Benedict Arnold's defection from the rebels to the loyalists is one of the sadder stories of the American Revolution. Maybe that will soften the blow for Xbox 360 and Wii U Assassin's Creed III players, who will not receive the PlayStation 3 exclusive set of missions depicting Arnold's plot to hand over the strategically invaluable West Point to the British.
The four missions will be available at launch on PS3 on October 30 in the US and October 31 in Europe, most likely as a free download (as was the case for the PS3-exclusive Copernicus Conspiracy for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood).
The pack begins with General George Washington asking assassin Connor to sniff out rumors of the treason, and ends with a full-scale military assault on West Point. ACIII script writer Matt Turner spoke to the PlayStation Blog about the new mission's historical accuracy.
"We have some scenes that have the actual words spoken by key players in the events at West Point, according to the records from the court proceedings following what happened," Turner said. "On the other side of things, we needed to inject it with some gameplay so there are some liberties in terms of the action. But who was there, what they did, and what happened to them is as precise as the history books would allow."
While Benedict Arnold's name has become associated with wretched turncoats, his story is not so simple. Turner said these considerations will be reflected in the game.
"We don’t like having “bad guys” in Assassin’s Creed and this is no different in terms to Arnold and these missions. He has his reasons, and from a certain perspective they make complete sense."
