Yeesh, Ubisoft is riding this Assassin’s Creed horse pretty hard. Not only are there two AAA games arriving on the same date in November, there’s actually a third game they’ve just revealed. But for now you’ll need to get a season pass of DLC content for Assassin’s Creed: Unity to play it.
As found by Kotaku, and called Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China, it’s essentially Ubisoft getting on that Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate action. You’re in 16th Century China and playing some stabby guy trained by Ezio, who apparently never slept after getting that hood, but this time it’s in 2.5D. It actually appears to owe quite a lot to Armature’s underrated 3DS/Vita game, especially in the sneaking and striking mechanics.
Honestly, in of itself, it’s not a bad thing. Assassin’s Creed can always use new ideas, and often the franchise is at its best when it’s using the base gameplay as a springboard to experiment with other genres or even pioneer completely new ones; I fully expect their approach to ship-to-ship combat is going to be co-opted and built on by other games.
That said, it’s a bit annoying that this is paid DLC, especially since it’s kind of weird to require you to buy a game and more content for a game to get another game. This is not a trend we want to encourage. At this rate, DLC will become humble bundles in of themselves, and we already have a big enough pile of shame.