Parents' Guide to Assassin's Creed Rogue (PEGI 18)

Here's a guide to Assassin's Creed Rogue to highlight what's great and what to watch out for in the game.

Assassin's Creed Rogue is the latest in the blockbuster Assassin's Creed series, that put you in the nimble boots of assassins in various periods of history. It’s a single player only game where your character is viewed from a third person perspective, and game-play involves parkour style running, jumping and climbing around historic environments as well as stealthily tracking down and killing enemies. As with last year's installment Black Flag, piloting a ship, exploring the seas and engaging in naval battles are a major part of the game.

The twist in Rogue is that you're playing one of the series' baddies, a Templar called Shay Patrick Cormac, a former assassin who has turned on his old order and hunts them down during the Seven Years War. The game recreates dramatic North America environments such as the frozen North Atlantic, Alabama and New York and allows players their first major look inside the order of Templars.

Rogue is developed by Ubisoft Sofia and a host of other Ubisoft internal studios, including series lead developer Ubisoft Montreal.

Assassin's Creed: Rogue is exclusive to last gen consoles, available on Xbox 360 and PS3, one of the last big games on those platforms.

The game costs £44.99 for the standard edition and £49.99 for the Collector's Edition in the UK and $59.99/$80 in the US.

The main stories of Assassin's Creed games take around 15-20 hours to complete, but up to double that to fully explore the worlds and complete every side mission, so expect to have plenty to find in Rogue. Experienced players may find they complete the game quicker than Assassin’s Creed newcomers.

In the UK and Europe PEGI have rated Assassin's Creed Rogue 18, with content descriptors for extreme violence, multiple motiveless killing and strong language. PEGI state that 'all violence depicted in the game appears realistic with characters producing blood effects when stabbed or slashed. In some cases it is possible to see your sword pas through a character's torso in a graphic manner during some of the 'stealth kills'.' PEGI also note the game allows you to attack non-enemy civilians, and the script contains infrequent use of the word 'fuck'.

By putting you in the role of a Templar and a traitor to the Assassin's cause, Rogue aims to provide some sympathy for the forces of authority and order in the form of the conspiratorial templates, as well as challenging the assassins' creed of redemptive and necessary murder. There's always been a mystical element to the series, with ancient artefacts left behind by god-like aliens in the deep past.

While allowing players to dispense guards and sentries casually, the Assassin’s Creed series has always taken a moment to mark the passing of the lead character’s targets, and with Shay taking on former allies in Rogue these melancholy scenes have an added sense of regret.

As the last Assassin's Creed games to be released on last gen platforms, Rogue is set to be a farewell to the 360 and PS3, the consoles that birthed this highly popular series. Play as a villain is a solid twist, but franchise fans will likely be just as pleased with the empowering gameplay loop of agile exploration, exciting combat and deadly assassination skills, all drenched in evocative pseudo-history.