DES PLAINES, Ill. — Local gamer James Johnson, who recently purchased the Assassin’s Creed: Ezio Trilogy collection, has reportedly quit halfway through the first entry, and has no plans to resume his playthrough.
“I haven’t ‘quit’ playing it entirely,” said Johnson, hovering his cursor over the “Load Game” option in Assassin’s Creed II, the first game in the series to feature protagonist Ezio Auditore da Firenze, but hesitating to actually select it. “It’s more of a sabbatical. I started out determined to get 100% completion on all three games, so maybe I just went a bit too hard. But I’ll be fine after a little break. I just need to cleanse my palate with different types of games.”
Johnson was eight hours into Assassin’s Creed II when he abruptly stopped playing several months ago. When asked why he purchased the entire trilogy up front if he couldn’t realistically complete it, he claimed it was the only rational decision.
“It was ten bucks a pop, anyone else would’ve done the same,” he said. “And I’ve wanted to get into Assassin’s Creed for a while anyway, so I was just like, let’s do it. Let’s finally become part of the culture and find out how much of a baller Ezio is. I mean, come on, you fight the pope at the end of ACII. The pope! And then there are two more games after that? No question. Sign me up.”
Johnson couldn’t produce a clear answer when asked how long he expects his break to last. He became noticeably more confrontational as questioning persisted, pulling up his Steam profile.
“I mean, look, I’ve still got all of the games installed,” he insisted, aggressively. “I’ll get around to them when I have time, but I’m still playing them. What are you, the backlog police?”
At press time, Johnson reportedly took advantage of another franchise sale to purchase all remaining entries in the Assassin’s Creed series. His Steam profile shows that he has yet to launch any of them.