The Tyranny of King Washington leans into an angle that I wish more Assassin's Creed games did, and that's a whole-hearted push into "what-if" territory. In this game's case, it's "what if George Washington took an Apple of Eden and became a tyrannical god-king?" Each of the 3 episodes sees Connor take the fight to Washington in one of the base game's main areas, but all three are now ruined and cowed under the boot of Washington's brutality. Connor gets to pack some magic powers which adds a new dynamic to the gameplay, but its balanced out by Tyranny being much less forgiving. It's still Assassin's Creed III and shares many of its problems, but it's at least a decent change in direction.

[Jogado através do Assassin's Creed III Remastered]

A história dessa DLC é infinitamente mais interessante do que a do jogo base, a franquia devia seguir mais vezes essa linha do "what if", mesmo tendo ótimos enredos fiéis aos acontecimentos históricos.

Mas nada me tira da cabeça que o briefing pra essa expansão foi tipo: "e se em vez de fazer uma DLC onde a gente melhora aspectos problemáticos do jogo base, a gente adicionar aspectos novos tão problemáticos quanto?". E assim surgiu Assassin's Creed III: The Tyranny of King Washington.

Eu presenciei mais bugs aqui do que no game base, coisa de inteligência artificial desligando, personagens que ficam presos dentro de um campo de força onde eles não podem te atingir ou serem atingidos. E em um certo momento, durante a missão de cidadão de resgatar os comboios, os carrinhos estavam parados em um ponto do mapa, mas o gatilho de interação ficou preso num ponto anterior, me fazendo ter que interagir com um combio invisível pra completar a missão.

As missões são curtas e grossas, mas os objetivos opcionais conseguem ser tão ou mais frustrantes que os da campanha principal. Principalmente por, em diversos trechos, tu depender das novas habilidades espirituais do Connor. Que até são legais, mas como elas drenam tua vida, se tu faz algo errado, se um dos cachorros te descobre ou se os NPCs tiverem com o olho de thundera (como frequentemente estão), tu é exposto e entra em conflito aberto com a vida no mínimo, o que te deixa suscetível não só a morrer com poucos golpes, mas também a não poder ativar a habilidade de novo pra tentar fugir. Teria sido melhor se tivessem colocado pra essas habilidades uma barra como se fosse de mana ou algo assim.

Como eu disse, a história é muito mais legal, mas o gameplay pra mim foi piorado por essas decisões questionáveis. No fim Assassin's Creed III até o momento foi minha pior experiência, pior até mesmo que com o Unity. O que é uma pena, porque é o jogo que fica entre duas fases extremamente marcantes e queridas da franquia.

I actually played this as part of the Remastered bundle, but have reviewed them serparately as I don't believe that all of the weaknesses of ACIII apply to the DLC.

Taking part mostly in an alternate univers, TOKW does all the kid bits of the main game, but shaves off some of the fat. I'll be honest, at the time when I played this game I was ready to shelf Assassin's Creed III until such a time came that I was caught up with other games and just wanted to some hunting. But I'm glad I stuck it out because it is a truly enjoyable experience.

While it isn't paramount to how good a game actually is, knowing that actual Native Americans were involved in the process of creating the game does feel nice. You don't see much in video games and when you do we have previously seen the sterotypical savage. Obviously a game about magical pre-humanity artifacts can only be so realistic, but Ubisoft Montreal does the extra work to make sure that when they are representing cultures it is historically accurate.

I mentioned in my review of AC3 that the convoys and trading seems a bit pointless and in the DLC it just isn't a thing. You find weapons in chests, but this too is enirely optional. All 3 chapters only take about 5 hours to complete making it very much a diet AC3, which greatly works in its favour.

If you too became some what fatigued by the end of AC3, I'd recommend you to give it some time then come back to play the DLC. If you hate the DLC too then fair enough, Connor's story just isn't for you.

Played it only because it's included with AC3 Remastered, I feel like I was fucking robbed of 4 hours of my life. It's buggy, boring, filler with 2 cool ideas. The 1st cool idea are the spirit animal powers, one of which grants you Predator-like invisibility at the cost of taking damage per second while another one makes you turn into an eagle and dash to vantage points making traversal so fucking smooth that I will ACTUALLY miss this ability for the rest of the franchise. The second cool idea is in the title, it's alternate history with Washington as a tyrant. But the DLC overall is LAZY AS ALL FUCK! There was 15 minutes in my whole 4-hour journey where I felt any effort was put into this, the two last missions that feature a VERY unique location and a unique boss fight. Every single second other than that felt like I was doing some lazy-ass side missions in AC3 with cool powers. Thank the gods this was so short, but if I bought this at launch for GOD DAMN $30 then I would mail something nefarious to EA headquarters. Again, I played this for "free" as it is included in the Remaster, and I still felt ripped off, just do yourself a favor and skip this pile.

Found this one way more interesting and engaging than the main game.

It's got a stronger alt-history premise and introduces new mechanics that actually switch up gameplay. The player is given gameplay options that are actually dramatic, unlike the main game where you miss out on nothing when ignoring like 90% of your tools. Additionally the pacing is vastly improved and doesn't slog nearly as much, all characters feel a bit more focused and mostly everyone has more meaningful things to do.

Unfortunately, just like the main game Conor has no chance to show a shred of personality and generally continues just being this dumb good guy character with middle-school level philosophy, just as we see in the main missions of the main game. It is boggling how they created such a layered character only to dumb him down in every main piece of content.

I find it puzzling this dlc is looked back on so negatively when it offers some legitimately interesting switch ups from the absolute monotony of the main game. It's solid!

If you wanna see my rankings as I go through the series, click here.