There’s so much potential in this premise, and yet so far we’ve not seen much at all that Assassin’s Creed 3 didn’t show us already. This bodes well for the following two episodes of this DLC, which will feature two more animal-spirit communions and give Ratonhnhaké:ton several more powers, but the story’s refusal (so far) to really engage with the alternate-history angle beyond its current limited scope is less encouraging. They’re a fun twist on the gameplay that’s given just enough space to breathe without becoming tired. The wolf powers, though, go some way towards redeeming it. Narratively, this first episode of The Tyranny of King Washington can’t help but be unsatisfying – it’s only one-third of a story, after all. They’re both fun to use, though – and as this episode lasts two hours at most, there isn’t time for them to get boring. Wolf Cloak drains your health whilst it’s activated, meaning you have to dart between hiding places. Wolf Pack has a long recharge time (although weirdly, other enemies seem totally unbothered by the fact that their comrades have mysteriously fallen to invisible animals, and don’t think to come looking for where they might have come from). “Ratonhnhaké:ton’s newfound lupine powers aren’t limitless. This is enormously stereotypical as a concept, but has interesting implications for how you play: communion with the spirits grants Ratonhnhaké:ton vaguely supernatural powers that significantly change the gameplay. In an effort to defend his village from power-crazed Washington’s troops, Ratonhnhaké:ton and the other men of the tribe turn to ancestral tradition: drinking a tea made from the branches of a sacred tree, which allows them to commune with animal spirits. It’s not clear what purpose this narrative decision is serving, and answers won’t come until the third episode of this DLC. One of the confusing things about this setup is that Connor himself seems totally disorientated by it – he still has memories of what happened during Assassin’s Creed 3’s storyline, even though nobody around him knows what he’s talking about. You adventure alongside his clansmen, and at least in this first episode you never come within reach of a city it’s all set outdoors. The studio would later go on to be the team behind AC Syndicate and AC Odyssey, and once you realize this, everything starts to make sense. But for AC3, Ubisoft Quebec studio was the sole lead for the Tyranny of King Washington DLC.
This DLC relies much more heavily on Connor’s native American heritage, which was rather under-used in the main Assassin’s Creed 3 storyline. Up until AC3, Ubisoft Montreal was the lead development team for the series. He’s still Ratonhnhaké:ton, his village was never destroyed, his mother was never killed, and he never became an assassin. “Instead, we only see how it affects Connor – except in this alternate timeline, he never becomes Connor.
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