Thanks to XCN here at AG we managed to get our hands on an Assassins Creed 3 Season Pass. And I felt it necessary to ensure that the two parts that are currently released for season pass holders get reviewed. The Tyranny of King Washington is an episodic single player DLC which compromises of three episodes. Both episode 1 (The Infamy) and episode 2 (The Betrayal) will be reviewed in this article, and as such, there may be some spoilers from episode 1. If you are looking for an opinion on Assassins Creed 3 check out the review of the full game HERE.
The Tyranny of King Washington sees us controlling a confused Connor. He remembers the events of the main game, but as the events of The Infamy begin, he finds himself back in the frontier, near the outskirts of his village. His mother is still alive, and a certain Washington is now king. It seems as though we are in some alternate universe where Washington is using the power of a Sceptre (a piece of Eden) to rule the lands. It’s up to Connor to find out just what is going on, and bring the reign of the mad King to an end.
Once Connor’s mother dies (again), the Clan Mother instructs him to climb the Great Willow to claim it’s power, and in the process to ‘right his mother’s wrongs’. The powers are central to the story in the DLC. The Infamy focuses on the power of the wolf - the ability to turn Connor invisible. It is a concept I don’t think would usually fit into the Assassins Creed world, but due to the nature of what seems to be an alternate universe that makes no sense, I guess it is justified in a way, but I think it draws away from the challenge of the game to remain stealthy without the use of such a power. That being said, activating it does drain health, and therefore at times needs to be used tactically, but there are plenty of times where it feels overpowered. Later on in The Infamy dogs are introduced which smell your presence, and negate the effect of invisibility. Bait lures dogs elsewhere to aid in sneaking in to areas. Another handy tool is calling for a pack of wolves to take out your enemies, much like the ability to call on your assassin helpers in the main game.
Story wise, The Tyranny of King Washington is actually quite intriguing, and I found myself wanting to know what happened next as I was taken capture at the end of The Infamy, and I was on my way to Boston, hoping to find Ben Franklin – who needs ‘freeing’. From what I didn’t know, but I knew he could help my cause. Happily I was able to get stuck straight in with The Betrayal.
Following events of The Infamy Connor finds himself locked in a jail cell, and needs to escape. Powers from the The Infamy role over and are available for use in Betrayal. Soon after the beginning of the second DLC you get the next Great Willow power – the power of the eagle. Which is even more ridiculous that the power of the wolf. Predictably, harnessing eagle power gives you the ability of flying, but it isn’t quite as smooth to use as the first power. I found combining flights awkward at times, and the new eagle assassination ability seemed inconsistent with distance from the enemy, as well as it generally not functioning properly at times before an enemy spots you. As a result of this, I focussed more on using the power of the wolf again.
Mission wise The Betrayal got a bit stale and repetitive at times, which led me to begin to lose interest in what was going on. Some simple solutions and quick time events for key moments didn’t help with this. And with the length of each DLC being relatively short story wise, I feel that they could have filled it out with more varying mission types.
The story in The Infamy and The Betrayal take around 2 hours each to complete if you quick travel and just focus on the story missions. But to gain the 100% synchronization there are treasures to find, memory fragments and civilian missions scattered throughout each of the two areas. Overall the story has some nice little surprises, and twists and turns, and it has left me wanting to know what on earth is going on, and what the conclusion is going to be, despite The Betrayal not being as strong as its predecessor. And I think I would have preferred to play additional story content, without the inclusion of powers I don’t believe belong in a game of this nature.
Look out for the review of the third and final episode (The Redemption) on its release.
