Walking through the streets is also much easier and more interesting to do. The blending mechanic has been completely revamped, allowing players to step into any amorphous blob of peasants to escape the notice of guards. There are also factions that you can hire to help you distract guards or even fight, including courtesans (prostitutes), thieves that can run on roof tops and mercenaries. The ability to throw money is also incredibly useful at slowing down chasing guards or even distracting them from your illegal antics.

Yet it seems all of Ubisoft’s focus on the streets has caused them to ignore balance on the roof tops. While there are plenty more objects to climb on top of, and each city’s environments are unique and interesting on their own, the guards up top are more annoying than ever. In the first game a simple toss of a throwing knife was enough to clear them from your way, but it takes up to two in the sequel to take one down. This wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t scattered so numerously in many sections of the game. In fact, they seem to be placed in clusters, many of which don’t make sense. One section of town may be empty of guards, but next thing you know every roof top in sight has them. Step too close or take too long to escape their notice and they’ll give chase. Take the time to assassinate them sneakily and your notoriety goes up, but if you allow them to attack you first your reputation remains unchanged. Instead of rewarding stealth, players are punished.

In fact, any sense of being a stealth game seems to have been thrown out the window. Sneaking through the crowd is a much better option than climbing on roof tops, which breaks half the purpose of the franchise in the first place. Yet Ubisoft also chose to listen to every player that didn’t have the patience to perform an assassination properly in the first game and made nearly every story based kill a regular fight or chase. There are plenty of optional assassination missions that allow players to strike like a hawk from above or an anonymous blade in the crowd, but the satisfaction isn’t there. There’s nothing like breaking through a warlord’s defenses only to strike him when he is most vulnerable. Yet, instead of rewarding players that took the time to learn to play the first game properly, Ubisoft merely made each assassination simple for those that don’t want to bother. It almost feels like a slap in the face and pulls that stealth action away even further.