Video Game of the Day is a daily show available on Amazon Alexa devices and here on this website. Each day, we briefly discuss the history of a single game, randomly chosen. If you would like to listen on your daily flash briefing, you can enable Video Game of the Day here: https://amzn.to/2CNx2NJ.
Transcript:
Hello and welcome! My name is Katosepe and I’ll be your host for today’s Video Game of the Day!
Standalone expansions aren’t a very common thing, even in gaming today. It’s pretty vague to even define them. When does a game become a standalone expansion rather than DLC? Today’s game is in a fuzzy grey area but I thought today would be a good day to talk about it so here we are. Today’s game is Assassin’s Creed: Freedom Cry, developed by Ubisoft Quebec and released for Playstation 3 and 4, Xbox 360 and One, and PC in 2013.
Assassin’s Creed: Freedom Cry was originally released as DLC for Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag but later received its own standalone release, which causes some of the confusion about its status. Regardless of what you want to call it, Freedom Cry is an interesting game in its own right.
The story follows Adewale, the former quartermaster for Edward Kenway, the hero from Black Flag. Adewale is now the captain of his own pirate ship in the Caribbean. After a shipwreck off Haiti, Adewale is rescued by a freedom fighter who is attempting to free the slaves in Haiti. Adewale joins their cause and fights to free as many as he can and disrupt the slave trade.
Much like Black Flag, Freedom Cry has an open world to explore and focuses on naval exploration and combat. Being a smaller adventure, the world is much more compact than in Black Flag, however, with far fewer side adventures. While there is plenty of assassin work to be done, much of Adewale’s time is spent captaining his ship and doing pirate work on the seas around Haiti. The story takes place between 1735 and 1737 so muskets and traditional swords can both be used throughout the game.
Assassin’s Creed: Freedom Cry is a smaller game, with completion runs often only taking about 7-8 hours. While critics did note that the more linear game was a step backwards from Black Flag, the story has been universally praised. Adewale’s arc is one of the more celebrated in Assassin’s Creed’s history and more care and nuance is presented here than in the typical “Assassins Good, Templars Bad” formula fans are used to. If you are looking for a tighter Assassin’s Creed experience, Freedom Cry may be a good one to check out.
Thank you so much for listening! If you liked this show and want to help us out, please write us a review on Amazon. You can also follow me on Twitter @vg_oftheday or check out our archives on videogameoftheday.com. We are also starting the Instagram back up so check me out over there @videogameoftheday for screenshots about the games we talk about. Don’t forget to check back here tomorrow for another Video Game of the Day!
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