I crouch unseen behind the bureau, the guard blocking the one exit from the room. Silently, I attain for a goblet, throwing it to the alternative aspect of the chamber. Because the guard steps towards the disturbance, I emerge, sneaking behind him. With a flick of my wrist, my hidden blade emerges. He’ll by no means take one other step once more. Additionally, his halberd begins fritzing on the ground earlier than fading out of existence, a reminder that that is all digital actuality—or reasonably, VR inside VR, the metatextual framing of Ubisoft’s newest Murderer’s Creed sport.
Ubisoft has had its fingers in VR for years now, from early efforts experimenting with the format—assume Eagle Flight, an aerial racing sport with a literal chicken’s-eye view that advanced from a tech demo—to extra totally featured video games, such because the social deduction title Werewolves Inside or co-op house journey Star Trek: Bridge Crew, each from its Purple Storm studio.
Murderer’s Creed Nexus VR is completely different. It’s larger, extra bold, leveraging the success of the writer’s greatest IP. And whereas Purple Storm as soon as extra leads improvement, Ubisoft dedicated no fewer than eight studios to its creation. This can be a push, one meant to make the case that VR gaming has lastly, really arrived, that it’s ultimately a format value bringing AAA properties to in significant methods, reasonably than for gimmicky spinoffs.
It’s a prosecution Ubisoft makes alarmingly nicely. Enjoying Murderer’s Creed Nexus on the Meta Quest 3 has that uncommon distinction of shattering expectations and feeling higher than it ought to. Should you’re a longtime VR participant, it brilliantly combines one of the best components of immersive gameplay right into a cohesive complete, permitting you to maneuver, climb, cover, and combat your means round stunningly realized places. For Murderer’s Creed followers drawn to VR for the primary time, it does an distinctive job of inserting you within the function of an murderer, with all of the stealth and parkour mechanics you count on from the core video games translated nearly flawlessly to a first-person expertise.
That it’s a canon tour via Murderer’s Creed’s more and more huge lore doesn’t damage, both. The story’s present-day framing locations you within the function of a hacker, one infiltrating shady megacorp Abstergo’s newest try at manipulating the previous to regulate the long run. Higher nonetheless? Gameplay that places you into the genetic recollections of three returning heroes—Murderer’s Creed II’s Ezio, AC III’s Connor, and Odyssey’s Kassandra.
For longtime followers of the collection, it’s an absolute delight to revisit these stab-happy leads years after their debuts, and Nexus leans into their completely different play types, additional justifying the multi-character method. Ezio boasts two of the collection’ signature hidden blades, emphasizing his extra shadowy nature, whereas Kassandra seems like extra of a fighter, befitting her mercenary nature in Odyssey. Even Connor, thought-about one of many much less fashionable of AC’s protagonists, will get a beneficiant showcase, together with his use of a tomahawk and a bow and arrow bringing a materially completely different really feel to each fight and stealth.
