The concept of revitalizing Sacrament is one of the coolest parts of the experience for me, and it fits perfectly with the idea of the blight, the pestilence, and the general hostile nature of Isla Sacra. It also provides a satisfying material-sync and sense of progression through the game.
Renovation is something many games attempt and few get right. Assassin’s Creed 2’s Villa was incredibly satisfying to renovate, while many of the other home bases in the rest of the series did not hit the same way, and I’d like to extrapolate some ideas from that in order to explain how I think Sacrament renovation can be improved for the full release.
Why AC2’s Villa Worked
There are several reasons why this homebase provided a satisfying renovation experience from start to finish while many other home bases in games fail:
-
“Starting state” of the base is sufficiently shitty to provide satisfaction in, first-off, cleaning everything up. The sky is stormy and gross, the music is somber, there are vines and overgrowth everywhere, the few citizens that live there hang their heads in sadness. Everything sucks—it’s awesome.
-
“Ending state” of the fully renovated base is sufficiently beautiful to provide satisfaction in making it the best possible version of itself. The weather clears, the music becomes cheerful, the town and villa become more opulent, more citizens appear, and there are generally more visual examples of the base not simply surviving, but thriving.
-
Renovations are integrated into gameplay systems to provide satisfaction in expanding the base and incorporating it into your gameplay loop. Renovating shops gives you more places to upgrade gear. Renovating the sewer provides a unique platforming challenge, etc. Similarly to how farming simulators become satisfying when you create a well-oiled machine that just works without your constant interaction.
-
Renovations are integrated into story and lore of the game to provide consistent satisfaction in having a direct impact on the way the narrative shapes. Ezio’s sister becomes a master bookkeeper and flourishes in her role. The mercenaries regain their numbers. Your villa becomes filled with mementos, paintings, and outfits from your journey.
Where NRftW’s Sacrament Renovation can Improve
Based on the above listed 4 points on why Assassin’s Creed 2’s home base renovation worked, I’d like to now show how the current system in NRftW is partially meeting this quality bar, and also partially failing.
-
Sacrament’s initial state is not sufficiently shitty. Yes, it is very barren and unlit in many areas, but I think there should be more visible suffering, as funny as that sounds. More beggars, more visual examples of decay and destruction. Perhaps even elements of danger: parts of the city blocked off my guards due to a disease outbreak (in which you can find infested enemies if you sneak through), fights in the streets, rats everywhere, etc.
-
Ending State is not sufficiently beautiful. Obviously, this will be expanded on, but in particular I’d love to see renovation expanded on beyond the individual buildings we repair. I want to see more NPCs roaming around, more bustling activity, more guards patrolling, more crops in the garden area, etc.
-
Renovations are sufficiently integrated into gameplay, but could still be improved. I appreciate how renovations have gameplay purposes such as ease of traversal, etc. But I’d love to see the “Alive” system provide dynamic gameplay opportunities according to the overall state of the city. In the initial state, perhaps encounters like I mentioned in point 1 where you can directly confront the realities of a broken city.
-In the “shitty” state, Fights, infestations to clear, corrupted officials to stop, thieves to confront, etc.
-And then, in the middle state, opportunities to aid in cleaning up. Maybe you are called to help clear rats from someone’s house they just moved into, or you can have a conversation with some guards or construction workers to motivate them.
-Finally, in the renovated state: kids to play hide and seek with, superfluous arguments among merchants to settle, etc
- Renovations seem fairly well integrated into story, but there’s always room for improvement. This is also something that will obviously expanded on!
Overall, I’d say the point I’m most concerned with them not missing is point 1. I feel it is truly important to make the initial state of the city as downright miserable as possible in order to bolster the satisfaction of fixing it.
Beyond that, Wicked is already going to go above and beyond cases like AC2’s villa with the introduction of farming, the existing player-home mechanics, and jobs, etc. I just thought that this sort of post might help provide some good feedback on how Sacrament can fully succeed as a gameplay mechanic over the course of the experience.
Thanks for reading.