Assassin's Creed Unity Completely Rebuilds the Series' Parkour, Stealth, and Traversal

Ubisoft Creative Director discusses some of the fundamental gameplay changes coming to Assassin's Creed Unity.
Assassin's Creed parkour, stealth, and traversal mechanics have all been "completely rebuilt" for the upcoming Assassin's Creed Unity, Ubisoft has said.
The Assassin's Creed series has seen a lot of changes since it first launched in 2007, including different eras, protagonists, and a whole arsenal of gadgets and weapons. But it many ways it never changed. If you've played through all or just a few of the games, you know that the way your character moves, climbs, and jumps around rooftops largely looks and feels the same.
That will not be the case with Unity. In the video above, Ubisoft Creative Director Alex Amancio discusses some of these changes and how they focus on allowing the player more freedom of movement. The most significant one in my opinion is the new ability to "parkour down." One thing that's always been confusing (and slightly annoying) about the Assassin's Creed games is that it's easier to climb up than climb down. A leap of faith into a haystack will get you to the bottom in a second, but climbing down otherwise is a clumsy process of letting go and grabbing ledges before you fall too far and take damage.
In Unity, you can also input control down in order to descend a building smoothly. You can see an example of this in the video around the 1:24. It looks like a big improvement.
Amancio also said that Unity will add multiple stances to the game, allowing players to crouch and go into stealth mode, and a new "AI camera," which can intelligently detect different parameters and adapt to your actions.
Assassin's Creed Unity launches on October 28 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. For more on the game, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.