Love it or loathe it, the Assassin’s Creed series is one of the biggest franchises in gaming and its popularity doesn’t seem to be waning. At the time of writing, Assassin’s Creed Unity has sold 5.8 million units over three platforms. That puts the game at the top end of the mid-table for multiplatform releases. Unlike Call of Duty or FIFA, Unity wasn’t released on last-gen. If you bundle in Rogue (the last-gen release), the number starts looking more like 10m, which makes Assassin’s Creed one of the best-selling franchises of last year.
After the controversy surrounding the game last year though, is the Assassin’s Creed franchise in trouble? Should we expect the famous Star Trek formula of good game one year, bad game the next? I’m starting to feel jaded with the series. I reviewed the last four Assassin’s Creed games on this site and I could see through the years, I was feeling less and less invested. I thought I was a big fan of this series, so is there hope for me?
What Assassin’s Creed has done right
Firstly, I’m not going to say that Assassin’s Creed Unity is a bad game. It’s a very good game! For starters, the assassinationsin Unity are WAY more fun than in previous AC games. Taking your time, looking for unique opportunities and finding escape routes adds a level of detail that’s honestly been missing since the first game. The games in the Assassin’s Creed series have always lent more towards casual effort, but Unity rewards your contemplation and execution nicely. Elements of emergent gameplay have bled over from Far Cry, making the assassinations more engaging than ever before. Assassin is kinda 50% of the title, so it ought to be a big part of the game. One element I loved in previous games were the assassin tombs, which made a sort-of comeback in Unity, so that was just lovely.
The co-op multiplayer is good, if a little underused. I thought the whole game would be drop-in, drop-out co-op. Raff blasted the multiplayer before playing the single player and he seemed pretty impressed with it. Matchmaking problems, server issues and the usual pitfalls aside, he said it was decent. It’s definitely a solid launchpad to propel onward into this generation. I’m looking forward to seeing where co-op goes in the future. Maybe Ubisoft can port a bit more over from Far Cry in that respect (the co-op in FC3 was loads of fun).
Speaking of nicking elements from Far Cry, the stealth button and Far Cry-style sneaking dynamics worked really well in Unity. We know Assassin’s Creed is going for a more cinematic vibe, with a forgiving balance of skill and luck. The predictable enemy AI and dependable tool set makes you a master of your environment from very early on. There’s very little chaos because AC is focused on telling a deeper story with shallower gameplay. That works in its favour! That’s probably why Assassin’s Creed is so popular.
I like how the story feels consistent and integrated with real history. The modern-day story has been left wanting in recent titles, making Assassin’s Creed more of a historical series, though. That’s both a blessing and a curse. The canon is rich and compels me to keep coming back. Recent revelations regarding the Sages (no spoilers) is a brilliant little story feature, one which I’d like to see more of. The drive to stop Abstergo is what keeps me in the Animus long after the main story. Without that point of contact, maybe I’m just fulfilling empty fetch quests.
Where Assassin’s Creed could do better
Bugs be damned! They weren’t even that big of a deal. Raff and I both fell through a floor a few times or got stuck on the scenery, but a sandbox game of this size inevitably gets pushed out with a few wrinkles in the fabric. It’s not ideal, but it got patched and we all got a free DLC episode out of it. It would be unfair to still hold that one over Ubisoft’s heads. Besides, the problem’s with Assassin’s Creed run a lot deeper than a few glitches.
Most importantly, there’s just too much. The release of Assassin’s Creed Rogue ushered in the first instance of two main AC games in one year. There was also the Dead Kings DLC for Unity and the stand-alone side-scroller, Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China. That might be too much Assassin’s Creed for one year. It took me months to finish Unity. And knowing Rogue was still on the to-play pile started to feel demotivating.
The games themselves are just getting bigger and bigger with each iteration, with no obvious rationale save for the illusion of value. Black Flag was big, but it was fun. Sailing about the archipelago and getting into impromptu ship battles was ace. Even if you’re not on a quest to find the Mayan armour, you could just muck about for hours with the tools at hand. The game felt full. But Unity is the proof that a bigger map doesn’t necessarily mean a better game. Arbitrarily scattering hundreds of chests and trinkets across the map doesn’t make the game any better, it’s just takes longer.
In order to collect everything and 100% sync Assassin’s Creed Unity, you need to sign up to and play the Unity companion app, the Initiates web game and the Dead Kings DLC. These are technically “optional” extras, but they’re required to complete the game. In the end I just couldn’t be arsed with jumping through hoops and judging by the 1 or 2% trophy claimants, few others did either.
Lastly, I feel like Assassin’s Creed Unity has dropped useful features from the toolset. We’re given cherry bombs with one hand, but whistling is taken away with the other. Features come and go, I understand that. Hookblades and DIY bombs never made a comeback. But whistling was a good feature and let you position your enemies, before either taking them out or avoiding them altogether. It may have been Easy Mode for some, but it could have been nerfed, not removed entirely.
We’ve lost the assassin’s “chemistry set” from Revelations and with it the sense of immersion in that world. The tools at hand are a bit awkward and I don’t feel like the master of my environment any more. I think what we’ve got here is the annual tick-tock of feature drift. Yearly franchises like FIFA find it hard to innovate year on year, especially now they’ve practically perfected the formula. One of the ways FIFA stays fresh is to switch off features one year, just to announce their return in the following installment. I think Assassin’s Creed is doing the same. We’ll see whistling back in Victory. Maybe they’ll add in throwing stones from Far Cry.
Where the Assassin’s Creed series should go next
Focus. The Assassin’s Creed series has been pushed and pulled through every gameplay mechanic going. Base-building, tower defence, trading minigames, assassination minigames, ship-sailing – you name it. Throughout seven games, Ubisoft have dabbled in all sorts of tertiary gameplay dynamics but the core experience remains remarkably samey. Rather than continuing to throw new ideas into the games design hat, I would concentrate on drilling down into the core dynamics of Assassin’s Creed. Making a better social, stealthy, crowd-blending assassin game should be at the forefront. Keep the gameplay pure, at the expense of gimmickry. There’s less to hide behind, but a clear gem should be set in a plain ring.
Pick your battles. The crowd tech seemed worse in parts of Unity than in AC1. Unity’s level design is ace! Nothing is arbitrary, every piece of furniture or upturned cart has a purpose. I have a genuine playground, I’m not funneled in any direction. I can plan lines through the city from a running start. But interacting with people sucks. There are close to zero pure gameplay opportunities in the crowds, just lumps of people milling about with a shallow pool of predetermined interactions. My actions don’t directly affect the city or its population, and that’s an avenue that’s begging to be investigated. Finding a mark or losing a tail in a crowd; searching for clues using social engineering; the ideas sparking off just the crowd alone is what the series should be about. Keep your murder mysteries, build the game around the crowd.
Simplify. If you don’t have time to animate the feathers on the outfits, don’t have feathers on the outfits. Seriously, I’d rather see three gameplay dynamics explored to the fullest and intelligently integrated than thirty odds-and-sods that don’t quite add up. Stop with so many collectables. The older games had animus relics, which actually rewarded the player for exploring, not forcing it for exploring’s sake. If I’m going to hunt collectables, I want to be able to collect them all without playing an iOS app or an awful web instance.
When Assassin’s Creed started nearly ten years ago, Jade Redmond said that Ubisoft wanted to explore time periods and places which other games hadn’t. Setting a game in the Middle-East from a native angle was a brave move, one which made for a memorable game. Renaissance Rome was also good, but colonial America felt a bit wasted. By the same token, Victorian London seems like a very easy move. The locations have become easy-wins by being very Euro-centric. There’s no challenge to them. I’d like to see a proper AC game set in ancient China. How about revolutionary Russia, ancient Egypt, Mughal India? Why not set a game during the fall of the First Civilisation?
As the Assassin’s Creed series moves further into the gunpowder age, I think it’s getting less interesting. shooting always felt like cheating in these games. Further to the lack of originality, guns are in 99.99% of all video games ever (probably), which helped the series stand out. I don’t really like shooting games and Assassin’s Creed represented some fresh air at the top of the charts for me. I’d like to think that originality and creativity still have sway at Ubisoft, that not every move is made to appease share prices and stock holders. If this is true, then I remain excited for the next game in the series. If not, then I guess I’ll be voting with my wallet.