I crouch unseen behind the bureau, the guard blocking the one exit from the room. Silently, I attain for a goblet, throwing it to the other aspect of the chamber. As the guard steps towards the disturbance, I emerge, sneaking behind him. With a flick of my wrist, my hidden blade emerges. He’ll by no means take one other step once more. Also, his halberd begins fritzing on the ground earlier than fading out of existence, a reminder that that is all digital actuality—or moderately, VR inside VR, the metatextual framing of Ubisoft’s newest Assassin’s Creed recreation.

Ubisoft has had its fingers in VR for years now, from early efforts experimenting with the format—suppose Eagle Flight, an aerial racing recreation with a literal fowl’s-eye view that advanced from a tech demo—to extra totally featured video games, such because the social deduction title Werewolves Within or co-op area journey Star Trek: Bridge Crew, each from its Red Storm studio.

Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR is totally different. It’s greater, extra formidable, leveraging the success of the writer’s greatest IP. And whereas Red Storm as soon as extra leads growth, Ubisoft dedicated no fewer than eight studios to its creation. This is a push, one meant to make the case that VR gaming has lastly, actually arrived, that it’s finally a format price bringing AAA properties to in significant methods, moderately than for gimmicky spinoffs.

It’s a prosecution Ubisoft makes alarmingly nicely. Playing Assassin’s Creed Nexus on the Meta Quest 3 has that uncommon distinction of shattering expectations and feeling higher than it ought to. If you’re a longtime VR participant, it brilliantly combines the most effective parts of immersive gameplay right into a cohesive entire, permitting you to maneuver, climb, cover, and combat your approach round stunningly realized places. For Assassin’s Creed followers drawn to VR for the primary time, it does an distinctive job of putting you within the function of an murderer, with all of the stealth and parkour mechanics you anticipate from the core video games translated virtually flawlessly to a first-person expertise.

That it’s a canon tour by way of Assassin’s Creed’s more and more huge lore doesn’t harm, both. The story’s present-day framing locations you within the function of a hacker, one infiltrating shady megacorp Abstergo’s newest try at manipulating the previous to regulate the longer term. Better nonetheless? Gameplay that places you into the genetic reminiscences of three returning heroes—Assassin’s Creed II’s Ezio, AC III’s Connor, and Odyssey’s Kassandra.

For longtime followers of the collection, it’s an absolute delight to revisit these stab-happy leads years after their debuts, and Nexus leans into their totally different play kinds, additional justifying the multi-character method. Ezio boasts two of the collection’ signature hidden blades, emphasizing his extra shadowy nature, whereas Kassandra appears like extra of a fighter, befitting her mercenary nature in Odyssey. Even Connor, thought of one of many much less fashionable of AC’s protagonists, will get a beneficiant showcase, along with his use of a tomahawk and a bow and arrow bringing a materially totally different really feel to each fight and stealth.