When you think of Assassin’s Creed, certain things come to mind. Climbing incredible buildings and environments, focusing on stealth which leads to unforgettable assassination moments and leaping from said buildings. All of these things sound like something other than fun things to do in virtual reality. However, Ubisoft was set on bringing the Assassin’s Creed franchise to VR with Assassin’s Creed Nexus. With the updates to pass through on the Meta Quest 3, they have been able to meld the Abstergo and Animus gameplay elements in unique and interesting ways.
Assassin’s Creed Nexus follows an unnamed hacker-controlled by the player, who can choose to have a male or female voice. As they get a job at Abstergo, they secretly work for the Brotherhood. Both Abstergo and the Brotherhood had the same goal: to find critical memory points that would lead them to the “EYE,” which would help Abstergo make the Antikytheria Mechanism work.
Although Abstergo wants to collect the artifact to help them create and form memories, The Brotherhood seeks to destroy it. This is mainly a reason for the hacker to jump between multiple Assassins throughout the franchise. If you like the current-day Abstergo storyline of the more recent Assassin’s Creed games, then this is for you, as we play the Assassins during the storylines of their distinct games.
There is something to be said for fans of the series like myself to hop back and forth between past Assassins. Assassin’s Creed Nexus is almost like an encore tour as we play as Ezio, Cassandra, and more. The first moment I moved around in Ezio’s timeline, I was in awe and almost tear-struck, as Assassin’s Creed 2 is one of my favourites, giving us a new view of the world.
“The traversal and combat in Assassin’s Creed Nexus as a standalone can be rather wonky.”
I was confident they would pair down some of the gameplay aesthetics in Assassin’s Creed Nexus as some games that focus too heavily on traversal are known to make some VR users I’ll, myself included. But Ubisoft went to the next level with their comfort options, including things I haven’t seen implemented in VR before. Everything you’d expect from Assassin’s Creed is here: the climbing, the sneaking, and yes, even the leaps of faith. Thankfully, with some exciting comfort settings, Ubisoft has managed to pull them all off in ways that cause minimal motion sickness.
This is done by a mixture of usual tunnelling when moving and turning, the ability to teleport even while climbing, and bypass jumping. Most importantly, because there is a lot of vertical in Assassin’s Creed Nexus, a grid to be laid at your feet at all times, which surprisingly helps with height-related sickness. While this does break immersion for those of us who get motion sick, it helps an incredible amount. By the third mission, I was teleporting around, jumping off buildings, and successfully assassinating enemies without any issue.
One last important note on the comfort options: they have the option for built-in reminders where a voice will come over the headset to remind you to take a break to avoid VR sickness but also to build this into the world. They mention Animus bleeding as a cause for this. Hats off to Ubisoft for making VR sickness breaks a part of the core game loop.
“Assassin’s Creed Nexus really shows that with enough care and study into motion sickness, things like jumping off buildings and climbing vast buildings can be smooth.”
The traversal and combat in Assassin’s Creed Nexus as a standalone can be rather wonky. Not all the time. In fact, the game is at its best when you are sneaking or traversing around wide-open areas. It feels like a fully realized Assassin’s Creed game when it’s open, and you can thoroughly plan out your missions with the new Eagle Eye ability, which puts you in an overview of the entire area where you can take enemies and see your objectives.
But, sometimes, when in tighter locations, it starts to show that usual VR goofiness. This comes in the form of clipping through walls when climbing, having to cut down boards in your way, and, just in general, having to move in tight spaces. Thankfully, even with that, nothing beats the feeling of thrusting out your hidden blade and pulling off tight assassinations.
Assassin’s Creed Nexus really shows that with enough care and study into motion sickness, things like jumping off buildings and climbing vast buildings can be smooth. The story ultimately left me wanting more in terms of where we go from here for the modern-day storyline in Assassin’s Creed. It does an excellent job of cementing itself as an incredibly well-done story in Assassin’s Creed. Gameplay-wise, it does a great job of capturing the true gameplay loops of Assassin’s Creed, and there are moments in this game that I will return to time and time again.
