Assassin's Creed III introduces naval gameplay to the series. During the main story, Connor captains a brig, the Aquila, and is given the opportunity to upgrade it with improved weapons and hull armor. Control of the ship relies on environmental factors such as wind direction and speed, local presence of storms, high waves, and rocks. Engagements are by cannon, with broadsides covering both flanks of the ship, swivel guns that can be used to damage smaller ships which can be boarded to find treasure, and chain shots that can instantly take down the masts of larger ships and disable them. The Aquila is usable only during a few main story missions and a series of dedicated side missions.
The Wii U version of the game has a few extra features, such as the ability to change weapons on the go and the map being always visible on the Wii U GamePad. This version also supports Off TV Play, which redirects the main screen to the Wii U Gamepad.
Online multiplayer returns in this installment, developed by Ubisoft Annecy. Along with returning modes, new ones feature a co-operative mode named Wolfpack, in which 1–4 players are charged with killing certain NPCs within a time limit, through a sequence of 25 stages. It features Domination, a team mode where players will have to capture certain areas of the map, protecting them from the opposing team. Ubisoft announced that the multiplayer servers for Assassin's Creed III, alongside several other of their older titles, would be shut down on September 1, 2022. The date was later delayed to October 1, 2022.
The Remastered version of the game features revamped mechanics. Players can whistle from anywhere while hidden, whereas the original version only allowed whistling from corners. Double assassinations have been improved so as not to require entering high-profile mode to do so. Free-aiming with ranged weapons was made possible, allowing Connor more control over his bow and pistols. The mini-map and the UI were upgraded with better-looking and easier-to-recognize icons for ease of accessibility, figuring out where enemies will point next and features color-blind modes. The crafting system and the economy system were also vastly upgraded. The game's lighting system has been upgraded to resemble the new technology implemented in Assassin's Creed Origins, and the textures have been revamped to resemble those seen in the Assassin's Creed games utilizing the more advanced AnvilNext 2.0 engine.
Synopsis Setting Following the conclusion of the "Ezio Trilogy" with Assassin's Creed Revelations, Assassin's Creed III shifts focus towards a new historical time period: 18th-century Colonial America. The game follows two new protagonists: Haytham Kenway, a British nobleman and high-ranking member of the Templar Order, who is sent to America to establish a strong Templar presence on the continent and find an ancient temple built by the First Civilization; and Ratonhnhaké:ton, also known as Connor, Haytham's half-Mohawk son, who joins the Assassins to avenge the burning of his village and his mother's death and stop the Templars from gaining control of the colonies.
Haytham's story serves as a prologue to the main narrative, and takes place from 1754 to 1755, at the onset of the French and Indian War, which paved the way for the American Revolution. Connor's story spans two decades of his life, from his childhood in 1760 to 1783, and involves major events from the American Revolution and the Revolutionary War seen from Connor's perspective. Boston and New York City are cities that can be explored, alongside the American Colonial Frontier, spanning forest, cliffs, rivers, Connor's village, and the settlements of Lexington and Concord. The player can hunt small and large animals, and approximately one-third of the story takes place in the Frontier. The city of Philadelphia can also be visited at one point during the game, as can The Caribbean during several naval missions. The Eastern seaboard is explorable via Connor's captaining of his warship, the Aquila.
Like previous games in the series, the story includes segments set during the modern day, in 2012, which again follow Desmond Miles and his efforts to save humanity from an impending disaster. These segments have been expanded significantly, and involve short missions that the player must complete to advance the narrative. Locations visited during the modern-day missions include a skyscraper in Manhattan, New York; a stadium in São Paulo, Brazil; and Abstergo's facility in Rome, Italy.