The demo for Assassin's Creed III's Boston goes far and beyond what used to be possible with Ezio and Altair in the first two games. Alex Hutchinson, creative director at Ubisoft, provides commentary going over what originally was teased from E3 2011 and now gets more expansive with San Diego Comic-Con.
First off, Connor's fluid movement through the trees in previous demos isn't hindered once he's actually in the city. In fact, the two gigantic cityscapes of Assassin's Creed III will focus on Boston and New York, among the forests and naval battles previously shown. In the city, he can assassinate from moving haycarts and from around corner cover. Another huge improvement are the new stealth points, so you can actually crouch and hide in certain situations, wheras before it was a lot of awkwardly positioning Ezio on the corners of rooftops.
The battle system has significant changes as well, no longer allowed you to regain health or use any type of medicine or potion to bring back your life during battle. Each group has to be defeated and subdued before you can use a potion or regain health--and that may be harder than it seems. The second Connor kills off a large group, almost a dozen more come rushing from the far end of the screen. So maybe the days of slaughtering Templars without a care are over in the New World. There's also the hint at what will replace calling for reinforcements or assassinations from Brotherhood and Revelations, but maybe we will get another visit from training our fellow assassins this October.