Assassin’s Creed Red, for example, finally takes the series to Feudal Japan, and Hexe will supposedly be set during the witch trials of Europe. Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade returns the series to China after the setting first appeared in Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China. While not much besides promotional images and logos have been unveiled for these games so far, there have been other details for fans to dig into. Codename Jade, for example, will be a mobile game and feature character customization. This latter mechanic isn’t new to Assassin’s Creed, but it does mark an area where Ubisoft could improve.
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Why Character Customization Needs to be Different in Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade
Depending on how an Assassin’s Creed fan defines character customization, it could be seen as appearing as early as the second game of the franchise, as players were allowed to equip Ezio with different armor sets and colors. Assassin’s Creed Unity also allowed for a lot of customization in its co-op feature; players could tweak their weapons, armor, and even play styles. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has the most developed character customization in the franchise to date, though, as it gave fans the chance not only to choose the gender of their character, but change things like hairstyles, tattoos, and more.
However, just because Assassin’s Creed Valhalla gave players the most in-depth character customization options of the franchise so far, this didn’t mean that this feature was necessarily well-received. Assassin’s Creed often focuses on narrative, but this became muddied within Valhalla, as it limited how the player could connect to the character they were taking through the Viking era. This means that Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade has plenty of options to step up and improve how character customization works in the franchise.
There are two main ways in which Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade can improve character customization. Firstly, it can give the player a lot more options when it comes to creating their character, and secondly, the feature shouldn’t come at the cost of the narrative. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla did give fans customization options, but compared to the character creator of other open-world games like Elden Ring, it can be considered lacking. This isn’t to say that Assassin’s Creed should adopt FromSoftware’s character creator, but it would be interesting to see additional features appear in Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade’s customization options, allowing for changes to body shape and facial appearance to really make a character feel unique to the player.
If Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade really looks to improve its character creation options, it should also work towards removing the focus from the story’s protagonist, or create a narrative where the leading assassin can be anyone. Again looking to Elden Ring as an example, FromSoftware’s action-RPG allows players to be whoever they want because the narrative is dependent on anyone coming to save the Lands Between. Assassin’s Creed instead usually focuses on one character whose story is integral to the world around them. However, it has been teasing fans with the choice of playing as who they want to be for some time. In Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, there was the option to choose between Kassandra and Alexios, and Valhalla has the custom character Eivor.
However, it seems Ubisoft doesn’t feel ready to depart from Assassin’s Creed stories being led by a pivotal protagonist. This should change in Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade, finally allowing players to be who they want to be without feeling like the narrative gets muddied because of it. Assassin’s Creed Infinity marks the future of the franchise, and the games available through it should aim for something more ambitious than its past entires. In-depth character customization options in Codename Jade could be one way to do this.
Assassin’s Creed: Codename Jade is currently in development for Mobile devices.
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