Assassin's Creed Retrospective

Assassin’s Creed has been a huge part of my gaming journey ever since I got into gaming in 2014. Even before then, the title had eluded me as that one really unique game that a lot of my friends loved but I didn’t get a chance to experience. So when AC Rogue dropped in late 2015, I had to get my hands on it. It was one experience that impressed me enough to get me to spend several hundreds of hours into the franchise covering 11 mainline titles over the next 5 years.

One would assume then that I am a mega fan of the series, but surprisingly I can’t say I consider a single game in the franchise perfect as a complete piece of art. A commonality of excellent environment/city design aside it is rather various individual separate aspects in each game that have pulled me in and convinced me to keep playing. My journey through this long franchise has been bumpy but I have also made memories in each title worth carrying with me always. Thus here I will catalog my thoughts on each title I have played lest they wither away and mutate beyond recognition like all memory. 

 

Disclaimer: Some of these will be short, some long, some with a personal insight into the themes and some with just nostalgic rambling. I can’t guarantee these will make complete sense if you haven’t played the games. On this part, I will cover the games released during 7th gen consoles.

Also I added 1 non main theme OST from each game cause I can't imagine this franchise without its wonderful music. 

 

Assassin’s Creed 1:

The first title in the franchise, an incredible feat in new game design and yet my least liked. The fault is more on my part rather than on the game, I gave this a try only recently and it just...lacked impact. Add to that the plot was completely spoiled to me beforehand. The story had ambition and it certainly is one of more well crafted stories in the franchise. But it’s not something I got to experience first hand. One aspect that stood out to me was the social stealth. I had always found it weird how assassins have a very specific outfit that they would be very easy to look for in a crowd. But in the 1st game you can see where the idea originated, you don’t blend in with just any group. You wear a white robe and you mix in with white robed priests. That detail seems to have been lost more and more as the franchise went on.

I was apprehensive about the combat going in and it was like I expected. The melee combat aside from Origins has never been good in my opinion as it’s propped up by the variety of tools at your disposal than actual mechanics. and going back to the 1st game shows how bare bones it is.

I was interested to see where the parkour originated and it’s fine I guess. The early games called controlling your character “puppeteering” and you can really tell here. It feels more grounded and slower as you control every limb precisely which may work for some people but not for me. I do agree that losing the preciseness was a mistake but the games upto Unity was a good evolution of the system. Now, parkour is nothing without a good level design and even in this case, it’s serviceable. It’s easy to guess how impressive it would have been for it’s time and just being able to climb anywhere is a concept that few games other than this franchise has tried even now. But compared to the games that came after, it doesn’t hold up too well. Something that surprised me however was the atmosphere. Looking from the outside it looks very gray and unappealing but playing it, the thick atmosphere is undeniable. The music fits the mood perfectly.

Overall I’d say the game is worth playing for its historical importance and if you know nothing of the story. But otherwise it hasn’t aged gracefully at all.

Assassin's Creed 2:

Assassin’s Creed 2 is the 2nd game I played after Rogue and it was what solidified my love for the franchise. As such it would be very hard for me to separate my love and nostalgia for the game from a nuanced look into its qualities. Nor do I intend to at the moment since I refuse to replay and tarnish my fond memories.

“It is a good life we lead brother. May it never change and may it never change us.”

An exchange between the Firenze brothers followed by the hauntingly beautiful soundtrack of Ezio’s Family was an introduction that has been etched into my memory forever. A simplicity and masterful execution shown by this introduction is emblematic of the whole game.

Compared to the first game the story the game tackles is a simpler good vs evil one. Templars were unrepeatable assholes here driven by greed, not a worthy opposition to assassin ideology. Supposedly a low point in Templar history. Instead what carries this story is the charm of Ezio and the supporting cast, especially the ever lovable Leonardo. A revenge story at its heart, the story adds layers by making it about one of growth, for both our protagonist and the creed. How ever simple it may be, I don't remember ever losing interest.

In terms of gameplay, like I said before, I never considered melee combat good in this franchise. But something I distinctly remember how good the progression was. You don’t start out as a master assassin like most games but rather slowly unlock hidden blade abilities throughout the entire game. This might not sound like much, but we have to keep in mind that this was the 2nd game in the franchise where all the systems that we take for granted were still very fresh. It was fresh to me as well since it was also my 2nd game. 

Enough about combat, the main appeal for me was the parkour. And what a treat it was to run around in renaissance Italy. The really slow parkour from 1 was possibly polished up cause despite having precise controls, it never felt slow to me back then. I still remember the glee I felt whenever I had to climb a tall building or encounter one of those parkour puzzles. Even now I consider 2 and Bortherhood's map to be the best in terms of traversal, only contested by Unity. And the music, my god it’s ethereal. Jasper Kyd has yet to top his work in this game in my opinion. Even now all these years later I occasionally listen to them.

 

To this day AC2 for me remains the perfect marriage of story, atmosphere and gameplay. It must realistically have aged with how much technology has evolved since then but in my memory it’s evergreen. 

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood:

Brotherhood was the start of the trend of yearly franchises for Ubisoft. Releasing only the next year, very little had changed in terms of mechanics and world design. My memory of it as a result was also intertwined with AC2 as if they were one single product.

The scope of the game was smaller with just one city to explore as opposed to 5 but I do remember the detail and size of Rome was much bigger than any 1 city of the 2nd game. The city also flaunted a modest sized outskirt which was a nice change of pace from the endless rows of buildings.The smaller scale meant that the 1 city there was, was designed with greater detail and better level design for parkour. The combat and progression was also improved slightly but noticeably. I remember being quite happy with the small improvements they made from 2.

“Brotherhood” part of the title represented itself in a more mature but still learning Ezio growing the brotherhood of assassins, and the story was just another revenge tale that continued directly after 2. Beyond that I’m finding it very hard to remember anything else unique of the game.

Assassin’s Creed Revelation:

From playing Revelations, it feels like just a few incremental upgrades to the firmly established AC formula, but  internally it was the first game not helmed by the series creator Patrice Desilets. Instead it was the first game written by now fan favorite writer Darby Mcdevitt.

 

 

Weirdly my first and most deeply rooted memory of the game is not from the game itself but rather the trailer. Here I want to go on a bit of a tangent regarding CGI trailers. The popular sentiment regarding them is that they are a sly attempt by the marketing department to drum up hype by showing something cool but completely unrepresentative of the game. Many hold the belief that they serve no purpose but to lie and thus contain no value to the consumer. While some of that might hold true, I don’t hold the same belief. To me when properly made, CGI trailer can be a piece of art by itself. Something that complements the game and aids player imagination. They can be a representation of the game’s idea unrestrained by technological limitations.

The trailer for Revelations sets up the premise, an old but determined Ezio traveling to the forgotten assassin home of Masyaf to seek the wisdom left behind by his ancestor Altair. He knows not what awaits him, knowledge or death. Decades of skill and wisdom his only companion. The music accompanied by excellent scene direction left quite a mark on me.

 

Now finally on to the actual game, and the question if it lives up to the premise. Yes and no...mostly no. At the end of the game, Sophia asks what the creed means and Ezio answers:

“The creed is merely an observation on the nature of reality. To say that nothing is true is to realize that the foundations of society are fragile and that we must be the shepherds of our own civilization. To say that everything is permitted is to understand that we are the architects of our actions and that we must live with our consequences, whether glorious or tragic.”

This was Ezio’s revelation and backtracking from this, it’s easy to understand why the setting of Constantinople was chosen. When Ezio arrives there, he calls the city by an old name but is quickly corrected by others as to what its current name is. A city with a long history built on the back of political and religious struggle of many years. A land rife with strife but still maintaining a fragile peace. Through Revelation’s story we get to see how much the actions and both its leaders and Ezio matters to maintain that peace. A small but colorful cast of characters that we meet is a solid foundation to base the structure of this narrative theme. But this is where my praises end.

While the characters are charming and some carry the potential of depth, every single one of them lack enough screen time to fully explore them. You have 2 plots running in parallel, one of political struggle in Constantinople and one of Ezio hunting Altair’s memories, both having nothing to do with each other and that’s not mentioning the brief but significant portion of the game you play as Altair in his last days. All 3 aspects of the game not only constantly break the pace of the story but they take away time from each other that would have been better spent fleshing out the characters.

The final nail in the coffin is Ezio himself, he is old and wiser which complements this entire character act through 3 games but there is very little development in the game itself. He is supposed to learn from the wisdom of Altair’s memories but there’s barely anything there. He is the same person at the end as he was at the beginning of Revelations. His vague understanding of the creed’s meaning was not gradually earned throughout the game but rather made to coincide with the theme of the story.

Coming to the gameplay section, there’s not much to say. From the outside the game makes two bold new additions in the form of multiple bomb types and hook-blade, but both are underutilized to the point where they might even not exist. Thankfully the city design of Constantinople is great as ever, and the solid foundation of exploration and combat set by AC2 is still present.I did feel that the level design for parkour wasn’t as good as previous games but I can’t confirm that now. There were some set piece driven tombs to explore which were the highlight of the game to me.

 I personally had played Revelations at a time where my Assassin’s Creed gameplay fatigue had set in and thus was not able to enjoy it as much as I would have if it was still fresh to me. But even considering that I feel the game suffered from small development time and a poor execution of ideas. Sadly this is going to be a trend going forward in the series. 

Assassin’s Creed 3:

Before there was AC Origins, promising a significant shift in gameplay, open world to explore and side activities to do, there was Assassin’s Creed 3 promising the same things. All this meant reinventing all the established mechanics from the ground up as well as pull through on an ambitious narrative set during the american revolution. Sadly the harsh realities of game development meant the director didn’t have enough time to complete his vision as he stated in a recent interview during the remaster’s release.

While I can’t say what this game could have been, I retain every right to dogpile on the myriads of issues of the game we got, especially in the narrative. 

 

While the premise of this franchise is sci-fi, the beating heart is an ideological conflict between assassins and templars. AC1 touched on it while the Ezio trilogy forwent that for a simpler narrative, but AC3 is that 1 game in the franchise where it’s focused on most. I would have hoped for a philosophical argument but instead what we get is a clash of personalities. 2 men who strongly believe in their cause trying to win the other side over through any means possible. At a conceptual level I love what this story was going for. Connor, boy of immaturity and hope versus Haytham, a man of experience and wisdom, however misguided that may be. Connor trying to bring the two sides together while Haytham insistent on how an alliance is impossible and only his ideology is correct. A cynical view on how both sides are flawed.

But where all of this falls apart is Connor’s characterization and lack of a clear vision on his goals. Connor is naive and headstrong but the lack of a defining personality means he comes off as a petulant child. Naive becomes dumb and headstrong becomes arrogant. His conversations with Haytham while being the best part of the game, also highlight how much more well realized, charismatic and compelling Haytham is compared to him. Connor’s main goal throughout the narrative is one of revenge and while that can be a good enough foundation to write a character on, here it actively gets in the way of any theme or story elements. The american revolution might be the driving narrative, but it serves as little more than a theme park. We are moved from set piece to set piece highlighting important moments american history and Connor is dragged along for a ride in which he only has a passing interest. What’s more, even the revenge plot thread is undermined as Connor learns his target is innocent but goes after him anyway. In a well structured plot this could have been a moment of growth but Connor has so little attachment to the brotherhood or the revolution that it comes off as extremely contrived.

This is not to say Connor is the only flaw in the story, side characters Connor’s side get barely any developments and are left as bland instruments to move the story forward. You have side missions with named characters but beyond the initial encounter none of them manage to leave a lasting impression. The antagonists get barely any development beyond their brief deathbed speech either. We don’t even get a concrete understanding of the pitfalls of Connor’s actions. When the main theme of your story is highlighting the flaw in both factions, I find this inexcusable. Listening to the cut ending speech in AC3 makes me think that a lot might have been cut in this area.

 

 

Onto the gameplay, I found it to be a flawed but ambitious attempt at a new system. While mechanically the melee combat is as painfully simple as before, I do believe a lot of effort went into making them visually look as engaging as possible. Enemies attack much faster and you have a larger selection of tools to deal with them. The rope dart was a highlight for me. Before playing I was very sceptical of how the parkour would be outside intricately detailed cities but I’d say they successfully managed to make a simple yet free flowing tree parkour system. They lend well to the new extra combat tools too. Sadly the hunting system fails to make any impact on the game since in-game economy is the worst in the franchise. There’s absolutely no reason to buy new gear since your starting gear is enough.

Developing homestead feels pointless too since you don’t care about the inhabitants. Which brings me to my next point, this game adds side missions for the first time in the franchise and they are as bland as they can get. Main story missions are fairly good and varied from a gameplay standpoint however, so that saves the overall experience. I should also probably mention the ship combat but it was just a weird side activity to me, thankfully it was improved enough in the next title to be the best pirate game ever made.

Assassin’s Creed 4 Black Flag:

Clear blue skies, salty water crashing against your ship, wind in your hair as you hum to the sea shanties of your crewmates. Open sea as far as the eye can see only distrubed by a few distant shores covered in dense forest and hills. Suddenly you catch a glimpse of a ship carrying a lot of cargo through your spyglass and greed overcomes you as you ready weapons to board them and loot them for all they are worth, what can stop you? This is the ultimate pirate fantasy and this what Black Flag sells.

 

I don’t usually start with the gameplay portion but it’s such an integral pillar to Black Flag’s experience, I have to. Atmosphere is another pillar that holds up Black Flag. Till today the game has the best pirate music I’ve ever heard and easily a close contender to having the best soundtrack in the franchise. This was a cross gen so the graphics still hold up well enough, the brilliant art direction definitely plays a part. I have to say Black Flag has my favorite character designs in Assassin’s Creed and it still surprises me how well they are animated in cutscenes. I will briefly rant about how assassin aspects didn’t fit narratively later but I happily admit the gameplay fits the pirate fantasy really well. The flashy combat of AC really adds to the swashbuckling feel of being a pirate and guns were improved from AC3. Also unlike AC3 the in game economy works really well to facilitate hunting which takes place both on land and water. The assassin tools might look a bit off on a pirate but they added gameplay variety for which I’m always grateful. As usual I loved using the rope dart and berserk darts. The combination of side activities like treasure hunting, whale hunting, mayan puzzles along with ship combat sold the pirate experience for me. I could elaborate on how well all the mechanics surrounding the ship is but it’s an experience anyone played the game would know well. Any game has yet to top that.  

Despite all my glowing praise of the game systems I can’t say I was too impressed playing long after release. The game might have been impressive at release but in today’s open world dominated gaming industry, it’s hard to ignore the restrictions on exploration. Treasure hunting for money is not that important since it’s much easier to make money through ship battles and it really sucks that we can’t get unique gear out in the open world. There is no story side content to do out in the open world and technological limitation really puts a barrier on the illusion of freedom you have. I strongly believe Black Flag would have been a much better game if it was made in the style of modern open world RPG-lite AC games.

Now this doesn’t need a new paragraph but I will cause I want to emphasise how bad the quests are in this game. Easily more than half the story quests are infuriating tailing missions. They are slow and an incredibly lazy method of info dump but that’ll not all cause you have to keep in mind to not get detected by enemies while doing a slow parkour challenge. Making players juggle attention between gameplay and story at the same time is not challenging, it’s annoying. It’s not even like the info dumps you get are engaging. I used to think I didn’t mind tailing missions as they vary the type of quests, this game proved me wrong.  

 

Now on to the narrative!

If you asked me to name the single best achievement of Black Flag, my answer would be the pirate fantasy. But if you let me name another thing, it would be Edward Kenway. Ezio might still be the most developed protagonist in the franchise but he had 3 games to go through that. He goes through as much development in a single game and is handled surprisingly competently.

Edward is greedy, hungry for freedom from civilization and hungry for a better life filled with riches. In this he embodies the pirate philosophy, if there is one. But there’s also another seed seated deep within his heart that never could grow, the desire to provide for his family. He carries that desire in his new life, as we see him try to desperately hold together the rag tag group of pirates in Nassau. Unfortunately freedom means nothing without safety and security, achieving which is incompatible with the former. This forms the basis of conflict within the group. Some want to boldly hold on freedom at the cost of even their life and others want to crawl back to safety which they fought to run away from. A fruitless endeavor like that is used to tie up Edward’s character arc as he realizes the cost of freedom and how much the people close to him means.

The conflict of civilization and complete freedom is a fascinating microcosm of the larger templar versus assassin philosophy but the story never really delves into the themes beyond the quite obvious parallel it’s drawing. Instead the narrative chose to focus on how characters caught in this crisis react. I didn’t mind that, all major characters had strong personalities and their views clear on the issue. I have to give special mention to the character designers coupled with voice actors that brought to life the major players in the story so well. I definitely think the structure of this narrative was a clear improvement over Revelations.
But at the same time I couldn’t help but feel unsatisfied. The conflict started before I even got to know the characters well. We explored the pirate life through gameplay more than narrative, though I have to admit the gameplay was really well designed for its time. But this is where I think the story is in conflict with itself. It wants the players to connect to the tragedy of the pirate cause while at the same time focusing on character over ideology. At least to me we got neither well fleshed out characters or themes.

Black Flag is a pirate game first and an assassin’s creed game second. I say this as both a praise and criticism since this duality permeates through every aspect of the game. As of the time of writing this there has been enough discourse on whether the game makes good on that duality.
Personally I never really cared all that much if it’s a “true” AC game since I believe having a unified creative vision for a long running franchise is near impossible when you don’t have the series creator in the team anymore. Not to mention the financial incentive of slapping on a well known franchise name on a game just to make money. Before playing I was interested in if the 2 parts manage to complement each other.

But as I come to the assassin part of the plot, I wish I could show through text the enormous sigh I let out. It exists tangential to the main pirate story to bridge it with the modern day aspect. It makes some effort to relate to the main themes by linking relevant characters, especially the wonderful Mary Read. I know many will say how this part of the story is essential to Edward’s character arc but I would strongly argue that this is the case only because it’s forcefully made so. Edward only has a passing interest in the assassins and never fully commits to it. He doesn’t need a cause in life because deep in his heart, he already cares for his family and friends. Losing that family causes a change in his heart, not seeing a cult of weirdo assassins. Not being essential isn’t a big issue, what bothers me most is this part of the narrative actively messes with the pacing. You’re constantly flip flopping between both stories and any momentum built up in the pirate story is put on hold to progress the assassin plot.
I can’t know what the narrative department really wanted to make but if I were to put on a tinfoil hat, I find a strong parallel of Abstergo forcing your in game character to forget about pirates and chase Isu artefacts with the narrative wanting to tell a pirate story but forced to make an assassin game.

Assassin’s Creed Rogue:

As I mentioned at the start, Rogue was my entry point to this franchise and thus holds a special place in my heart. It was also the game with the shortest development time in the franchise and thus ended up with a relatively short campaign. Gameplay mechanics were pretty much lifted from Black Flag while the story didn’t receive nearly the attention it deserved. Does that make it worth skipping as many definitely have? Maybe.

 

It’s hard to deny that the game plays way too much like Black Flag but that’s not a bad thing in my books as the core gameplay was solid, just needed refinement. And refined is exactly what Rogue is. In terms of equipment, you get 3 types of grenades added to the already robust tool set of Black Flag. This might not seem like much but if like me you believe the fun in AC’s combat comes from manipulating the battlefield with your tools, then having these grenades changes how you approach combat. Complementing this toolset is an added verticality of level design with freedom to approach a location. Clear 100 enemy camps for loot and exp is a design philosophy I hate in Odyssey but given the only incentive to clear them in Rogue is the intrinsic fun of it, I quite enjoyed them.

Another purely personal preference but Black Flag being set in a tropical setting didn’t allow for much variety in visual style. Rogue however has just the right amount of variation between lush green islands and snow clad locations ripe for plunder. Combining all these small improvements definitely made my experience of playing Rogue better even though Black Flag is thematically more consistent.

 

 

The elevator pitch for Rogue is “play as an Assassin turned Templar.” This rightfully is a fascinating concept as the implications are huge if you want them to be, or something small and contained. If you’ve read what I’ve written so far you might have picked up on how the franchise never really delves into ideologies directly, rather it lets the characters talk. This was useful for me as a newcomer since I could focus more on a character drama rather than think about factions I didn’t know much about.

The first act of the game does a solid enough job setting up a colorful cast of characters. You get to know them just enough until the moment you have to defect. But the characters you meet in your templar alliance end up as various flavors of bland. While this is an obvious shortcoming, on my 1st playthrough it counterintuitively worked as a positive. Both me, the player and Shay, the main character missed his old friends so every encounter to fight your old assassin companions felt personal.

Having said that, I can’t excuse the fact that every character ends the game as undeveloped. Shay’s characterization is a thematic mess as I believe nothing about him was thought through beyond why he should defect to the assassins. Being my 1st AC game, I once fell in love with the potential of this game’s story. But after the honeymoon period I have come to terms with the fact that Rogue not only spectacularly misses its potential but also half asses the story it wants to tell. 

That concludes my reminiscence of 7th gen Assassin’s Creed games. A generation where the franchise rose to become a industry giant, found its voice in the 2nd game but then kept stumbling to reinvent itself. Next time I’ll cover the 8th gen AC games and the bold changes they made from the get go.