It has a storyline mode you can play, OR you can play the traditional sand-box style game (you can also tweak some of the settings to your liking. But as mentioned it's much more of a single-player experience since the MP is meh. VC has a ridiculous number of features over the base game, because the base game is pretty meh. NW is multiplayer only, so aside from being based in the Victorian era of warfare, there's not much to it.
