‘Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR’ Gets First Gameplay Trailer, Coming to Quest in November

By
Scott Hayden
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45

Ubisoft announced Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR back in June, staying that we’d get the Quest exclusive sometime this holiday. Now the studio has revealed a first look at gameplay, and announced the official release date.

Coming to Quest on November 16th, the new Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR trailer shows off a few clips of each of the game’s three protagonists: Ezio (Assassin’s Creed II), Connor (Assassin’s Creed 3), and Kassandra (Assassin’s Creed Odyssey).

From the gameplay trailer, it seems there’s going to be a good slice of parkour, melee, and ranged combat too—basically what you’d expect from the long-awaited Assassin’s Creed  VR game. Ubisoft says we should expect to “get caught up in a world of espionage, intrigue and betrayal.”

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Locations in the game include Venice, Athens, Colonial Boston “and more,” the studio says in the game’s Quest page, noting that players will have the autonomy to “decide the best way to achieve your objectives” across open map environments. “Meet and interact with civilians and historical figures, all of whom react to your VR actions,” Ubisoft says.

As for combat, Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR melee includes blocking, parrying, and counterattacks, with weapons including bow and arrows, the Hidden Blade, swords, tomahawk, throwing knives, crossbow, and smoke bombs.

You can wishlist Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR for Quest 2 and Quest Pro, with launch coming November 16th. The game is also presumably coming to Quest 3 whenever the headset launches, although Meta hasn’t mentioned yet when Quest 3 is due to release. Whatever the case, we’re sure to learn more next week at Connect 2023, which promises a big info dump on Meta’s latest VR headset.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 3,500 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • kakek

    NGL, that looks quite decent for a quest game.
    I’m a bit sceptical this can be achieved at a stable framerate though. Maybe with constant ASW.

    • JanO

      Video says in-engine, NOT captured on Quest… This is doctored PC footage.

      • ViRGiN

        It doesn’t look like amazing PC footage. It very well might be Quest quality, bit for trailer you want more control over camera settings as well aspect ratio.

        This is nothing like beat saber shown in pathtraced lighting like we saw with cgi trailers before.

        • kakek

          It’s Ubisoft though.
          “Improved” gameplay trailer are their speciality. Most of their games look like technological miracle before releasing.
          Not that it won’t be a technically solid game. Just not that smooth and clean.

          • namekuseijin

            AC Unity was a real miracle last generation, tho plagued by rushed release full of bugs. once sorted out in about a month, it really showed what last generation hardware was capable of. absolutely stunning. brats just crapping in their diapers as usual…

      • kakek

        Haaaaaaa yeah.
        So probably those models and environment, but with at least unstable frame rates and low resolution.
        And possibly worse lighting. And blurry textures.

      • Probably on PC, but limited to match Quest 3 specs. Would be more streamlined getting that capture to a video editor and you don’t have to compromise on the quality you would actually see in-headset.

        I appreciate them trying to convey the actual experience instead of the way over the top CGI stuff they were doing there for a bit.

        • JanO

          I’d say develloped with PSVR2 in mind and rendered + doctored on PC.

          • Garhert

            Do we know whether it is Quest exclusive or only timed exclusive?

          • ViRGiN

            It’s Quest exclusive, and even if it’s timed exclusive, it doesn’t mean anything, just like with RE7 from PSVR1.

  • ViRGiN

    Glad they aren’t releasing on PCVR.
    Crossfire Sierra Squad proved that nobody is buying anything and nobody is playing anything.

    Thank you Mark! Can’t wait till connect!

    • namekuseijin

      I mean, it’s not like monkebois even ever heard of AC before or mainstream gamers are rushing to check it out instead of hoping it comes to their console VR set… and pcvr folks and wonky physics nutjobs will be complaining to no end

      I’m glad I’ll be playing this heavily, but I honestly have no clue if there’s any real audience for it. May well end up in the same irrelevant low sales as Grid Legends or Moss – good games in VR without an actual audience in the toy headset for clueless brats…

      • ViRGiN

        I bought Grid Legends but haven’t played it much due to 64GB storage. Was definietly worth the ~$20 I paid for essentially the only “proper” racing game, and one that support motion controls to add to it.
        Never cared for Moss.
        Compared to pretty much everything else, this didn’t make me close the tab within seconds. I’m not an AC nerd, but it’s the IP I’ve heard for ages. Of course I’d choose GTA any time of the day.

        • kakek

          Grid legend was really killed by low resolution. This killed the immersion for me.
          For me this was pretty much the proof that Quest 2 can’t do racing games.
          Reaching the bare graphical minimum to have a proper racing game require dropping the resolution so low that it not enjoyable anymore. Maybe quest 3 will be able to run the same thing at twice the resolution, and THEN it will be decent.

          But even if it scorch you mouth, you will have to admit that driving simulation are, for now, reserved to PCVR.
          That’s ONE type of game that required at least moderately realistic graphics, physics, smoothness, and resolution to work well. And no amount of tricks could get all that out of the quest 2 5 years old mobile SOC.

          Grid came pretty close. But ultimately failed.

          I really like Moss. But hey, gaming is also a matter of personal taste. A game can do everything right, if it’s not for you it’s not for you …

          • ViRGiN

            There is in game resolution slider as well refresh rate settings. Have you tried it after quest performance boost update? Works really well now. Maybe they will improve stuff in patch for Q3, but all things considered it’s pretty fun. Much more fun than years of failed attempts to even clone Mario Kart. I’ve mostly spared my time with it for the Quest 3 release.

            I’d rather have Dirt Rally tho.

          • kakek

            I tried again.
            And nope, those extra 25% of maximum frequencie are not enough. Game runs by default at 75% resolution, 72Hz.
            With this boost, you could logically run it 90% resolution and 72 Hz whithout hiccups.

            It would honnestly need to run at 100% 90Hz to be enjoyable for me. You would have needed to double the power of the quest 2.

            Wich is a shame cause the driving is kinda fun. But as I said, mobile VR is just not there yet.

          • XRC

            Most driving and flight simulators are computationally intensive, my 4080 struggles to keep up…

    • kakek

      I agree with your second part. I don’t know about sierra squad ( No idea if the game deserve success, haven’t tried it) but PCVR games don’t sell.
      But why are you glad they aren’t releasing on PC ? Why do you WANT the market to consolidate in the hands of a single actor, specially when it’s facebook ? If they released on Pico / HTC vive whatever, I wouldn’t care either.
      Why do you care if they release it as well for the few people that buy on PC ?

      • ViRGiN

        Because PCVR has no future with how the things have been for 20 years.
        Monopoly of Valve, achieved with memes of lord gaben, the friend of every gamer.
        They don’t support any industry, nor any developer. They just abuse their position and addiction of it’s userbase.
        They own multiple ips that would actually be very popular when done right. And yet they don’t do anything.

        Instead of falling for illusion of choice, let’s bring the 100 million years to vr first. And that will happen through standalone.

        Even if AC came to PC Oculus store, it still wouldn’t sell cause people want to put their eggs in one basket – steam.

        • Pab

          Thus, Oculus would need to take all that money that gave to Ubisoft, and instead, improve their headset (software is not their business). That´s competition for you.

      • Pab

        Kakek: Virgin does not understand how the market works (I got this a couple of posts ago, when he said that companies act mostly charitably, and not because of money… I mean….). He wont understand that markets immprove with competition.

  • Andrey

    I am very curious why Meta let someone else to release this trailer just a week before Connect. For many people – including myself – Assassins Creed Nexus is a very important game (even system seller of some kind) that was awaited for years and was initially announced during Connect and then presented at Meta Quest Gaming Showcase this year (and then at Ubisoft’s showcase too, though there wasn’t anything special). It’s not very logical to just skip such a big title and loose a chance to gain a decent amount of additional hype.
    …but it start to make sense if they have another much more appealing title to announce/show, that will make much more noise than AC ever could.
    Or Meta is just being Meta. We will see soon enough.

    • Maybe they wanted to give it its own space while the conference hype is still pretty high?
      Definitely not as dramatic, this would have been fun to see in the main press conference.
      Makes me think of Zuck unveiling the Quest 3 before the gaming showcase back in June.
      Overly metrics-driven engagement reasons would be my guess.

    • Totius

      I totally agree. I really hope that GTA will look better than this and that this is the real reason to do this.
      Anyway.. another mobile-like game.. the only triple A games with really breathtaking views are some very few pc vr games or pc mods to vr.

      • HindsiteGenius

        It won’t. It’s a mobile based headset. Stop complaining about the same thing. It’s tiring.

      • namekuseijin

        a PS2 GTA looking better than this… doubt

        and this is in-engine. no doubt cyanish fog closer and brick textures in the distance gone in actual game running on Quest…

        • ViRGiN

          What do you mean with the brick textures?
          In-engine likely equals to higher settings, like longer LOD distances, lower mipmaps. But it fully looks like a proper mobile VR game. Pedestrians don’t cast shadow either, so it’s not like it’s a deceiving trailer.
          Like look at the red rooftop texture – it seems rather low resolution.

      • jbob4mall

        It definitely looks as good as mobile games like Assassin’s Creed Mirage.

  • Octogod

    Very impressive trailer. Excited to see how it compares in HMD.

  • Nothing to see here

    I wonder if that was recorded on a Quest 2 or a Quest 3?

  • BananaBreadBoy

    The fact that this was posted before Connect is interesting, since I figured this was gonna be one of the headliners of the event, along with Asgards Wrath 2. Meta might have some more interesting reveals for then.

  • Totius

    I think that people that possess a good PC will get tired very quickly about this kind of games. The VR mod community are the heroes keeping gamers still very excited about VR. I will buy quest 3, to enjoy experiences like VR chat (hoping for good sessions without too many kids) and to explore the augmented reality experiences, but definitely not for the games, there is no comparison with what VR mods offer (or the previous beautiful PC VR games like Alyx or Line echo).

    • Dragon Marble

      I see two paths VR enthusiasts evolve after the initial novelty is long gone. Some are gamers first and foremost. Those emphasize the “game” part of a VR game. They have probably stopped playing Quest games and mostly play modded flat games — if they haven’t gone back to flat altogether. Others move in an almost opposite direction. Modding is not good enough for them anymore. Just seeing 3D is not enough, they need to feel the world. Not only there must be motion controller support, it has to be good VR mechanics and lots of interactivity. The second group probably won’t be playing video games at all if it weren’t for VR. For them, there are plenty of great VR games on Quest.

      • Totius

        You are probably right. I think i believe I belong to the first set, nevertheless I mostly enjoy the artistic landscapes these AAA games offer, the ability to explore huge, very detailed maps, and I end up never even trying to complete the game, hoping for one day an official VR adaptation.
        Said that, I still think that quest offers some great experiences, like ping-pong, mini-golf, vr chat and now mixed reality!

      • Pab

        I think what you mean is that the second group, having a Quest, have plenty of VR games on PC to stream. A VR player foremost, looks for immersion, which it is just not enough on the Quests.

        • shadow9d9

          Mods for old game with no support or polish..not built for the ground up. I don’t want to live in old games.. I want games designed for VR with ongoing support.

          • Pab

            The HL series has more VR features than several Quest games. Plus, they are free. Plus, you might be young, but if you loved those games in flat, imagine the excitment of being THERE. Plus, while portable and console VR are advancing with baby steps, for PCVR gamers there is a paradise of games waiting right now. I honestly see no comparisson, except if you just don´t play on PC. Then you need the Quest or the PSVR.

    • Charles U. Farley

      Dude. We have been listening to this complaint for YEARS NOW. Get over it.

      • Totius

        Just working new people entering in VR what the current status of things is, it is definitely not intended to people well navigated like you.

    • shadow9d9

      Nope! I have a 4090. I prefer native wireless every day of the week and back.

      • Totius

        Not me!

  • Cool trailer!

  • Ryan

    I played all the way through Skyrim VR on PS 4 and all the way through a shorter game, Horizon VR on PS 5. I’ve wanted Assassins Creed to come out on VR for a long time so I’m looking forward to it. I have Quest 2 goggles.

  • Ookami

    It looks pretty cool, and like a proper game, but the fact that they’re splitting it between three different characters in three whole different eras is a bit troubling because it suggests we’ll only get three okayish length chapters, instead of a single large map with plenty to do.

  • Florian Dümig

    I imagine the game looks really good in VR. Is it also coming to PC_VR?

    I could also easily imagine James Bond in VR. That would be something for a development studio, right?