'Assassin's Creed' trailer reveals curious timehop feature

November's upcoming 'Assassin's Creed: Unity' may be set during the French Revolution, but its latest trailer offers up an intriguing possibility -- what if players could experience 20th and 21st-century Paris as well as its 18th-century reconstruction?

One of the series' overarching conceits is that player characters are able to explore distinct historical periods by means of an advanced computer-generated simulation known as the Animus.

Previous entries to the eight-year-old franchise have seen players switch between one thoroughly researched historical period and a contemporary era as the main character's modern-day descendant, a setting in which two secretive rival factions battle for global control through the discovery of powerful hidden artifacts associated with genetic memories.

But in contrast, this latest trailer, 'Time Anomaly,' sends its protagonist fleeing from Revolutionary France as virtual reality crashes down around him.

First he lands on the tracks of Paris's underground railway system and then is found atop the Eiffel Tower in the midst of a World War II air raid.

'Assassin's Creed: Unity' is to release the week of November 11 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PCs (December 4 in Japan), with older consoles the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 receiving 'Assassin's Creed Rogue' instead.

It adds mission-based cooperative multiplayer for the first time in the franchise while further simplifying the wall-scaling system that has seen players climb re-creations of iconic monuments from around the world.

And, according to 'Time Anomaly,' it allows players to explore not just Revolutionary Paris but slithers of the city in various other states as well.