Assassin's Creed III is a third-person action-adventure title set in an open world in which the player uses a combination of stealth, parkour, and combat to complete various missions. The player takes the role of three characters during the course of the game. The main character is Desmond Miles, a 21st-century Assassin, working to uncover the secrets of a mysterious Precursor Vault that will protect the Earth from an upcoming solar flare on December 21, 2012. To uncover the secrets, Desmond uses the Animus to live out memories of two of his ancestors which the player controls during these sequences, both set at the time of the American Revolutionary War. The first, briefly played at the start of the game, is Haytham Kenway, a British Templar who seeks the location of the Vault. The second and the primary character for the game is Ratonhnhaké:ton, the result of a brief liaison between Kenway and a Native American woman. Ratonhnhaké:ton takes on the name Connor to blend in better with colonial society. When playing as Connor, the player has access to a huge wilderness known as the Frontier (which is 1.5 times bigger than Rome in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood), the cities of Boston and New York City. Portions of the Eastern Seaboard and Caribbean Sea can be explored via the flagship of the Assassins' navy, the Aquila, captained by Connor Kenway himself, with Robert Faulkner his first-mate advising and teaching him in the ways of the sea.
Free running has been simplified to allow for more fluid parkour in the cities and wilderness, such as climbing and running on trees, mountains, cliffs, etc. Close combat has been modified, allowing Connor to dual-wield weapons and take down multiple opponents at once and players no longer need to manage the lock-on mechanic. Aiding this, Connor has access to a wide range of weapons which include muskets, swords, pistols, native weapons such as the tomahawk and bow and arrow, a rope dart (used to pull foes or hang them, while on a tree) as well as the Hidden Blades. In addition, the left Hidden Blade has a folding mechanism for blocking attacks, skinning an animal, and performing high-profile assassinations. Human shields can be used against firing lines of enemies. Medicine is no longer used as health recovers automatically. Stealth is also revamped, allowing players to use natural elements such as tall grass and trees to hide, along with the ability to blend between any two people.
Assassin's Creed III features new weather simulations such as snow, fog, and rain. The seasons can also change i.e., Summer and Winter, which not only affect visuals but also gameplay, as the player will find that they run slower in deep snow. Snowfall can reduce visibility for the player and enemies, aiding stealth. Unlike the past games, this one includes animals varying from domestic (horses, cows, dogs) to wild (deer, wolves, bears). The wild ones are found in the Frontier and can be hunted for meat or marrow in order to be sold. The quality of the kill determines the price, encouraging the player to hunt silently. For this, traps and bait can also be used.
The economy is now based on the Davenport Homestead, which also acts as Connor's adoptive home. The site can be visited by people such as carpenters, tailors, etc. suffering from displacement due to the war. Helping and interacting with these non-player characters (NPCs) will encourage them to settle in the Homestead. From there on, the player can craft various items and trade with them, and then sell the goods to the cities via caravan. The player can also help them build relationships with each other, which will then result in the formation of a small village. The player can also upgrade the Homestead manor as well as Connor's ship, the Aquila.
A revamped version of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood's recruitment feature returns as players can enlist citizens to the Assassins' cause by completing "Liberation" missions. They also have a much larger skill set, which allows them to start a riot, provide a covert escort, act as a personal bodyguard, etc. Other side missions include collecting Almanac pages, exploring tunnels to locate fast-travel stations, joining hunting and fighting clubs, investigating frontiersman rumors about UFOs and Sasquatch, "peg-leg" missions in which Connor goes to underground forts and wastelands to uncover the legend of Captain Kidd's treasure, and others.
Assassin's Creed III also features naval expeditions. Using Connor's warship, the Aquila, the player can navigate the high seas. Control of the ship relies on environmental factors such as wind direction and speed, local presence of storms, high waves, and rocks. Engagements are by cannon, with broadsides covering both flanks of the ship, swivel guns that can be used to damage smaller ships which can also be boarded to find treasure, and chain shots from the broadsides as well to take down the masts of larger ships and disable them. The Aquila is used in the side missions known as "Privateer missions" and is also used in some of the main missions. In addition, Assassin's Creed III is actually the first release in the franchise to have minigames including Bowls, Checkers, Fanorona and Nine men's morris.[12]
The Wii U version of the game has extra features. The player has the ability to change weapons on the go and the map is always visible on the Wii U Gamepad. The Wii U version also supports Off TV Play. With this feature enabled, the main screen is redirected to the Wii U Gamepad.
Online multiplayer returns in this installment by Ubisoft Annecy.[13] Along with returning modes, new ones feature a co-operative mode named Wolfpack, in which 1–4 players are charged with killing certain NPCs within a time limit, through a sequence of 25 stages. It also features Domination, a team mode where players will have to capture certain areas of the map, protecting them from the opposing team.
The remastered version of the game features more revamped mechanics.[14] Players can now whistle from anywhere while hidden, whereas the previous version of the game only allowed whistling from corners. Double assassinations have been improved so as not to require entering high-profile mode to do so.[15] Free-aiming with ranged weapons was also made possible, allowing Connor more control over his bow and pistols, much like in Black Flag and Rogue. The mini-map and the UI were upgraded with better-looking and easier-to-recognize icons for ease of accessibility, figuring out where enemies will point next and also features color-blind modes.[16] The crafting system and the economy system was also vastly upgraded. The game's lighting system has been upgraded to resemble the newly-implemented technology in Assassin's Creed: Origins and the textures have also been revamped to resemble the future AnvilNext 2.0 Assassin's Creed games.
