Breaking Up With Assassin's Creed

[merciful84]

The Assassin's Creed series and I have been on "a break" since 2012 when I quit playing ACIII after the first 5 memory sequences in favor for the newly released Mass Effect 1 on PSN. I agree with Danny when he says that it felt like the series lost its soul...its started to feel that way for me when playing Revelations. This is coming from someone who would stop whatever they were playing at the time to play the newest entry every time one was released. I would like to eventually finish up ACIII and get back into the series but my motivation to do so anytime soon is pretty low.

[simula67]

For me, Assassin's Creed is still a series that I am interested in and will play every year as long as there is a new game. I can't argue against complaints that the series is repetitive and doesn't do much to iterate year over year. However, the bottom line for me is that I have fun playing them. I know what I'm getting every time. 

 

That all being said, I would absolutely love for them to take a year off and really overhaul the controls. The parkour in Syndicate is the best yet, but it's far from perfect. 

[PlatinumRequiem]

Assassin's Creed is an awesome series, which I really love. I do agree though, the game's been shit, or rather just not doing it for me anymore. It's just a tedious grind of completing tasks you're issued with.

 

The best game in the series is AC II and AC Brotherhood, Revelations was meh, what's after has just been.... Not AC anymore

I really hope ubisoft revives the series back. 

[Dan_WatsonAU]

Assassin's Creed is an awesome series, which I really love. I do agree though, the game's been shit, or rather just not doing it for me anymore. It's just a tedious grind of completing tasks you're issued with.

The best game in the series is AC II and AC Brotherhood, Revelations was meh, what's after has just been.... Not AC anymore

I really hope ubisoft revives the series back.

Did you play syndicate?

[freedom452]

I had started to get tired with the AC games after 4 then the compete pile of crap that was Unity, I seriously thought about skipping Syndicate but I want ahead and got it and man I'm so glad I did because it get me totally hooked on the series again. Syndicate if a fantastic game, easily my favorite AC game and the best since Brotherhood. I hope the little tease that was in Syndicate is what the next game is because it seems like it could be really good.  


 

[Raxnar100]

My entry point into the series was ACIV Black Flag. I loved it. The characters and setting really got me hooked.

 

I missed Unity. Guess I got put off by all of the issues with it. 

 

So I return with Syndicate. At first I couldn't stop grinning as I merrily stabbed my way around London. As time went on I started to see the "checklist" play out in front of me. So many collectibles I felt like I was drowning in chests. I'm the kind of player that likes to complete everything as I go along. So seeing so many collectibles was rather daunting. The pitfalls of every sandbox game I guess. But usually I enjoy the hunt. This time, I don't know, it just feels like a chore. 

 

I guess I'm just a little burnt out on sandbox games in general. This being said, if they ever release a remaster of 1 and 2, I'd be on it in a flash. 

[AJ_Radio]

I have played most Assassin Creed games except for Rogue, Liberation and a few smaller games (like what you get at uPlay or some small iteration) I don't give a damn about.

 

While I appreciate what they've done with Syndicate, there is clearly something missing. But while the historical game play element (where you control the Assassins) hasn't completely gone off the hook (although I can see why it's dated compared to something like Witcher 3 or other RPG/action games), I have all but lost hope on the present day sequences.

 

Desmond Miles WAS the reason why so many of us bothered with the present day sequences. In Assassins Creed I, where Abstergo is trying to uncover the Apple of Eden through the memories of Altair, we learn some info on Desmond Miles, Lucy Stillman and Warren Vidic. By the end of Assassins Creed III, all of them are dead. Every character that we saw from the first game either didn't matter anymore, or died because of Ubisoft's poor handling of the present day story.

 

This is only made worse in Black Flag when you take control of a faceless, mute anonymous employee at Abstergo who is clearly an Assassin. You meet two other people who don't really matter, but you also come across Rebecca and Shaun, using you to transfer data to them after you hacked into Abstergo's computers. Was there any point to that? Desmond was long dead by this time. In Unity we find a hacker who has decided to join the Assassins, and so far in Syndicate we are treated to a present day sequence that was better left ignored. So the present day doesn't really concern people much anymore.

 

It is basically a video game simulation at this point.

[Gotakibono]

Assassin Creed is the prime example of greed getting in the way of telling a great story. 

[fbdbh]

People keep telling me AC2 and Brotherhood (and maybe IV) are the best, but I'm not on board with this opinion. These are frustrating, shallow and dumb games.

 

Which is a shame, because I think they're almost good.

[AJ_Radio]

Skipping the yearly installment here and there is how I handle the series at this point. I played 1, 2, Brotherhood, and Black Flag - and III Liberation on Vita. I skipped everything else so far. I guess I only dive in if I happen to be lacking a sandbox game, which is probably very unlikely to happen again at this point, with the number of great sandbox games coming out. I don't have time for all of them, so when it comes to picking and choosing, Assassin's Creed is no longer as high on the list, as it once was. I'm sure they're all still good, mindless fun though.

 

It's funny you said this because I actually "finished" 1, 2, Brotherhood, and Black Flag. Not just by completing the main story and moving on, but doing all possible side activities, most of the trophies (although 1 doesn't have them), getting 100 sync in most missions, all viewpoints, all chests, and most interactions in the present day.

 

Going to finish the Freedom Cry DLC for Black Flag but apart from that don't plan to do much else with the AC series right now. If Syndicate proves to be really good then I'll go ahead and jump into it but if not then I'll just put it aside like I've done for Revelations, III and Unity. With a full time work schedule and work I need to do outside of my job I really don't have a lot of time to jump into the other Assassin Creed games.

Edited January 10, 2016 by Ian Lee

[Babsimabuse]

I started with Black Flag and ended as I entered the ship. Didn´t like the Assassin´s moving mechanics and some things that I couldn´t describe.  

[GJ4E-]

I've broken up with Call of Duty and never regretted it. And for AC, I think she deserves another chance since Ubisoft is skipping this year to focus on the next, which should've been done after Brotherhood imo.

 

PS I've also been fucking Witcher the whole time as well 

[DaivRules]

Assassins Creed broke up with me after 3. I don't chase tail.

[Bartolomeus]

I've played II, Brotherhood, Revelations, III and Black Flag, and enjoyed all but III. And I think the reason why I didn't like III that much and why I haven't bothered with Unity and Syndicate is because I'm fatigued. Had it not been for my gf buying Black Flag I'm not sure I would have played that game, but I'm glad I did for I liked what it did. However, after finishing it, I did not feel any desire to play Unity. I think I've played too many AC games over a too short period of time.

 

The reason why I disliked III, I think is because I played it shortly after Brotherhood and Revelations, two games set in places and a time I really find interesting, whereas I found New York and Boston to be quite underwhelming and dull compared to Roma and Constantinople (although I do find the American Revolutionary War interesting). And I really liked Ezio but found barely anything interesting about Connor.

 

I think I'm going to play through both Unity and Syndicate (especially the latter as Victorian London is another time and place I find fascinating), but I need to get the AC formula out of my system first. I need to want to play them before I dare play them. And as a positive consequence, I'll save some money.

[Zenpai]

I've played II, Brotherhood, Revelations, III and Black Flag, and enjoyed all but III. And I think the reason why I didn't like III that much and why I haven't bothered with Unity and Syndicate is because I'm fatigued. Had it not been for my gf buying Black Flag I'm not sure I would have played that game, but I'm glad I did for I liked what it did. However, after finishing it, I did not feel any desire to play Unity. I think I've played too many AC games over a too short period of time.

 

Basically my own experience with Assassin's Creed. Though I do still feel being yearly slowly ruined the franchise.

[mittoucp]

I've played all the Assassin's Creed games to date, even own some of them twice (PC/PS4), the games that really ruined it for me were AC III and Unity. In my opinion Syndicate revived the series for me but there's still a lot of work they have to do e.g. bug fixing and improving the graphics (Brotherhood on PC looks pretty much better than Syndicate, wtf?). Hopefully the small break they are taking and the possible not annualising the series anymore would help them work on the cons because no one wants anymore shit like Unity or Watch Dogs...

 

Being a fan of the series would be sad seeing it go but as Nolan North leaked their original plan if they don't rethink whatever they're building up to then it's just going to lead to a whole lot of disappointment....

 

Edited February 20, 2016 by mittoucp

[demonoutcast]

Started with AC1 in 2007 and ended at Black flag. Haven't looked back since

[Z1MZUM]

I agree %100 with whoever said this, the worse thing that Ubi could have done was destroy the modern day side story (Desmond) which in turn destroyed the feeling of actually doing something meaningful and being part of history. I really enjoyed Unity for maybe some shallow reasons such as Paris being beautiful and heavily populated for a console release. This in itself makes Syndicate look like shit which is probably the biggest let down, the other being the lame story and characters which I've had enough of already. I think Ubi needs to return to the history lesson more than anything else.

[HakkahLoogeeee]

I watched a 40 minute sobfest a few years ago about how epically horrible AC3 was on youtube or some other video popup website maybe, so I sort of walked away from buying that game at least 3 times before I actually did.  Although I had my own personal struggle with meeting full sync criteria I would say today that whoever that guy was, did not accurately represent the game. After that I decided that no person that thinks they deserve money for their opinion, ie youtube critics; will waste my time. I would rather post a reply to an informed typed opinion the same way the people have contributed here.

 

Having said that, I love almost every aspect of AC games. I love some of the things you guys are talking about as your reason to hate the series. As an example, Black Flag was different because it was about pirates and not so much the previous protagonists. But I thought at the time was It takes a lot of different paths, but it will always come back to the Templars trying to use a Precursor relic, and there will always be someone, no matter where they came from that will stand up to the tyranny, and that person will be welcome into the Brotherhood.

[DrBloodmoney]

Like any series, it has it's ups and downs.

The parts I like have always outweighed the negatives, even at it's least good points though.

Was very impressed with Syndicate.

[DetectiveCJ]

Well, I don't like Assassin's Creed at all, even though I have never played it. The adage is true: First impressions are everything. And from seeing the games in videos I realized I wouldn't like playing the games. My style of gaming doesn't allow real human beings as characters - I play Ratchet and Clank, Sly Cooper, Disgaea, etc, and none of the characters look like a real human being. AC would make me uncomfy, and now I have an excuse for avoiding those games like the plague. I know, I should get out of my comfort zone, but the thought of watching an interactive sex scene in Heavy Rain or killing people in AC2 is just really irksome for me right now. If I do play an Ubisoft for a platinum, it'll be Rayman Legends.

Edited March 3, 2016 by DetectiveCJ

[GoodbyeBread]

After the original creator of the assassin's creed was fired, I think it was best to leave it at AC3

[SquallLover]

I wouldnt be listening to this fool danny now at all, he's a tool.

Edited March 19, 2016 by SquallLover

[Warmdrift]

I have played every AC game there is , apart from Unity, I have it, just haven't gotten round to it as yet.

I have very loud game-rage with this franchise more that any other game (neighbours love hearing me at midnight) simply due to

freezing errors and glitches and bad character controls, the list is endless tbf.

However, I can't stop playing them, and I don't really want too and I probably never will, I enjoy the possible realism of it all.

Putting aside my ironic moaning & groaning, I enjoy everything about the games, right down to the glorious soundtracks.

Ubisoft are terrible and so are their games, but they will be getting my money in 2017.

[HaSoOoN-MHD]

Here are my 2 cents on AC provided I haven't posted in this thread before:

 

Its a bandwagon. Most people jump on the bandwagon when it comes to ''fuk ac!111!!'' and don't actually look deeper into the games to see that there is genuine innovation in [most] of them. ACIII plays completely different to Revelations or II and its bastard children in general. Unity is nothing like IV. There are only two truly iterative installments in the franchise, Syndicate and Revelations, and the only one i'd call bad is Revelations.

 

I think the series actually improved after we were done with Ezio. ACIII was a fantastic game with a really unique protagonist, nuanced story and good mechanics. IV was a great novelty with really good characters and writing, and Unity while it packed an awful story had the best mechanics of the franchise and is one of the most impressive games ever made when it comes to graphics and scale, just general production values really. After the patches it actually runs kinda well, too. Certainly playable.

 

Syndicate is alright. its a good game but nothing to really write home about in my eyes, and now that they're moving forward and giving AC a break this year, the next game is probably going to blow everyone's socks off and I really can't wait.

Not gonna play Syndicate until it's about £20, but for me, the series seems to have forgotten what was fun. #1 had a lot of problems, but at least you were free to take out your targets in whatever order you wanted and by whatever means you could figure out. If it were up to me, they'd make it a lot less scripted. Give the player the tools, then give him the sandbox in which to use them. The last few games feel like you're just ticking through a list of things. There's very little space for player expression or experimentation.

I'd introduce a lot more free form objectives. Like say you have a target. Well, you could try and break into his house and just fight your way to him, or you could embark on a free form series of side-quests. You tailed his butler, and noticed he goes to this pub every evening - maybe you buy him a drink and bribe him to leave a door unlocked. Maybe you trail your target, and notice he takes a ride to his offices every other day? Might be a good opportunity to sabotage his carriage? Etc.

But I don't design games. So what do I kno? ;0)

Unity, Syndicate and AC1 had that.

 

At first I wasn't planning on getting AC Syndicate, however I decided out of the blue to just get it. I'm glad I did, this game is fun and it doesn't feel like a copy and paste from past games in the franchise, it's just a ton of fun to me, it has a lot of uniqueness to it and it's the first Assassin's Creed game in quite some time that makes me smile so much while playing it and wows me at times. I'm actually really enjoying it!

 

That being said, I agree with Danny about the AC universe overall. It used to feel real and believable, it used to feel like you were part of a real part of history that was going on in modern times. The WORST thing Ubisoft ever did to this franchise was kill off Desmond and his friends in the modern world. It absolutely destroyed the modern narrative of the franchise. My dream of the franchise years ago before Desmond was killed of was that the game would evolve from era to era until finally getting up to the modern times where you controlled Desmond in an almost Watch Dogs style world. After killing Desmond off in AC3, they treat the modern story as basically a video game simulation, which makes the game itself feel like a video game inside a video game, which makes it seem like nothing important is going on in the modern world and you aren't affecting anything anymore, so it's just you playing a game, playing a game, lol. That basically destroyed the realness and the overall universe of the franchise, and it still frustrates me to this day that they did that.

The modern day plot was always and will always be a framing device and nothing more. I'd just wish they'd drop it entirely and open new doors for the franchise, things like choice and SoM like nemesis system are impossible because they're pinned down by the genetic memory idea. It was a cool way of explaining the game-y nature of some of the mechanics but other than that it holds the series down. That and a modern day game would be awful and go against the core of the franchise and what made it so enjoyable.

 

I enjoyed I, II, Brotherhood, III (except the multiplayer and the ending), IV....and that's it. The others have either felt like cheap cash-ins or just repeats of the previous year. Black Flag wasn't even an AC game, it was a pirate game and that's pretty much the only reason I like it. You don't even become an assassin until after you kill the last Templar. I haven't enjoyed an AC game since Black Flag and I'm not holding out any hope for Syndicate or the future of the series.

It's a shame because it used to be a series I loved, and now it's become Ubisoft's answer to Call of Duty and Battlefield.
 

 

Um, only Desmond dies. You see the other modern day assassins in ACIV, Rogue, Unity and Syndicate.

ACIV is an Assassin's Creed game told from a unique outside perspective. Also Edward becomes a Master Assassin and says he's joining at the end, so I don't know what you're talking about.

Yes I do realize i'm replying to 7-8 months comments but I can't help myself yo

It's fine when they gave you a list of bad guys that need stabbing and let you figure out how to do it. It's when they started throwing pirate ships and other things not related to stabbing people into the mix that it went astray.

Eh, assassins are meant to come from all walks of life and use all the tools in their disposal, I think part of the appeal of the franchise is they could literally do anything.

 

I like that idea a lot. That would have worked really well. In fact I would go so far as to say killing Desmond might have even worked if they worked with the new protagonist angle better. Having a silent protagonist just feels like two steps back. I mean I get they would want the player to project onto whoever you're playing as but they could always just leave it ambiguous and have dialogue choices. I remember feeling like something was very wrong the moment you were put into the real world in Black Flag because of how void everything felt. Like all the other NPC's do is stand around looking at some phone or tablet or at each other. Hardly anyone is walking around or doing busy work like you would expect at a workplace. Top that off with your character not saying anything at all just made it boring. 

 

It would have been nice to see Desmond's experiences in the Animus train him to become something of a more modern assassin and he goes around reorganizing the other assassin groups to fight back the Templars. Then maybe the games with simulations were him training recruits or something.

ACIV's modern day was cool because it was cheeky as hell. It had alot of easter eggs and it was self referential about the nature of video game design, and I enjoyed some of the piss takes they did at the fanbase. 

 

This is exactly how i feel about the franchise, too. I was always more interested in the modern day story as opposed to the Assassin story, getting out of the Animus and exploring the "real world" has always been the biggest highlight in the AC games for me, i had high hopes for AC3 because they kept building this huge scenario since AC2, basically... they escape from Abstergo (AC2), find the location and the Apple of Eden itself (ACB), find the location of a temple (ACR) and then find the location of the "final" temple (ending of ACR, AC3).

 

They kept talking about the end of the world in AC3 and i really thought it was going to be the closure of the series, what a fool i was... i can't believe they actually killed the one thing that kept this game going in the modern day. After that terrible ending which doesn't even say that Desmod died i never bought an AC game again. I've only played AC4 (and will play AC4 Freedom Cry) because it was gifted to me so i can't argue with free things, but when you get to play AC4 and look at what they did to the modern day scenario... what a complete waste of time. For me anyway... like i said, i was always curious about Desmond and how it was all going to end, but here it really feels as if they're coming up with anything just for the money, can't blame them... if it sells, why not keep releasing it?

 

Overall, i think it's still a great series, it just needs to calm down a little and get some... humanity back, if it keeps being a yearly-type of game then the modern day story will never get back on track and they'll always throw a new Assassin into the mix since we're now a random employee at Abstergo as opposed to one named person who has this or that ancestor and nobody else. I myself never cared that much about the Assassin so these new games are really not my type of thing, especially since the gameplay has always been the same thing (go here, kill this, climb that, syncronize, use eagle vision, blend, kill that, repeat), but i think anyone would agree that the modern day story is a complete trainwreck by now... as AVGN would say, what were they thinking...

 

But this is just how i see it, if you like the new AC games then i have no problem with that. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth how they decided to handle the series after some point. 

You were always interested in the 10% or less of the experience over the 90%? the modern day at its best was in ACIII with the assassination missions and what not and even then it felt incredibly inadequate due to the way they handle firearms. The series is just not made with a modern day setting in mind.

 

Since AC 3 they've been decent (Revelations wasn't) but they just can't reach the level of epicness with Ezio because they're basically using disposable protagonists and rushing to go through one era, country and a hero in one game. Ezio had a trilogy to win our hearts and he did it great. Miss him.

I kinda agree with this. Spending some more time with a protagonist could do alot of good, doesn't even have to be the same setting. Seeing Connor in the French revolution or playing Unity from the perspective of Shay for example would have been really cool.

 

I stopped playing after the disaster that was Unity, it was too much of the same and felt rushed. I keep hearing good things about Syndicate, might pick it up. 

Unity was far more innovative than given credit for.

 

Way too many people making too many great points for me to quote them all, but yeah, fully agree with Danny O'Dwyer, Assassin's Creed has lost itself.

 

The series started off pretty great. The concept was original, the story was interesting and the world was believable. Despite its linearity and repetitiveness, Assassin's Creed I is still my favorite of the entire franchise. The next few games, namely the Ezio trilogy, just built up on what made the first game great and took away most of its shortcomings, which made up for three memorable games, instant classics. Revelations is still my second favorite of the franchise (I guess I just like the ones that take place in the Middle East ).

 

However, by Assassin's Creed III... Yeah, I mean, they tried doing something new with the franchise, and it succeeded, but the main gameplay was still just more of the same, every single bloody year. I immensely enjoyed Revelations but even I was getting a bit tired of the franchise by that point. And yet, they still kept on churning out more games, every single year. We even got two different games in 2014 alone, that's gotta be overload if I've ever seen it.

 

Honestly, the annualization of the franchise is what killed it for me. Leaving the developers little to no time to improve just meant you were getting the same main gameplay every single year in a different time period with a different protagonist. There was only so much I could take. I went as far as Assassin's Creed IV before I was officially burned out of the franchise.

 

Oh, and killing off Desmond? Terrible move, Ubi. Most people I know just wanted Assassin's Creed to completely do away with the real-world segments, but as I can see by some of the comments in this thread, I'm clearly not the only one who enjoyed them immensely. As BlindMango said:

 

 

Wouldn't have said it better. Until Assassin's Creed III, you could feel that what you did in the Animus impacted the lives of the people in the present. You went in to actually bring something with you to the real world. But after Black Flag... eh, now it's just super realistic and immersive History lesson for the (unexisting) protagonist.

Everyone says ''its more of the same'' without actually elaborating on that mean. They won't change the core of the franchise, people enjoy it for a reason. They've been consistently improving it in different ways every years with two exceptions: Revelations and Syndicate, the former being awful and the latter just being iterative in its gameplay, although it did improve on some of the more clunky aspects of Unity.

Edited August 3, 2016 by HaSoOoN-MHD