Adéwalé Unchained.
Adéwalé is not a man you want to cross. He's imposing, ruthless, and unflinching. Given the choice between fighting him or Edward Kenway, I would gladly take my chances against the scrawny white dude, not the man who could hack my neck with a machete or possibly stare at me to death.
Adéwalé was born a slave, ordered to work on a plantation until he escaped when pirates randomly pillaged the farm and soon became the first mate upon Kenway's Jackdaw. About a decade and a half after the events of Black Flag, Adéwalé has become a fully-trained Assassin who returns to the West Indies in Freedom Cry on what seems to be a routine mission, but soon transforms into a personal journey that forces him to confront his past. Left shipwrecked in the West Indies (in current-day Haiti) near Port-au-Prince in 1735, he loses his crew and weapons, which leads him to uncover the local resistance along the outskirts of the city. Slowly but surely, he becomes embroiled in a struggle to liberate the slaves from the oppressive rule of the French imperialists.
Most of Assassin's Creed IV: Freedom Cry will be familiar to fans of Black Flag, which you will need to access this standalone DLC, with the exception that nearly all of the objectives have been given the twist of freeing slaves and fellow Maroons. Doing so will build the local resistance, unlocking story missions and earning Adéwalé free upgrades along the way. You can certainly explore the West Indies in search of treasure, synchronize at high points on the map (a different melody plays when he synchronizes), and raid ships using Adéwalé's Experto Crede. But rescuing slaves from cruel punishment, jails, slave auctions, and plantations (where you'll hear authentic African work songs) will be your main charge. Similarly, on the sea, you can stop slave ships from pulling into port to build your ranks, but without damaging them to the point that you kill the slaves onboard.
Befitting Adéwalé's intimidating stature and seething self-control are two new weapons: the blunderbuss and machete. Both instruments are meant to reflect the same level of cruelty as the slave owners inflicted upon him as a child. The machete, a common tool given to slaves for work in the fields, is an extremely powerful melee weapon, which only grows in strength when upgraded to the steel machete. The blunderbuss acts as a prototype shotgun that can eviscerate multiple enemies at short range, but needs to be reloaded between every shot and creates a substantial amount of noise. Of course, if neither option works for you, Adéwalé has access to the familiar arsenal of hidden blades, darts of all varieties, and smoke bombs to, shall we say, emancipate the area.
Featuring a four-hour single-player campaign and many more hours of exploration, Freedom Cry will release on December 17 for $9.99 on PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PC.
