Assassin's Creed Unity in 2023 (PS5)

[poetic_justice_ 404]

You might have already decided you are going to play Unity on your PS5 regardless of what anyone says. You might be a die-hard AC fan whose passion is earning the platinum for every Assassin’s Creed game in existence. You might be a casual AC fan who is on the fence about Unity. In all three cases, this ten-minute read might prevent you from investing fifty-five to seventy hours into a gaming experience I think most people will remember as fondly as a painful hemorrhoid during a cross-country horseback ride. Playing Unity is like being sandblasted when you already have a second-degree sunburn. I say that as a Assassin’s Creed fan. 

 

After an eight-year break (2014-2022) from Assassin’s Creed, I returned in September 2022 to play the AC IV: Black Flag expansion Freedom Cry. Freedom Cry has one of the two most interesting protagonists in the series: Adewale, a freed slave turned Assassin who joins the Brotherhood. Though he fights Templars, his driving motivation is to eradicating slavery in the Caribbean. 

 

Many issues in Adewale’s story are relevant today: institutionalized greed, slave labor, and racial prejudice. At one point, Adewale’s convictions on these issues lead him to confront his pirate friend and fellow Assassin, Edward Kenway. As a pirate, Edward is preoccupied with plunder. However, he also does the work of an Assassin, at least when it’s convenient or financially beneficial for him. Kenway’s actions reveal he is more pirate than assassin, which causes Adewale to confront him. During the confrontation (permit the paraphrase) Adewale states, “We are Assassins. Assassins have never been concerned with accumulating wealth; the Brotherhood is about freedom. If you are going to use your Assassin skills only for your own benefit, I will leave. The Creed requires more than that. We have to free others, whether their masters are Templars or slavers. You are better than this. If you aren’t going to help free slaves, I will do it myself. I hated being a slave. It isn’t enough for me to be free and think only of myself. I have to do something more for others still in captivity.” Kenway doesn’t change his greedy ways and continues to associate with Bartholomew Adams, a man Adewale distrusts. In the end, Adewale, Kenway’s former quartermaster, leaves Kenway to captain the brig Victoire, and later, steal and captain the Experto Crede.

 

This confrontation is one of the most powerful moments in the series. For me, the emotional weight of Adewale’s convictions reverberated into the real world. At that time, I was abusing gaming like alcohol: too much and too late at night, trying to escape difficulties at work. Edward Kenway’s character lent itself to my escapism. He was a self-centered character whose life revolved around gaining plunder. He lived in a tropical paradise and solved all his problems with a sword. Sailing around the virtual Caribbean, I could hunt whales and plunder ships to increase my in-game coffers. What’s not to love? There was no internal conflict or embedded moral code to trouble Kenway’s conscience: he’s a pirate! At least, there was no moral conflict until Adewale voiced his convictions. Adewale’s challenge was a watershed moment where gaming and reality converged. It felt like a two-dimensional NPC came to life and stuck his finger in my chest, asking, “Why aren’t you helping other people? Isn’t that the purpose of your existence?”

 

The moment challenged me. During this period of time, I took a necessary risk at work. A veteran employee was bullying and harassing others, especially women, but people were too scared or too discouraged to bring the matter up. One woman did speak up, and when this man learned what she had done, he targeted her and made her life difficult. Management did little to protect her and little to stop him. I transferred to this location in 2021, but employees here stated this man has been acting this way for years. If he discovered I filed a grievance against him, he would retaliate. Given management’s history of inaction, they would not protect me. I filed the grievance anyway. With the help of a former manager, I escalated the issue over my assistant general managers and general manager to notify our regional manager. The act didn’t do me any favors with local management, but I slept better afterwards.

 

Playing as Adewale inspired me to return to Assassin’s Creed. I (mistakenly) thought the next chronological game was Unity. [Technically, Rogue is next, but I forgot about Rogue. Also, with Unity’s co-op trophies and the possibility of server shutdown, I wanted to finish Unity while the platinum was still possible]. 

 

At launch, Unity was mired in controversy due to numerous bugs and technical problems. Many people disliked aspects of previous AC games, but the reaction to Unity went beyond dislike; many people outright hated it. However, these events occurred primarily in 2014-2015. In 2021 and 2022, posts on PSNProfiles said, “It’s better now. The bugs are largely fixed, the game has been stabilized, and you can play Unity on the PS5 without crashes.” I believed these posts. They are true, sort of. The game can be played on PS5, though it’s not 100% stable. While many bugs have been fixed, many remain. However, after Freedom Cry with Adewale, Unity with Arno is a crushing disappointment.

 

Generally speaking, there are four design questions that need to guide game development, particularly sequels:

 

1. Does this activity/mechanic/skill/story add to the gaming experience?

2. Does this activity/mechanic/skill/story contribute something relevant to existing lore?

3. Is this addition interesting?

4. Is this addition fun?

 

The overwhelming answer to those questions in AC Unity is no. AC Unity is a 70+ hour experience that adds nothing to the Assassin’s Creed series (while otther people have completed it in fewer hours, I play slowly). Unity’s parkour feels like two technological steps backward from the smooth flow of Black Flag, and the narrative adds nothing substantial to Creed lore. The end result is boring, not fun, and irrelevant. I don’t say that as a hater, but as a disappointed fan. I wanted Unity to succeed, and after seven years, I hoped Ubisoft could fix it. However, Unity falls flat on its face in the first act and remains on its hands and knees for the remainder of its trope-filled existence. No amount of patches can polish over the fact that Unity is a turd. 

 

Months ago, I played Firewatch, a small indie game whose story requires three and one-half hours. Despite not touching Firewatch since completion, I remember Firewatch’s narrative. There was a slow but organic transformation from mistrust to trust for the main characters Henry and Delilah. In contrast, it has only been ten days since finishing Unity, which required literally twenty times the amount of hours to complete as Firewatch, and my memory is already hazy. My subconscious decided Unity wasn’t worth remembering and ejected it. The leadership in charge of Unity’s creative development needs to be licking stamps in a mailroom. Repetitive, mind-numbing tasks are their forte, not creating engaging, exciting gameplay.

 

Example: Assassin’s Creed Revelations added the hookblade to Ezio’s gauntlet. The hookblade increased traversal speed, made parkour more interesting, and added a combat option against heavy, armored enemies. Lore wise, the hookblade showed the Assassins were evolving their warfare against the Templars. I am baffled why Ubisoft didn’t keep the hookblade in the series, as it is a great weapon/tool. Incidentally, Ubisoft considered re-introducing the hookblade in Black Flag, but decided against it.

 

Another example: Assassin’s Creed III added the Aquila. Connor navigated parts of the map in the Aquila and engaged in cannon-based ship-to-ship combat. Was the in-game operation of the Aquila perfect? No, but captaining the Aquila was fun, interesting, relevant to the story and time period, as well as contributing to AC lore, a contribution which became almost a character in itself with the Jackdaw in AC IV: Black Flag and later, the Experto Crede in Freedom Cry.

 

In contrast to these two additions, Unity introduces a 3-tier lockpicking skill and non-scaling co-op PVE missions (more on co-op missions later). For single-player, Unity had no hookblade, no Aquila or Jackdaw, no disarming enemies and using their weapons against them, no new fun combat moves. The only new mechanic was tiered lockpicking.

 

The mechanics of lockpicking could have been programmed to be an interesting, varied mini-game. Instead, lockpicking feels like something ported from a low-budget mobile app. Up, down, up, down - try to stop the sliding white bar in the slightly bigger blue bar. It is lame, needlessly time consuming, and ultimately, pointless. 

 

Despite hundreds of Ubisoft Entertainment and Ubisoft Montpelier employees coding five millions lines for Unity, no one in the creative development team heard a voice saying, “Hey, this game sucks. These mechanics suck. The story sucks. Arno is boring. We are taking out good ideas and replacing them with bad ideas or no ideas at all. Other than new co-op PVE modes, Unity has little going for it. Let’s look at our eight previous AC games and reincorporate mechanics that worked. Maybe we can add an idea we cut from an earlier game.” No? Why did no one leading the project think that approach was a better way to go? The final product developed by Ubisoft Montpellier or Ubisoft Montreal makes no sense.

 

These are other reasons why I cannot recommend Unity on PS5 in 2023.

 

STILL (MODERATELY) UNSTABLE

Unity crashed on me three times. The worst crash was mid-mission on Memory 12, Sequence 3, the final mission. This irritating restart cost me time, but fortunately did not corrupt my save. This third crash occurred on December 15, 2022. No other PS4 games have crashed on my PS5 like Unity. Unity is perhaps 98% or 99% stable on PS5, but not 100%. Granted, not all PS5’s components are identical or manufactured identically, and your PS5 may process the application with more stability than mine. 

 

STICKY HANDS = UNWANTED, AWKWARD PARKOUR

Arno attaches himself to literally everything that is nailed down. He frequently stops moving, ascends the wrong environmental asset, or moves in the wrong direction while on an environmental asset. I frequently felt I was not 100% in control of Arno while freerunning. This “sticky hands” problem is so bad that I abandoned rooftop parkour and began freerunning only at street level. Even on street level, Arno would bump into crowds, veer to one side, then try to vault over tables or run up walls. All I wanted to do was to move in a straight line down the street, not parkour through the environment, yet the game kept bouncing Arno into parkour. In AC III and AC IV, holding R2 to freerun was fun. In Unity, holding R2 is a liability. I wish the “sticky hands” sensitivity was adjustable, because I would drop it to 50%. I don’t understand why people praise the parkour in Unity; Arno’s grabbiness while R2 freerunning is too much. 

 

OPEN WINDOW? NOPE!

Arno had problems entering windows. Even while holding L2, Arno would not enter a window. He would move across the window or around the window. At one point, he even climbed in thin air over the window. Getting Arno to actually enter a window was like herding cats, especially when approaching the window from underneath.

 

INFERIOR COMBAT COMPARED TO PREVIOUS AC TITLES

Previous AC games had a red flash for enemy attacks that could not be parried, and a yellow flash for attacks that could be parried. In Unity, some attacks cannot be parried, even though they display a yellow  “parry” flash. If the game engine decides an enemy is going to hit you, there is almost nothing you can do to avoid it. Your parry will fail, your smoke bomb will be ineffective, or an enemy who you were comboing will suddenly stand bolt upright and interrupt your attack mid-stroke. 

 

The disarm mechanic has been removed. I miss wresting a long gun from a sniper and bayoneting or shooting him with his own musket. Disarming a brute and and chopping him with his own axe was satisfying.

 

Arno starts the game with a Dull Cavalry Saber. He cannot pick up enemy weapons, even though they are all superior to his dull sword. Likewise, he cannot pick up dropped enemy muskets and fire them.

 

OVERPOWERED SNIPERS

Even at fully maximized health, a single sniper shot will remove over 50% of Arno’s health. Two sniper shots will kill Arno. During multi-enemy combat - and 90% of the combat is multiple enemies - it is easy to lose awareness of snipers with all the swordsmen and officers in your face, then Arno suddenly drops dead. This mechanic makes no sense, as Arno can be hacked on four or five times with swords before dying. What makes muskets so deadly? Later memories have snipers everywhere, and they spot Arno instantly from 40-50m away. Approaching one sniper for a melee kill will place Arno in the line of sight for 1-5 additional snipers. As soon as stealth is lost, outdoor combat frequently becomes an unenjoyable experience due to the presence of overpowered snipers.

 

BUGGY COMBAT

At times. Arno. Stops.

 

Attacking.

 

can’t

Parry.

 

Or throw

Smoke Bombs.

 

Stuck.

 

Then you suddenly regain control and Arno can attack again. This bug is more common in later memories with high-level enemies.

 

INEFFECTIVE SMOKE BOMBS

Smoke bombs don’t always work; at times, enemies rushing into smoke still attack the player as if there is no smoke at all. Snipers or pistol-wielding swordsmen will still fire a round directly into Arno, even though a smoke bomb was deployed one second earlier. The smoke’s effect is inconsistent. 

 

In the end, though, smoke bombs were the most effective tool Arno had in open combat. I found myself spamming Smoke Bombs like a teenage stoner hot-boxing in a VW van in the high school parking lot. In fact, that might have been what the creative development team was doing in while designing Unity: hot-boxing in the Ubisoft Montreal parking lot. Canada is known for potent smoke, just not in its Assassin’s Creed games.

 

INEFFECTIVE CHERRY BOMBS

Cherry bombs are supposed to lure enemies to the location where the cherry bomb was thrown. In practice, cherry bombs work 50% of the time or less. Enemies are completely oblivious to cherry bombs thrown beside them, or they walk halfway to the cherry bomb detonation area, stop, and walk back to their original location. I stopped using cherry bombs because they are a bad joke with no punchline. Enemies don’t respond or loose interest so fast. In rare cases, repeated throwing of cherry bombs instantly alerts the enemy to your location, even if you are hidden from their line of sight. It makes no sense.

 

INEFFECTIVE POISON GAS, SMALL SUPPLY

Killing higher level enemies requires two poison gas bombs. However, most belts only carry a maximum of two poison gas bombs. Weak. Arno needs to be able to cause chaos and clear out Parisian cafes. There might be Templars in there, drinking coffee and plotting political intrigue.

 

ONLY TWO BERSERK DARTS

Making enemies berserk so they attack each other and civilians is the best comedic activity in Assassin’s Creed. Previous AC titles allowed players to carry five berserk darts. Unity limits the player to two berserk darts. Very few belts and gloves allow players to carry more. Berserk darts are rare when looting corpses, so the actual usage is few and far between. Come on, Ubisoft, party poopers! I want crazy brutes swinging great axes at fishmongers! 

 

RANDOM LOOT ALGORITHM

Why is it that snipers have unlimited ammunition to shoot Arno, yet when Arno loots snipers, he  almost never finds bullets? Previous AC titles had clearly defined loot patterns, such as looting dead enemies with firearms frequently produced bullets, or looting heavy enemies frequently produced medicine or darts. Unity has no rhyme or reason to its loot pool, forcing players to waste time searching every type of corpse in a boring loot lottery. Wouldn’t a better loot algorithm help players, I don’t know, actually play the game they paid for?

 

BUGGY ENVIRONMENTS

Cool! Arno is sliding across that table - oh wait, he hit a book and stopped. Yeah! Arno is vaulting a bench - oh wait, he hit a plate of fruit and stopped. Finally, Arno is climbing a wall and - he refuses to grab a handhold directly above him, even though that handhold is identical to the ten other handholds he grabbed to get here.

 

Arno assassinates enemies without touching them.

 

Why is that NPC half-buried in the street? Where did that woman’s legs go? Why is that Parisian hovering down the street without walking? Unity is still buggy.

 

This is a playlist containing many bugs I encountered during my playthrough: 

 

INCONSISTENT, BROKEN COVER SYSTEM

The screen frequently displays an “X: COVER” pop-up message when Arno is beside walls or doorways. However, much of the time, pressing X does nothing. Or worse, it glues Arno’s butt to a wall OPPOSITE the wall where you were crouched, putting Arno in full view of the enemies he was supposed to be stealthily avoiding. Whoops. This can be an issue in missions where the challenge for 100% synch requires cover kills. Through trial and error, players have to find which environmental objects support the cover system and which don’t. Doorways are the worst.

 

NO SINGLE PLAYER SCALING (CO-OP MISSIONS AND HEISTS)

Heists an co-op missions are designed for two or four players, not solo players. This issue can be mitigated in most heists and missions at the cost of time, making the heist or mission last four times as long as intended. However, some missions are in absolute need of single-player difficulty adjustment, and unbelievably, Ubisoft decided coding this adjustment was not worth their time. 

 

The parkour section of The Tournament is the centerpiece for Unity’s Co-op Hall of Shame. This confusing, poorly designed parkour time trial was designed for four players and ONLY four players. The mechanical execution is crap and the time trial should have been eliminated from the mission during the beta trial phase. As it is, The Tournament is a timed nightmare for single-players, a faux pas which highlights everything wrong with Unity’s parkour system.  Arno’s grabby hands constantly attach him to the wrong objects, wasting valuable seconds. There are no instructions. Through trial-and-error, players discover Ubisoft’s parkour philosophy: “Gather 34 flags but wait! Most of the flags don’t unroll until you touch another flag first. We don’t use color coding or any other method to differentiate the order in which you should grab flags to activate other flags. Good luck!!” Any and all criticism for Ubisoft’s decision to include the time trial in its current form as part of The Tournament mission is warranted. This work is pure garbage.

 

For single-players attempting to complete The Tournament, this video by Granite Gaming is helpful. 

 

 

 

BORING ACTIVITY: LOCKPICKING

Ubisoft Montpellier took away naval warfare and replaced it with skill-tiered lockpicking. Wheeeee. Dozens and dozens of locks to pick. Oops, can’t pick that one because it’s level 3. Or that one. Or the hidden one I spent three minutes locating. Or the one behind the level 3 locked door. Oh, I can’t get that Synch Point skill in a co-op mission because it is behind a locked level 3 door. Hey, every co-op mission has a Synch Point hidden behind a locked level 3 door. 

 

Ubisoft, how is lockpicking an improvement? Does it add anything to the game? No. Is it interesting? No. Is it fun? No. Then why is it here?

 

BORING ACTIVITY: NOSTRADAMUS ENIGMAS (18)

Nostradamus Enigmas are a colossal fail. There are eighteen enigmas, one for each zodiac symbol. However, these vague, poorly written poems and random accompanying symbols have nothing to do with the zodiac, Nostradamus, or astrology. The real enigma is why are they in Unity at all?

 

I tried doing one or two enigmas by myself. Both were a convoluted, tedious, indecipherable mess. Finding a weird symbol hidden on the back of a tower hundreds of meters from an identical weird symbol scrawled near a campfire does nothing for me. For the love of the fans, don’t make us do 18 puzzles with three-to-five riddles each. And please, don’t attach armor we need at the beginning of the game (not the end) to those 18 enigmas and 60+ poems. Too late. By the time I completed the 18th enigma, I didn’t care about the armor, the enigmas, or Nostradamus. It was a chore, nothing more.

 

I think the Unity team added Nostradamus enigmas in an attempt to make the game appear intelligent and more cerebral, but the core AC fanbase never asked for a cerebral game. We were happy with a stabby-jumpy-sneaky game. What does vague, poorly worded poetry have to do with being a stabby-jumpy-sneaky assassin? Nothing. Get rid of it. Also, who wrote the quatrains with five lines? Quatro/cuatro means four.

 

The most interesting tie-in to Nostradamus occurs during a murder mystery. A monk becomes obsessed with Nostradamus prophecy and attempts to make one specific prophecy happen. During the investigation, he asks, “Is [this action] a crime if the end was already prophesied?” Arno doesn’t go down that philosophical rabbit hole, but murder and mental illness coupled with Nostradamus was one of the most engaging narratives in Unity.

 

BORING ACTIVITY: COLLECTIBLES (422, BASE GAME)

• 128 Cockades (base game). All 128 Cockades must be picked up for the Tricolore trophy.
• 294 Chests (base game). All 294 chests must be opened for the Curiosity trophy. Many chests are locked and/or located behind a locked door. Some chests are in the sewers, and not all sewer entrances are marked on the map. 

 

Here is one example: https://youtu.be/70E7OjlNfws

 

One chest is locked behind four quests, but the game does not explain this. This video by Rogue4 shows how to complete the four quests:

 

https://youtu.be/WeWXH5vlbds

 

BORING ACTIVITY: COLLECTIBLES (98, DEAD KINGS)

As if retrieving 422 collectibles in the base game wasn’t enough, Dead Kings adds 98 more (total may be inaccurate; feel free to count on the map below).

 

https://www.ign.com/wikis/assassins-creed-5-unity/Map_Collectibles

 

• 60 Chests (approximate). 
• 15 Artifacts (approximate). Whereas retrieving artifacts was optional in Unity, in Dead Kings they are a requirement for synchronization.
• 23 Napolean Bicorns. Does replacing cockades with bicorns increase the fun factor? No.

 

All 100 Dead King collectibles must be retrieved to achieve 100% synchronization for the bronze trophy Hydrogen Bonded. I want to give Lead game designer Benjamin Plich* a bronze trophy too.

 

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin's_Creed_Unity

 

OVERPRICED MEDICINE + (THREE-SECOND LOOTING X 400 CORPSES) = BOREDOM

While most of Arno’s deployable items only cost 50-250 livres each to replenish, the price of medicine is insane: 2500 livres for one medicine.

 

This singular price gouge kneecaps the game’s economy. New players can save livres for better gear/weapons or replenish medicine; they cannot afford to do both. Low-level heists and low-level co-op missions only pay 5000-10,000 livres. Given their meager health bar plus the numerous enemies in these heists, new players must constantly use medicine to heal. However, a player going into a low-level heist who uses five medicine is actually LOSING money. A heist payout of 5000-10,000 livres is only enough to purchase two-to-four medicine, leaving the player 2500 livres poorer than when he/she started. Why didn’t Ubisoft replenish all player medicine at the end of each heist? More people would have played them.

 

The solution to avoid paying 2500 livres for each medicine is looting. Many players will end up looting corpses, not for money, but for medicine. Unfortunately, Unity’s looting algorithm doesn’t adjust to player need. The algorithm provides random items, most of which the player already has. Consequently, players end up looting dozens of corpses only to receive a few medicine. Wow. Fun! While doing nothing, I get to hold a button down for three seconds. Hundreds of times, holding a button, doing nothing. Doing nothing, holding a button, hundreds of times. Whee. Let’s watch Arno pat a dead guy’s chest, pockets and - Arno, stop! He’s dead. Don’t touch him there.

 

Given how bad Unity is, I don’t know if the developers didn’t recognize the tedious medicine-loot cycle they created, or if one of them secretly did realize it and has a necrophilia fetish. Arno is very touchy with corpses and makes a lot of contact in three seconds. I didn’t notice it the first three hundred times he did it, but once he passed four hundred, I questioned why Arno needed three seconds to pull 18 livre out of a dead man’s pocket - and the pocket in question wasn’t between the corpse’s legs or butt. Maybe the corpse was smuggling contraband into or out of prison.

 

Anyway, players will spend considerable time searching corpses for medicine. It’s something gamers have been screaming for in an Assassin’s Creed game: the chance to stand still, doing nothing, holding a button, dozens of times.

 

BLAND, BORING PROTAGONIST

Arno is a whiny, spoiled, rebellious, immature man-child. Like an 80’s action hero among explosions and violence, the quippy protagonist is never truly in danger. In 2023, this cliched narrative is not interesting. The one event that has the power to transform Arno happens at the end of the story, and then the game ends. What a wasted opportunity. If that specific event had occurred in the middle of the story instead of at the finale, its impact would have removed Arno from his protected, privileged world and forced him to grow. Instead of a its boring young adult novel conclusion, players would have found out who Arno really is when all the people anchoring his life were removed. The life he took for granted would no longer exist, and he would have to choose a new path. That narrative could have been interesting. Instead, we got lockpicking and Titanic without the iceberg or Jack.

 

CONFUSING, UNENGAGING STORY

I played through some memory sequences twice. I still don’t understand who killed who, or who ordered who to kill who, or which who killed the first who after the first who killed the second who. I do not know why or how many whos were killed, nor do I care. Arno loves Elise, but their star-crossed lovers’ tale is a snooze fest. Plus, when it matters most, she’s dumb. Well, so is he, so their conclusion is dumb too. 

 

LITTLE NEW LORE

Apart from introducing the concept of sages - humans who have high numbers of Precursor DNA in their bodies - there is nothing new, and even with the introduction of sages, the plot does nothing with the concept.

 

Arno's handler: "Hey, we think we found a sage. Initiate, play as Arno and confirm this person is a sage."

Initiate (Gamer playing as Arno): [confirms sage existence]

Arno's handler: "Wow, that's great. Yep, he is a sage. Nice work."

THE END

 

BAD LIGHTING

Dead Kings in particular is very, very dark. I cranked up the brightness on my monitor and still had issues playing in the catacombs and sewers. What fun is a game where you can’t see where you’re going? Without Eagle Vision, I would have been totally blind in several sections. Perhaps Ubisoft was going for realism, but this poor visual experience was not enjoyable.

 

BEAUTIFUL ENVIRONMENTS

The art team is the shining diamond in this pile of Parisian poop. Recreating iconic architecture, slums, gilded mansions, libraries, political halls, cathedrals, catacombs, swamps, and residential buildings is so well done. It is a shame that the parkour and story are not as good as the environmental aesthetic of 1789 Paris. Kudos to the environment team creating the environments, because they clearly did their research and brought their A-game.

 

These are my thoughts on Unity. Even many die-hard Assassin’s Creed fans dislike it. Perhaps you can see why. Unity is bad. It is not just technically bad, but bad overall, which is sad. You are under no obligation to play such a terrible game. Trophies be damned; seventy hours of your life is too valuable to trade for a few seconds of joy in a failed game. 

 

If you feel you are missing out, you can watch all Unity’s cut scenes on Youtube. They can be a great help if you want to fall asleep and dream about better Assassin’s Creed games.

 

https://youtu.be/HNh4DmwghaE

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by poetic_justice_

[DaivRules 15,351]

So is the TLDR: AC Unity PS4 version is still a buggy mess (aka an AC game) on PS5 and you don’t recommend it?

 

 

[SpaceIsDandy 134]

Also he is already in 2023

[Sakura Amamiya 9,031]

Oh shit and here I thought this would be an official announcement remaster for Assassin's Creed: Unity PS5 but I guess not. 🙄

[Silver-I-Chariot 1,182]

Nice rant but I don't remember any of these issues except boring story and too many collectibles. Other than that, it's your typical AC game.

[MrRys28 2]

I agree with most of these... I really don't understand why some people praise this game's parkour and combat for being good and realistic

the parkour is so bad, yes if this was a tech demo the animations are complex and nice, but they are bad for the gameplay. sometimes Arno jumps 20 meters up or forward (very realistic) sometimes he can't jump a meter, sometimes you hold R2 and he goes up sometimes he goes down, sometimes even if you hold R2 + X he goes down and when holding R2 + O he goes up, sometimes you have to hold L2 to enter a window, sometimes he doesn't enter a window even when you hold L2, sometimes he enters a window even if you aren't holding L2 and don't want to enter it, sometimes he can scale a flat wall sometimes he can't scale a wall with decorations

and all the animations are so slow and prolonged

 

and the combat, again slow and prolonged animations, there is no defense against guns except rolling, which takes you out of the fight, or smoke bombs, which isn't precisely a direct counter to guns and they are limited and there is even more gunmen than before... why can't you grab an enemy as a shield, like in the previous games?

the XP system is completely broken, 90% of the actions you will (have to) perform don't grant you any XP, only finishers grant you XP in open combat, but that means you have to wait about 2 seconds after you defeat an enemy to finish him

stealth kills from cover do reward you with XP, but good luck finding a good hiding spot where the enemies walk around, because there is no whistling and if you try moving from one hiding spot to the other there is a high chance someone will spot you, hidden blade kills also only grant you XP when it's a jump kill

the only saving grace for the XP system is that it's almost pointless, but I wouldn't say that's a good thing

[Vault-TecPhantom 395]

On 24/12/2022 at 8:48 AM, DaivRules said:

So is the TLDR: AC Unity PS4 version is still a buggy mess (aka an AC game) on PS5 and you don’t recommend it?

 

 

 

I think a huge part of the (excellent) OP was to highlight that Unity's problems go beyond bugs which is all too often scapegoated for what is essentially a terrible game by itself.