What's interesting about Revelations is that we're really taking [Ezio] outside of his element.

Ezio never set out to be a master assassin. His motivation has primarily been revenge: Revenge against the death of his family; against the death of his uncle at the hands of Cesare [Borgia] in Brotherhood. So, in taking him on more of a pilgrimage--a personal journey now--it's sort of leading him to discover the secrets left behind by Altair.

There are these five keys that Altair has left behind that unlock the seal in Masyaf at the Assassin temple. And Ezio also discovers in the course of this, that the Templars are also in pursuit of these secrets. So we set up this really nice narrative, kind of a race against time, so it's a different motivation for him this time. What that's doing, like I said, is taking him outside of his element. You're in these new cities, these new places, and you're going to discover that the Assassin Network sort of expands beyond what we've seen in the previous games.

[Yusef is] going to introduce [Ezio] to some things, for example, like the new hook-blade. And one of the things we're really happy with from a gameplay perspective is how we've managed to layer the combat with the traversal. Since those are really core aspects of the franchise--we've always been known for the free-climbing, the free-running, and then the combat as well--when we introduce the hook blade, you're going to see where you can scale buildings much quicker.

We wove into the narrative that the local order of assassins there would have created a network of ziplines to help them navigate the city much quicker and more efficiently. And then when we layered that with the concept of the hook blade, it really came together very organically.

Hook-blade traversal in Constantinople ensures you'll never be late for another stabbing.

We took advantage of the style of the architecture in Constantinople. It's a very layered city, and it's sort of on a slope. We've never really seen that in any of the games before. It's also a very dense city, so the buildings are incredibly close together. It's also varied, in terms of height, style, and architecture, because half of the city is sort of on the European continent side, and half is on the Asian [side]. So it's a really nice clash of cultures and architectures.

I think I can safely say that [Constantinople] is not as large as Rome, but it's also larger than any of the cities we saw in AC2. There are actually four districts, so right away, that kind of gives you a clue that we'll be exploring the economic system again. You saw the Borgia towers, for example, in Brotherhood, and how that sort of fuelled the economic system. You're going to see a return of some of those ideals.

We introduced the smoke bombs in AC2, and brought them forward into AC: Brotherhood. What we're doing now is really, really expanding on the idea of that mechanic. What the player can do--in terms of buying, trading, selling, and acquiring ingredients from around the cities--they can mix and match and create all different types of bombs that suit some of the different pillars of the franchise. So, when you talk about combat, traversal, and stealth, you'll have bombs that are geared toward a more aggressive combat style. There's something in the demo called a "splinter bomb." [Ezio] tosses it at two of the larger, brute-style guards. Normally, in hand-to-hand combat, you can take them out, but they're much more formidable than the average guard. With the splinter grenade, you can quickly just dispatch them and move on. It favors a player who maybe wants to go in with a more aggressive style of play.

We've upgraded the smoke bomb--it's something you can craft. And then [after throwing a smoke bomb] you can go into Eagle Sense, which we've also upgraded, and then do three quick stealth kills. So you can go right from that really aggressive style with one bomb into more of a stealth style with another. And we're allowing the players to craft these themselves, so they'll mix and match different ingredients using a menu system. It's a large amount [of ingredients]. Because of the nature of how you're combining, there are several different types of combinations you'll be able to make. Again, it's really nice because you're going to discover more different types of ingredients as you progress through the game.

Because Ezio is truly now a master assassin and really in-tune with the Eagle Sense [ability], we're going to expand a bit on that and allow him to see more than you've seen before. You saw in AC2 and AC: Brotherhood how you could identify targets, and what not. We're going to go a little further with that aspect. It's not something we're really going to show or talk about at E3 this year, but leading up to the release of the game, you're going to see how that plays out, and how it layers in with the different mechanics.

We're finding more and more that players are very curious about Desmond and his storyline. You can kind of see in the progression of the three games how in each game, we've allowed you to do a little bit more and more as Desmond. This one is going to open up narratively a little more about what we know and don't know about Desmond. Because his mind has been fractured due to the "bleeding effect"--he's been inserted into the Animus so many times that he's reliving the memories of Ezio, of Altair--you saw a parallel thing happening with Subject 16 at Abstergo. It's kind of a mirror of what we've seen before, but involving Desmond now. Because he's in a coma and his mind is sort of fractured, that's reflected in the Animus as well. You're used to seeing the white room--the pure, clean technology. Narratively, we deduced that, "Well, if he's in a coma, the white room isn't really functioning at full power." It's almost the analogy of like a shell around the Animus. So, it still functions... at a limited capacity. [Desmond] is almost on the outskirts of the Animus, if you want to put it into narrative terms. Visually, that gives us something very fresh in terms of the presentation, and it also allow us to kind of explore the aspect of putting Desmond's mind back together through gameplay.

The 'brotherhood' returns. Every time we introduce a new feature, we really like to expand [it]. We want to take the fan feedback and really expand it in a way that suits what they like about it, but that also really organically goes with what we have planned. Because the fan-response was so positive, ... we're going to expand on the style of missions that you can recruit the Brotherhood from this time. And it's again because Ezio's in new locations. There's going to be different types of missions that suit the different cities. The way the actual mechanic of sending them out on missions to level them up? We're already working on new ways to kind of take that further, as well. Post-E3, we're going to talk a little bit more about those aspects, too.

We will be exploring [Desmond's] relationship with Subject 16. We see a little bit more of him each time, too. In AC2, he was spoken about. In Brotherhood, you got to sort of see him manifest at the end. As Desmond's storyline progresses, it paralells with some of the things we've seen with Subject 16. One of the key goals of Revelations, narratively, is to try and really bring some of these plotlines together that we've introduced over the [previous] three games, and then set up the all of the possibilities that are sort of at hand for future installments. We're not saying anything specific, but we all know that there's all kinds of interesting ways that we could go. So, why not start to resolve some of the plotlines and set up a nice foundation to go forward.