In 2015, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate was released in the wake of brutal backlash from its predecessor Unity. Between an ill-received multiplayer mode and Ubisoft’s previous landing in hot water in 2014 for not having more female assassins in the series, the company needed a win. While Syndicate faired well with critic reviews, its dual-protagonist system left many players disappointed.
The game follows Jacob and Evie Frye, a set of twins newly discovering Victorian London alongside the player. The two are set up to be opposites of each other, where Jacob’s bold, brash, and hard-headed personality is a foil for Evie’s precise and calculated ways. As promising as their gameplay sounded, Syndicate fell flat in utilizing its twin protagonists at the end of the day.
With proper reworking, dual protagonists could make a come back in the Assassin’s Creed franchise. However, it’s highly unlikely they’ll be utilized in the same way as Syndicate, which is a smart move on Ubisoft’s part. There are a few key ways they can improve the dual-protagonist feature to make it usable and fun in a future installment.
While it’s true Evie and Jacob have their own personalities, their gameplay is practically identical. This is disappointing considering that Jacob is suggested to be better at combat than Evie, and vice versa with Evie having superior stealth skills compared to her brother. Aside from a few specialized passive abilities, it made virtually no difference who players controlled because their stealth and combat skills were the same.
Having characters with virtually no differences in their skill trees doesn’t give players a meaningful reason to switch between protagonists. Plus, even though players had the ability to freely switch between the twins while free-roaming the map, story-driven missions were still required to be one or the other sibling. Character specific missions aren’t a problem either if the game play is properly allocated—this isn’t the case, though, when players spend 75% of the time forced to play as Jacob.
This lack of story-driven missions for Evie isn’t surprising given the fact she was left out of most of the marketing for Syndicate as well. Instead of being a dual protagonist alongside her brother, she could have easily functioned as a side character due to her lack of a role in main missions. Because of the split between the two siblings, many players thought both characters suffered in the long run, with both Evie and Jacob being under-developed and isolated from each other even though the story centers around both of them.
There are a few ways Ubisoft can rectify these errors from Syndicate in future games. Instead of like having Jacob and Evie have identical load outs, each new character could have a specific set of skills like it was advertised. One protgonist could excel in close-combat and prefer to go in guns blazing, while the other could favor stealth and long-range approaches due to a smaller health bar. Depending on the type of approach players want to use, it would give meaningful reason to switch between the siblings and cater to both gameplay types.
Following this gameplay approach could lead to exclusive weapons, too. Where one character exceeds in stealth and long-range weaponry, the other could have additions that enhance face-to-face combat. Both characters will obviously need access to both stealth and combat weapons, but when playing as the character with the specialty, players could unlock and use weapons that are only able to be equipped on the specialized protagonist.
Character-specific missions could stay, as long as there’s an equal amount for both protagonists. It would give players a real sense of who the characters are individually and a way to master both combat and stealth approaches. Ubisoft could even take a page from Grand Theft Auto 5’s book and make the non-played character be in the middle of doing something when the player switches between protagonists. It would further add to the narrative and show rather than tell each character’s personality.
Borrowing a bit more from Grand Theft Auto 5, Assassin’s Creed would do well to implement switching between characters even within missions themselves. It would utilize the specific combat options offered for both protagonists (stealth versus combat, in this case) and give players a chance to familiarize themselves with both characters, not just one or the other. This kind of setup would require players to learn both play styles in order to succeed and beat the game.
It may not even be far-fetched to suggest dual protagonists who follow unique story lines with very little overlap. The Assassin’s Creed games thrive on intel between Templars and Assassins, always making it a battle as to which group can get to the desired objective first. It could be refreshing and interesting to see two protagonists on a team yet ultimately separate from each other. One could stay local (Victorian London, in this example) while the other goes after intel and specialized assassin missions. They could meet up every so often, but ultimately follow their own route.
Jacob and Evie could have functioned well as a duo if some things had been done differently. But the truth is that Syndicate took a shot and missed the mark when it came to utilizing both characters in an interesting, unique way. If it weren’t for all the ways they were too similar to justify being split up as main characters, dual protagonists could function well within the Assassin’s Creed franchise.
All of this is not to say that Syndicate was a bad game—it’s just an average entry. Couple that with the misuse of dual-protagonists, and it’s no wonder Ubisoft overhauled the series and came out with the highly-acclaimed Origins next. Even with Valhalla geared to come out in November, dual protagonists have still not been seen in the game since Syndicate. It’s possible players won’t see the return of dual-protagonists for quite some time—they could also come sooner than they think. And they could function well with these factors in mind.
Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate is available now to play on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
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