Assassin’s Creed is the Ultimate Love/Hate Game

I feel as though that, in recent years, the Assassin’s Creed franchise has become the Nickelback of video games. It’s an easy target for the lofty highbrowed masses, critical of populist annualized drawl; shoulder-to-shoulder on the firing line with Call of Duty and Battlefield.

Now, I believe myself to be of a sharp mind and educated taste – I’ve seen at least three silent films and can listen to a whole third of a Velvet Underground record before my attention wanders. Having played nearly all iterations of AC, I’d be lying to say I’m not at least a follower of the series, yet I too have indulged in the frenzied conversations, deriding Ubisoft’s stunted child as it’s awkwardly grown through puberty and straight into what many would deem to be a pair of orthopedic shoes. Often I’m too shy to voice what is a widely unpopular opinion – I think the Assassin’s Creed games are fantastic.

It’s an opinion usually met by a flurry of objections such as ‘the story is tragic, the characters are bland, the combat is woeful and Unity was a broken mess.’ Ah Unity. My beloved Unity. The problem is I’ve no rebuttal for these points, as generally, I tend to agree. There are many, many areas where the series is lacking, but there are a few crucial areas where it does everything right.

Let’s take, for example, the cataclysmically ill-received Unity, the most recent outing of the franchise, which was upon coming out immediately lynched in the streets. I’d be the first to condemn some aspects of the game, that the story was a convoluted, bloated affair beneath which the limp and lifeless puddle of characters did absolutely sod all and similarly that whilst my own experience wasn’t peppered with too many bugs, I’m fully aware it was outright broken for a lot of people, which is completely unacceptable for any publisher, let alone a colossus such as Ubi. I also concede that both the combat and traversal mechanics are, at this point, starting to feel a bit long in the tooth after eight years with little innovation. For me, however, there was one area that Unity nailed, and that’s atmosphere, and I find atmosphere to be the main catalyst of immersion and escapism.

RECOMMENDED

[contentcards url=”https://culturedvultures.com/ac-unity-really-bad/” target=”_blank”]

Unity’s depiction of Paris is, in my opinion, perhaps the greatest representation of a city in a videogame. It achieves a level of tactility and depth light-years ahead of Grand Theft Auto or The Witcher 3, two open-world games met with universal acclaim. Yet Unity sits at a dreary seventy on Metacritic, and perhaps that is a just score. Regardless, I can’t help but feel the negative bandwagon has caterwauled its way all over its best assets, which are definitely deserving of merit.

The immense detail and passion that has gone into the Parisian architecture and people is truly mind-blowing. Upon ascending Notre Dame and looking down upon the angry mob that gathers in its shadow, Unity induces one of those rarified feelings of which truly great videogames are composed, in that you actually feel as though you’re there. Slinking through the river of people that walk the city’s streets, passing NPCs doing dozens of separate, believable animations conjures the closest to what could be called simulation in an action adventure game I’ve ever felt. Its immersive ability easily took me through its fifty-hour playtime, and even though by that point I had tired of its hackneyed combat and story, it was still a blast just to be there, skipping along Parisian rooftops or solving one of its brilliant murder mysteries.

Even though Unity may be devoid of any notable narrative or characters, Paris becomes enough of a character in itself, enough so I feel that it absolves Unity of its flaws. As of writing this article, I’m actually struggling to remember what the ending of the game even is, despite the fact it’s not even six months since I completed it, but I can tell you exactly how it felt taking in the Parisian vista for the first time and to be honest, I’m fine with the trade off. Different games do different things. If I want a Dickensian masterpiece I’ll play a The Last of Us. If I want to feel like De Niro in Heat, I’ll play a GTA. What I get from AC however is something totally unique, and completely worthwhile – it’s that feeling of immersion and escapism that keeps me hooked.

To say that my enthusiasm for the series has begun to fade is an understatement. Besides a brief huzzah the series achieved with Black Flag, a new AC title is usually met with overwhelming negativity. Yet the footage of the next outing, Syndicate, is making me giggle with glee. The thought of trading revolutionary Paris for industrial London is very, very exciting, and I absolutely can’t wait to play it. It may not have the narrative clout of The Last of Us, nor the precise fun and brilliance of The Phantom Pain, but AC is alright by me. So long as Desmond never, ever comes back.