but instead i get to paint a doe and its fawn from a distance without scaring it, and hang up the painting in my cool base, and that's the first time i've ever been able to do that in a video game, and i'm super heartened by that gesture

and then i'll go stab a templar fuck yeah

as an artist that has a soft spot for animals, this feature really touched my heart. it would have been really easy for @UbisoftQuebec to have done nothing, or even quietly disable damage to animals just to appease a demographic.

but i certainly didn't expect to hear, "if you sneak up on the animal, and don't frighten it, you can stop and paint a picture of it."

AND THEN learned it's not even possible to hurt animals in the game. i was a stunned! i had to pause
@jayveeonYT's video to wipe my tears lol.

so to see gameplay of an assassin today, stalking through tall grass towards a bird, or a deer, i was fully expecting to see it get stabbed/beaten to a pulp with Yasuke's spiked bat, and then 'press X to collect a hide' or something. and that would have been whatever, it's fine,

but it's become so normal that it's mundane and thoughtless most of the time. in Black Flag, "i need to craft a holster for my second pistol, so i need to hunt and skin six iguanas that don't fight back" made me feel a bit cruel and certainly not like a badass pirate assassin,

i'm a longtime AC fan (i have a tattoo of the logo!) so it's never been a dealbreaker, but i was always slightly disheartened that i had to kill animals for resources in previous games. and again, very normal game design thing to do, i get it. lots of games i've loved do this.