Let's discuss: Assassin's Creed

The format of these posts is simple: let’s discuss a specific game or series!

Let's discuss the Assassin's Creed series. What is your favorite game in the series? What do you like about it? What doesn't work for you? Feel free to share anything that comes up and react to other comments. Let's get the conversation going!

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26 comments

My buddy wants me to get Assassin's Creed Shadows. Whats ur opinion?
These requirements look nuts.

My favorite overall is Black Flag but it's not really an AC game so Brotherhood. AC really died with Desmond
- AC really died with Desmond
  Ouch, right in the nostalgia.
- I've stared from Black flag up until Odyssey, then I went back the Ezio Trilogy.
  At firt the Ezio games seemed janky and unpolished, but boy was I wrong. The percieved "jankiness" was due to the fact that you have actual control over the character, which can be difficult at first but extremely rewarding later in the game(s), with tombs and catacombs that feel like actual puzzles to traverse, nothing like the "parkour on rails" of ACIV. Unity's parkour really felt like a step in the right direction, but players complained about it being a broken and rushed game and somehow Ubi understood that they needed to turn AC into The Witcher.
  As for the present time story arc I think they really nailed it with Desmond. I love games that take real world history as a base and add a fictional twists to it, and the sense of uncovering an actual, worldwide conspiracy and the origins of humankind itself was there.
  I understand they've acknowledged the fact that people don't play AC for the present time story arc, but there was no reason to let it die in irrelevance from ACIII onwards. Layla's arc might be a slight step towards the right direction, but we're still far, far away.
  This is all to say that yes, I agree with you. This series had (and still has) so much potential, but it was unfortunately hijacked by corporate greed time and time again, straying further from the original concept as time goes on.
  I'm currently playing valhalla and plan on tackling ACIII next, and then Mirage.

It's hard to discuss such a massive series. It feels as if everything has been said about it and people have largely gotten tired of the formula, but hear me out.
I actually never played any of them, I recently started playing the first one (from 2007) on my Steam Deck and I am actually loving it. It's such a simple, straightforward game, with a basic but engaging story and honestly gorgeous visuals for the time. The mechanics are delightfully limited, in a sense that it really helps me to turn of my brain and just enjoy myself. I really like the world and how dense it is: all objectives are reasonably close and movement is quick and agile. A real gem for the Steam Deck!
I most certainly will get the sequel trilogy, as that one seems to be loved by a lot of people.
- I have vivid memories of the first one and Brotherhood. Brotherhood had an excellent multiplayer mode.
  
  Oh man I wish I'd been old enough to appreciate old assassin's creed multiplayer before it died. I remember seeing my brother play it but I was like 10 at the time and more interested in cod lmao
  
  Hell yeah it did. I spent 10 minutes sat on a bench not doing anything and it was some of the tensest and best gameplay I've had in a multiplayer game.
- Chances are, AC2 might absolutely blow your socks off if you're that much into the first game. It's a massive step up in nearly every way - except that it went for a softer, more painterly look instead of the sharper, more realistic art style of the first game. The story picks up very nicely too and at least at that point, I was still fully invested in both the Desmond and Enzio part of the narration and how cleverly they were interwoven. There is a tiny bit of bloat, it's not as focused as AC1, but from the perspective of someone who played the first game not too long after its release, this is highly subjective, since that title almost felt like a proof of concept at times that could have done so much more with its game world than it actually did - and AC2 showed that Ubisoft definitely listened to this kind of very frequently shared feedback back then.
  I love the old warning on the Steam store page for AC1, by the way:
  Requires a dual core processor or better. Please check system requirements before purchasing.
  Those were the days. This was one of the first games I tried on my new gaming PC in 2008 (after the most powerful PC I had regular access to was a machine from 2001, with some 2003 parts) and it was definitely a title that showed off the power of this extremely cheap, yet capable system, just like Crysis and COD4. In a way, this series in particular was a dream come true, since I've always been hunting for games that allowed me to truly immerse myself in a 3D recreation of the past. Much earlier, I had gotten a glimpse of that with the basic 3D-rendered scenes of historic buildings in Encarta and the unfortunately very limited (even though I hyped this up to no end before playing it) Pompei: The Legend of Vesuvius (2000), but AC1 far surpassed every earlier attempt at digitally reconstructing historic places.
  One can criticize the more modern AC games for a great many things, but one thing they are getting right is that they are putting more of an emphasis on the educational side of things: Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla all come with separate and increasingly fleshed-out educational modes (also available as standalone titles) that remove all normal game mechanics except for traversal and instead offer bite-sized excursions into the world, explaining a little bit of the history, while also explaining some of the decisions the developers had to make during production.

I loved the original and the Ezio titles, found the American Revolution one ran a little too much on rails (here you ride with Paul Revere, and here’s an unskippable ghost-train ride of a sequence where you have to shoot some goons; meh), and found the Victorian London one a bit dull. I haven’t yet played Black Flag, but may do so next, given that people rate it, though am not excited by any more recent ones.
- Unity is really good, contrary to its reputation (at least on PC). The parkour ~~flies~~ flows nicely and doesn't suffer from the grappling hook bypass of Syndicate, it's still the best-looking game in the series, there's a lot of attention to detail and the story doesn't overstay its welcome, even if it sometimes annoys with time jumps and the series habit of having to cram in historic events that you already mentioned. Yes, the map is overflowing with icons, but at that point in the series, that's to be expected.
  Compared to Black Flag, parkour, combat, stealth (especially stealth), presentation, architecture and NPCs are vastly superior, but it's less whimsical and of course doesn't have those fun (if repetitive and far too easy, unless you go for the big ships right in the beginning) arcadey ship battles and boarding attacks. Black Flag is definitely better at hiding and spreading its collectibles out, making discovering them a bit more of an occasion instead of an (admittedly still highly addictive) checklist chore due to its larger and more varied game world as well as the novelty of being able to leave your ship at any time, even in the middle of the ocean or near a tiny sand bank to go out and explore.

I played the first one, and found it to be extremely boring but with potential. Unfortunately, playing 3 and Syndicate afterwards showed me clearly that Ubisoft smothered the potential and cranked up the boring. The worlds they've created are certainly immersive, but they're also devoid of energy. 3 has a half-Native American protage who spends five minutes in his home village and then goes off to the colonies with barely a thought spared for his home, so when it's played for drama it falls flat because we haven't seen his relationship to his family. And Syndicate's characters had might as well be carved from soap with how crude and flat they are. There's a transgendered gangster from New York who joins the Assassins' gang, and he has absolutely nothing to add for the entire game. Characters with seeming potential come in, have one side quest, and that's their lot.
- This so much!

Not to be overly negative, but what are fans playing for these days? I only played the original 2 games and the (first?) North American one.
It seems people hate the modern stories, the gameplay is shallow at best and it's parkour has been far surpassed by many other games by now. The games are very often used as examples of modern AAA studios having no creativity and just churning out the same game over and over. The games look beautiful and I've heard the educational versions are pretty useful, but what are the primary draw these days?
Again I don't want to be a hater, that's just what I've picked up from other people talking about it.
- You've basically outlined everything people hate about modern assassin's creed. It's generally accepted that the last good ac was origins which came out in 2017, and while I do enjoy it, it was the start of ac becoming the generic open-world cookie-cutter rpg that it is today.
  As cool as the upcoming game sounds, being set in Japan which people have been wanting for a very long time, and as much as I want to enjoy every ac game, the past few releases have just been chipping away my hope at getting something good
- Black Flag was the first one I played. As a result I then played Rogue and 3, then tried 2, which seemed mechanically a bit outdated (might try it again; just wish its health UI were more like Black Flag's), so played Unity instead. Still have to try Syndicate, which seems to still be mechanically similar enough to the original formula to be interesting.
  Played Origins past the first boss fight, but stopped since it no longer felt like an Assassin's Creed game. Odyssey and Valhalla appear to replicate the Origins formula, so skipped them altogether. Might try Mirage at some point, given its lack of the RPG mechanics of the prior three games, but probably won't get Shadows due to it seemingly returning in part to the RPG formula.

I really appreciate how the hidden blade is kept as an OG weapon even late game for all of the entries I have played so far (till Rouge). The way it one shots the enemy if you time it perfectly makes you feel like a master for doing so. The kill streak combo goes so well with this that you don't even realise you just annihilated an entire army of brutes just like that.

I basically grew up with Altair's and Ezio's AC. Had a hard time getting into AC3, but when it clicked - it clicked. Black Flag was the shit, I reached 100% twice, which is a big deal for me.
The new ACs (Origin and forth) just don't do it for me. It feels extremely cheap and overwhelming at the time. The scope of these games is so gargantuan, and it's too much for their own good. These games are just clunky, imbalanced, and extremely unpolished.

I have sort of a love hate relationship with this series. I've played most of the games, but think that they went the wrong way and that the management and directors just can't fulfill the potential of this series.
AC1 Great idea and for the time it was actually something new and different. The setting was wholly fresh and the story telling was leading to something and had a payoff that worked really well. It was also a clunky game 😅
AC2 Absolutely loved it. This was the game that made me fall in love with the series. Great setting, again very original and fresh. Great set of characters. Story was interesting and Ezios was actually executed good, but the modern day parts were underdeveloped and had no pay off. The ending was very bad, because it didn't make sense and was not explained in the game, but rather in some doc in one of the following games. Stupid. Had shock value though.
AC Brotherhood + Revelations Both good games that didn't really change Much of the formula. I liked the bombs in R. Revelations had a great ending for Ezio and be But again underdeveloped modern day which lead nowhere.
AC3 Very interesting story and a strong conflict at its core. Actually this was where I wanted the series to go. Unfortunately the rest was not so good as the main Protagonist was less appealing than the villain. Was most disappointed with the main protag honestly. Setting was not fresh nor original. Didn't really fit in with the Parcours. Introduced the ship battles! Absolutely botched the modern day and gave up on it altogether. Disappointing in the end.
AC Black flag Great setting, boring characters, boring Story. But the ship battles were fantastic! Really liked this one!
AC Unity Great art direction! Likeable characters. Tragic, but that's whatiI like about this series, it's not always a happy ending. Can't even remember the story.
AC Syndicate Horrible. I liked the main twin pair. But the story is forgettable, the setting is okay and beautiful. The controls with the hook was horrid and didn't work reliably.
AC Origins Fresh gameplay! Finally! Really liked this one as it had great setting, likeable characters and new stuff to do. Story was okay. I kinda rushed though, because I played it on one is the free weekend events.
AC Odyssey Same as Origins. Less original, but still good. Less interesting characters. Didn't finish it.
Didn't bother with Viking.
The new shadow one looks interesting. But before I play that, I want to try Ghost of Tsushima.
- Thanks for the long and interesting writeup! I'm still working through AC 1 and enjoying it, I'll see if I stay on the train as long as you :).
  I did play Ghost of Tsushima. One of the most beautiful looking games I've ever played with amazing combat and good characters. For me, it was just way to long and repetitive. I eventually found the solution, playing each of the three acts and the DLC with a long break in between each time, so it felt fresh again. In the end I even got the platinum trophy for it, but I still see it as a great 8/10 game that could have been an all time favorite if it was trimmed to about half its runtime. Here's hoping that they don't make the same mistakes for Ghost of Yotei. If they can keep the good and trim the bloat, this could be the game of a generation.

I love the assassin recruits mechanic. I just wish they would let me use more than 6 recruits at once and have them follow me like escorts, but I understand this was a necessary nerf.

I had to stop playing when I saw the review for AC 3 (I think) from Zero punctuation.
He pointed out that the quests were almost entirely "gofer" quests... You know, you go over there and get that, then go fer that other thing and go....
I started the game not long after and I have to say, he was right. And every time I was given a quest to go somewhere only to talk to someone with little to no reason for doing so other than, I have nothing better to do in the game... When that happened, I heard his voice in my head talking about how annoying gofer quests were.
It annoyed me, and I stopped playing as a result. Never got past the first chapter.

For a long time 3 was my favorite. But I started playing black flag and damn dat shit is good. I think I just didn't like it back then because it was different from 2 and 3.

I barely played the AC games as they came out, but recently decided to give Unity a try. It’s a really stunning presentation much of the time, but I find myself setting the game aside quite regularly as the quests / missions can be rather dull. I should perhaps try to do better at picking what to do in the game, as the immersion can be compelling.

I played up to AC3 and then felt like I had my fill with the series. I haven't played Black Flag, but I always hear that's the best one. I think the collection aspects in each game kinda just burnt me out. I spent so much time on the first couple of games that by the time AC3 rolled around, I was very much done.
Some key elements I really enjoyed were the environmental detail, the cat and mouse gameplay, which was also fun. One element I quickly grew tired of was tailing stealth missions, where you had to slowly follow the target to the end of the mission area. At the start of the series it wasn't super overdone, but boy did that get overdone in games since then haha.
I remember wanting them to go the whole ninjas route as it seemed like the obvious choice. So I'm kind of interested in trying the latest game at some point. I feel like we don't really get ninja games anymore, so I'm hoping it'll be good

26 comments