New leaks paint worrying picture for upcoming VR title ‘Assassin’s Creed Nexus’

Back in 2019, we heard rumours that Ubisoft had partnered with Oculus to develop new virtual reality titles, including an Assassin's Creed and a Splinter Cell game. Those titles were officially announced in 2020, and now, the first in-game footage for Assassin's Creed VR has leaked online.

It has been almost two full years since the new Ubisoft VR games were announced during a Facebook Connect event. A beta build for Assassin's Creed VR, currently titled ‘Assassin's Creed Nexus', has been in testing this year and sure enough, one play tester broke NDA by capturing in-game footage and sharing it online.

Assassin's Creed Nexus, set to release in the coming 12 months, leaked a couple of weeks ago from GamingLeaksAndRumours

You can see the gameplay footage above. Unfortunately, the clip does not show much outside of the main menu and mission selection screens. However, more details about the game were revealed on Reddit, including information about weapons, combat, mission design, movement and other key points of interest.

According to the source, in Assassin's Creed Nexus, players will have access to a sword, the Hidden Blade, throwing knives, smoke bombs and a crossbow. Combat is timing based, so you wait for the enemy to move and break cover or lower their shield and then strike. For parkour and climbing sections, you aren't going to be physically using your hands to scale virtual walls, instead, it is claimed that parkour is as simple as running towards climbable sections and holding down the A button. Stealth mechanics will also apparently be present. The first character you'll play as will be the fan-favourite protagonist of Assassin's Creed II, Ezio.

There are said to be multiple Assassin's from previous games in the series all featured in this game. It is a linear game, with individual levels, although those levels are quite large and open, according to the leak. However, the world is said to be fairly static with limited movable props, which doesn't sound great for a high-budget VR title.

Typically, the best VR games have been ones that enable the most freedom and give players the tools to play around in the world. Half-Life: Alyx and Boneworks are two excellent examples of this, with tons of objects throughout the world that can be interacted with, all with realistic physics in place. If you can't interact much with the environment in a VR game, then the experience can end up feeling quite shallow.

Unfortunately, Ubisoft has not announced a release date for Assassin's Creed Nexus yet, nor has the publisher shared any official footage or gameplay details. The game has been in development for several years at this point though, so perhaps we'll get some official news over the summer months.

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KitGuru Says: Assassin's Creed as a franchise can work well in VR, but I have some concerns based off of this leak. Of course, nothing is official yet though and no actual gameplay footage has been shown, so we'll have to reserve judgement for the time being. 

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