More importantly, whyyyy? I thought it'd be sweet to be walking around in game somewhere where I've actually been, but noooo.

Well it's just, like:
Colonial America wasn't known for its sprawling urban areas or its gargantuan feats of construction.
It was known (and has been romanticized) for its pristine forests and its open spaces and an abundance of primeval land to explore.

If you're going to make the game about Assassin's Creed 2 mechanics, you'd be better off hosting the events in eighteenth century London or Paris.
I thought the entire idea about switching things up and visiting America was to introduce new and foreign mechanics and to ensure a very different Assassin's Creed experience.

The notion that their solution to the conundrum of "What to do about the small towns?" was simply to make the towns artificially bigger, as opposed to simply upping the countryside, suggests that the developers are scared to move too far away from the AC2 mechanics and they want to keep you jumping from rooftop to rooftop. But this is Boston, not Rome. The additional urban space is going to feel empty because there just aren't enough intriguing landmarks with novel construction to incorporate. It'll actually, if anything, feel like a worse and less interesting version of AC2 and its sequels to explore, as opposed to being what it should be, which is something markedly different.

Just my two cents. I'm hoping that Boston turns out to be a relatively small part of the game, because really, if you're going to go to colonial America, it shouldn't be to explore Boston or New York or any other 'urban' area. That's not where the excitement was.

EDIT: Like, remember how Brotherhood, -- in my opinion the worst of the Ezio trilogy, though still a fine game -- had all those wide open spaces outside of Rome and you hated those spaces because there wasn't really anything to do there, because it was clear that AC2 was designed for rooftop-to-rooftop urban combat and not for just wandering around open vistas?
...That's what I'm worried about here. AC3 should introduce new mechanics to -- if anything -- make it more fun to explore the forests and hilltops of America and less fun to hop from one unassuming two-story residential building to the other.

Snake you magnificent bastard stop being me and having the same reasons for hating rural Roma.

Seriously part of what I loved about Assassin's Creed from the days of Altair was running across rooftops murdering guards and couriers like a Renaissance Batman without a no-kill rule.

The landscape outside of urban Roma was fucking horrible. You had to have a fucking horse to get anywhere.

That said! I am looking forward to AC3, because now we're going to be tree hopping and mountain climbing and (possibly zip-lining? lets hope that's a thing that happens cuz it was fun in ACR) fuck, so many possibilities! Also I hope to God the hidden blade makes a return or I'll be a tad disappointed.

I have yet to finish Brotherhood because Roma is so bloody crappy.

Also making my hometown(ish) 3 times bigger makes me mad, cause it would of been neat to jump around in a place I am very familiar with, but I do not think I will get the same appeal in it's altered state.

I hope that in making Boston bigger they at least went ahead and looked at what it looked like in 1850 or something (minus whatever historical anachronisms had appeared since then, such as factories, I would suppose). AT least then they can lay claim to some historical accuracy, even if it is the wrong period.

...Okay so my faith in this game has been officially shaken.

So, apparently the Collector's Editions for UK and Europe were announced. There are two!
Now, keep in mind these are the Collector's Editions for the UK and Europe. 'The UK' is included in that sentence.

Okay so the two editions are called: "Freedom" and "Join or Die."
You know, the two American slogans for the war. Freedom from the British, and 'Join or Die' was the mantra with the Snake divided into the disparate colonies.

...The cover of the 'Join or Die' edition features the thirteen-star American flag.
And George Washington's Notebook is an item in both.

Here you go England, here's your Collector's Edition!

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17hn...g/original.jpg


...And seriously, the 'Lost Mayan Ruins?'
Guys the Mayans totally were hangin' out in ancient New England y'all!!!!
(That or: Guys folks living in Boston totally made the perilous journey through the wilderness and/or on a boat to Mexico all the flippin' time!!!) Common occurrence!

I do hope he goes to Mexico though, if it's like "Oh hey the Mayans had cities in territory corresponding with the modern northeastern United States!" I am just going to laugh.

EDIT: Also it's kind of hysterical that England's being sold a Collector's Edition in which the message on the box is apparently "Join the rebellion that is killing your countrymen, or die!"
That would be almost like advertising a German game where you play a Nazi and advertising it in America with the slogan "Join the Nazis or die!", except admittingly the American colonists weren't Nazis but still that's just weird
OH SHIT GODWIN'S LAW

EDIT 2: Lost Mayan Ruins screencap with the other, slightly less overtly offensive to British citizens edition:

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17hn...g/original.jpg

EDIT 3: Also I believe George Washington's notebook is official proof that Washington is being retconned in this game from a Templar to an Assassin.
Because Georgie founder of 'Muricah can't be evil!

Mayan Ruins actually makes sense, as Assassin's Creed 3 is apparently somehow using the whole, "The Mayans predicted the world would end in 2012," thing in the story.

You're complaining about the Mayans being in outlandish locations when the whole series features an ancient race of predecessors including alien ruins, two apocalypses and other supernatural shenanigans. Hell, that's probably the twist behind that story, it's actually Those Who Came Before ruins. Saved ya money on DLC.

Snake, you have to remember that this series is set in a universe where the entire human race is a genetically engineered slave species created to serve an advanced alien race that colonized the planet pre-Ice Age that was wiped out due to rebellion by said slave race and the most recent magnetic pole shift, where all of human history since then has been manipulated in the course of a shadow war between two global factions trying to control the remnants of the extinct alien race's technology for their own purposes, and that everything from major world religions to war to scientific advances has been set up or faked in the name of advancing these faction's goals with the aid of said alien tech.

At some point, history tends to go out the window. Though the advertising is still balls-stupid.

EDIT: Sniped by Ocelot.

Seems more like a Templar thing to be a slave owner, but whatevs. Maybe they'll "fix" that, too. "Oh he owned slaves but he didn't want to, and he would've freed them if only he could have!"

Why does everyone of any cultural significance have to be either a Templar or an Assassin?

EDIT: I'm probably in the minority here when I say I'm not all that keen on these "Mayan/alien/apocalypse" shenanigans and was just happy with it being Assassins vs. Templar.