Ryan Scott, Executive Editor: So is Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood an expansion, or... what? This isn't exactly Assassin's Creed III, is it?
Will Tuttle, Editor in Chief: Well, it's not really an expansion, since it adds quite a bit of content, a brand-new multiplayer mode, and (according to the developers) a 15-hour-long single-player story. But it's definitely not being positioned as Assassin's Creed III. Let's go ahead and call it Assassin's Creed 2.5 or Assassin's Creed II.V and move on.
Ryan Scott: ACII.V sounds just confusing enough -- I'll roll with that. So why this, instead of just pushing forward with AC3? Are they just reusing a bunch of old AC2 assets?
Will Tuttle: My gut reaction is that it's actually quite the opposite. The entire game takes place in the city of Rome, which made a brief, all-too-linear appearance at the end of AC2. If I was a betting man, I'd say the team wanted to put an entirely open Rome environment in the game, but realized what a tremendous undertaking it would be... and decided to do a "spin-off" from the main Assassin's Creed storyline that will be continued in AC3. And while it stars Ezio, apparently he's a good deal older (and wiser) than he was when we first met him. Hell, a lot of people didn't realize that AC2 took place over the course of almost 20 years.
Ryan Scott: What's the gist of the story this time? I dig Assassin's Creed's crazy conspiracy theory machinations.
Will Tuttle: Me too! It's actually one of my favorite conspiracy-theory games ever. Sadly, the folks at Ubisoft aren't talking much about the present day stuff, but I'd have to assume we'll see Desmond return to the Animus to connect with his ancestor Ezio, who's now running an entire guild of assassins. You'll actually need to manage them as resources of some type, although we really weren't given much of idea as to how it'll work. I spent all of my time with the game killing fools in the brand-new multiplayer mode.
Ryan Scott: Is that actually any good? Most multiplayer modes in these kinds of games feel like afterthoughts.
Will Tuttle: I love all things Assassin's Creed, but I was really worried that the multiplayer was either going to feel like an afterthought or was going to be out-and-out bad. You know what? It's actually a lot of fun. The only game type I played was Brotherhood's answer to deathmatch, and it's got a few unique, assassiny twists. Basically, you play as an assassin (selecting from a bunch of different male and female skins) who's hunting rival assassins... while also being hunted by said rival assassins. You have one (and only one) target at a given time, although you're also encouraged to attack anyone and everyone who's hunting you. String together a few consecutive kills, and multiple assassins will come after you -- which makes staying alive quite a bit more challenging. With great risk comes great reward, so you earn more points for killing your pursuers than you do for simply evading them. It's tough to explain, and only slightly less tough to learn how to play (properly).