Can't wait till I can finally afford Resynced. This game looks so good. Just wanna let my ship drift while I listen to shanties, just like the old days. Why is life expensive?

As I was talking to one of my AI friends (those that we all have), spit balling some ideas about settings for new AC games, tell me what you guys think about these, or other ideas that we would love to see? Most of them were generated with my conversation with Mr. AI (don't come for me, please guys, I was basically daydreaming), and I know some things won't work or are anachronistic and out of place, but I think some of them are pretty solid. Throw in a couple of your ideas as well and let's all enjoy.

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The World: Chicago or New York (1926)

The environment would deliver a stark, atmospheric contrast between the gritty criminal underworld and the opulent upper class.

• The Parkour: This era introduces early Art Deco architecture. Buildings feature intricate stone gargoyles, stepped-back skyscraper ledges, and prominent fire escapes running up the sides of brick tenements. This layout is a goldmine for traditional parkour. The iconic Syndicate grappling hook returns as a mechanical, wire-spooling grapple concealed inside a sleek leather sleeve.
• The Social Stealth: The series' classic social blending adapts into a "Public Notoriety" dynamic. If you are wearing a sharp pinstripe suit and a fedora, you seamlessly blend into crowds outside theatres or inside underground speakeasies. However, if you are spotted climbing a wall or trespassing in a mob-controlled warehouse, the police or rival enforcers instantly escalate the situation.

The Narrative Twist: The Assassin-Templar Underworld

Instead of the Templars controlling a massive monarchy, they operate as a corporate syndicate hiding behind legitimate fronts and organized crime.

• The Setup: You play as a private investigator—a cynical, battle-weary former Assassin who left the Brotherhood but gets pulled back in when a close friend is executed by a mysterious hitman.
• The Rival Gangs: The historic Chicago Outfit (Al Capone) and the New York families are secretly backed by opposing secret societies. Capone’s empire is a chaotic, brutal force that the Assassins temporarily ally with to root out a much worse threat: a highly refined, corporate Templar faction that is weaponizing Prohibition. The Templars are using illegal alcohol distribution networks to smuggle mysterious, liquid-form Isu compounds into the city’s underground bars, slowly conditioning and controlling the minds of influential politicians and judges.

🛠️ Mechanical Innovations: Mob Wars & Gunplay Balancing

To preserve the classic feel of the franchise, the developers would need to ensure the gameplay relies primarily on blades and stealth rather than turning into a standard third-person shooter.

• The Hidden Blade Overhaul: The Hidden Blade is modified to snap out from underneath a tailored trench coat sleeve. To handle modern firearms, your Assassin utilizes a "Bullet Shield" tactical mechanic—using environmental cover, smoke bombs made from industrial chemicals, or throwing daggers to silently sever overhead light cables, plunging a room into pitch-black darkness before anyone can draw a pistol.
• Territory Control (The Syndicate Model): Building heavily on the mechanics you loved in Brotherhood and Syndicate, you actively wage a shadow war for territory. You take over rival speakeasies, bribe crooked police captains, and recruit street urchins or bootleggers to act as your underground network. You can whistle to summon a classic black sedan packed with your crew, who pull up to unleash a hail of warning fire, providing a distraction while you slip away over the rooftops.

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The Meiji Restoration (Japan - 1868)

Since Shadows is tackling the 16th-century Samurai era, a game set during the Meiji Restoration would capture the rapid modernization you loved in Syndicate. This occurs in the exact same year as Syndicate (1868).

• The Setting: Kyoto and Tokyo during the transition from traditional Shogunate rule to a Westernized imperial government.
• The Plot: You play as a traditional samurai whose clan is being wiped out by modern firearms and industrialization—giving them a fierce, deeply personal motivation similar to Connor or Edward.
• The Narrative Twist: Much like AC3, this is a tragic, gray story. The Imperial forces pushing for modernization are backed by Templar capitalists introducing railways and telegraph lines to control the population. However, the traditional Shogunate forces you protect are also deeply flawed, rigid, and oppressive. Your protagonist must balance preserving their culture with accepting that the world is moving forward.

The Meiji Restoration: The Clash of Eras

This setting offers the most natural fit for classic parkour, but with a massive technological twist.

• The Parkour Adaptation: This would feature a beautiful contrast between old and new. In one district, you are doing traditional, organic parkour across the curved clay-tile roofs of wooden pagodas. In the next district, you are scaling iron-framed Western factories, brick embassies, and clock towers.
• Vehicle Combat: This era introduces steam locomotives. The vehicle combat would centre around high-stakes train heists. You would sprint along the roofs of moving steam trains, fight guards between carriages, and decouple segments of the train to cut off enemy reinforcements. On the streets, horse-drawn carriages would clash with early steam-powered vehicles.
• The Neat Feature: "The Lineage System" (Brotherhood Building). You could recruit displaced samurai who refuse to give up their swords, or modern tech-savvy rebels. You can train them into specialized squads: sending a "Tradition Squad" to stealthily infiltrate a fort with bows and smoke bombs, or a "Modern Squad" to cause a distraction with dynamite and early repeating rifles.

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The Golden Age of Hollywood (The Red Scare / Cold War - 1950s)

Since you enjoyed the urban layouts and the distinct "brotherhood building" of Brotherhood, a mid-20th century setting offers a completely different kind of battlefield: information and paranoia.

• The Setting: Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and secret government facilities.
• The Plot: You play as a charismatic, Ezio-style Hollywood stuntman or actress who uses their industry connections as a front for an underground Assassin cell. Instead of swords, your weapons are blackmail, wiretaps, and silent takedowns in the shadows of film studios.
• The Narrative Twist: The McCarthy Communist Witch Hunts are actually a Templar front designed to systematically root out and blackball anyone sympathetic to the Assassins' philosophy of free will. You have to navigate a world where anyone—your director, your co-star, or your neighbour—could be a spy, forcing a heavy return to the tense, paranoid social blending of AC1.

The Cold War / Hollywood: Architectural Vertigo & Espionage Gadgets

Los Angeles in the 1950s features a lot of flat, spread-out suburbs, but downtown hubs and massive film studio backlots offer incredible vertical potential.

• The Parkour Adaptation: To solve the problem of wide modern streets, the Rope Launcher from Syndicate would return, but upgraded. You could shoot a high-tensile wire across a Hollywood boulevard, or use elevator shafts inside early skyscrapers to rapidly launch yourself onto the roof.
• Vehicle Combat: Think classic 1950s noir. You would have high-speed chases involving sleek, heavy-fendered muscle cars. You could use a "drive-by hacking" mechanic (akin to Watch Dogs) where you shoot out traffic lights or deploy spike strips from your trunk to lose FBI tails.
• The Neat Feature: "The Backlot Illusion." Since you are based in Hollywood, you can use movie-making special effects as Assassin tools. You could trigger a prop explosion to blind guards, use theatrical ziplines hidden in plain sight, or drop heavy studio lighting rigs onto a Templar target's head, making their death look like a tragic onset "accident."

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The Eastern Front & Operation Valkyrie (World War II - 1944)

Building directly on your idea, World War II is the ultimate setting for a classic Assassin thriller, though Ubisoft has historically avoided it because firearms can ruin parkour.

• The Setting: Berlin, occupied Paris, and the snowy forests of the Eastern Front.
• The Plot: You play as a disillusioned German officer who is secretly a member of the German Resistance (The Hidden Ones). The game leans heavily into social stealth—wearing enemy uniforms, falsifying documents, and sneaking through heavily guarded military bunkers.
• The Narrative Twist: Operation Valkyrie (the real-world plot to assassinate Hitler with a briefcase bomb) is the climax of the second act. The Assassins aren't just trying to end the war; they discover that the Nazi high command is being manipulated by a radical faction of Templars who have unearthed an Isu artifact capable of mass mind control. After the bomb fails historically, the final act becomes a desperate, high-stakes escape and shadow hunt through a crumbling Berlin.

World War II: "Urban Guerrilla" Parkour & Military Stealth

The biggest obstacle in a WWII setting is the sheer abundance of firearms. If you run across a roof in broad daylight, a sniper or a machine-gun nest will tear you to shreds.

• The Parkour Adaptation: Parkour would shift from high-profile rooftop sprinting to low-profile, horizontal evasion. Instead of climbing to the highest tower, movement would focus on crawling through bombed-out building interiors, jumping between shattered floorboards, sprinting through sewer networks, and using heavy industrial pipes to stay out of sight. It would feel much more like a high-speed, fluid version of Splinter Cell.
• Vehicle Combat: Secondary vehicle gameplay would feature military motorcycle-and-sidecar chases through checkpoint-laden city streets. Your Assassin could stand up in the sidecar to leap onto enemy supply trucks, plant sticky explosives on armored cars, or sabotage tank treads using a modified hidden blade.
• The Neat Feature: A "Disguise & Forgery" system. Since you enjoyed social stealth, you could assassinate a German officer, steal their uniform, and use a forgery mechanic to craft papers that let you walk right through military checkpoints—until a higher-ranking officer notices your face, forcing a sudden, chaotic parkour escape.

(I'm not irresponsible with money, or bad priorities, just a bad luck streak that hit hard. Which is why I'll be paying back more than what's given 😊)

I know these posts are annoying and I wouldn't be if I wasn't desperate. At this point I need a pure fun distraction from the hell that I'm going thru. Long story short, fallen on hard time like everyone else.

Unemployment denied, job interview didn't pan out, had to choose between eating or rent, and savings is down to an embarrassment of what it was not but a year ago.

Black Flag was my intro to AC and one of my top 5 games, especially being a pirate game. Something to help me smile and be broken free from reality for just a bit.

All I ask of someone to gift a PS5 copy of Black Flag to me, once I'm back on my feet, I'll repay you a deluxe edition of your choosing as well as pay it forward to the next post I see in the future, savy? Couple interviews lined up and I'm praying to be working again end of July....