The Assassin’s Creed franchise is one of the biggest and most consistent AAA game series on the market, but not every title has been a smash hit. Core gameplay mechanics stayed the same over five major releases up until Assassin’s Creed 3, which marked a point of stagnation that resulted in a heavier focus on ship mechanics in AC Black Flag and Rogue. AC Unity and Syndicate were a return to form, but Unity‘s seriously botched launch all but killed the franchise, preventing many skeptical players from ever touching Syndicate in the first place. Ubisoft only recovered by taking a two year hiatus and re-imagining the series in blockbuster historical RPG format with AC Origins, Odyssey, and now the upcoming Viking-themed Valhalla.
The Assassin’s Creed RPGs have been wildly popular, even if some nostalgic fans miss the old stealth-action gameplay and smooth parkour that AC had nearly perfected. However, looking back on Assassin’s Creed Unity after six years reveals that there may be more to Ubisoft’s ugly duckling than just the mangled, glitchy mess it launched as. Assassin’s Creed Unity had some great ideas going for it, and prior to its launch, it had the potential to revitalize the series. To this day, there are things AC Unity did right that future Assassin’s Creed games could stand to learn from.
First and foremost, Assassin’s Creed Unity is still one of the best looking Assassin’s Creed games. After over a year of patches and bug fixes to mollify jilted fans, AC Unity became much better optimized and less buggy, allowing its natural good looks to shine through. The rich details of Paris, great use of color in character outfits and the environment, massive crowds that are still impressive, and solid weather and lighting effects all work together to make the setting pop.
French revolution- era Paris is depicted in smoky, chaotic beauty, from ornate palaces and grungy alleyways to somber cathedrals and dank catacombs. Unlike more recent Assassin’s Creed games set in the far past, 18th century Paris is cram-packed with multi-story buildings, sloping roofs, and winding streets, lending a variety in building topography that just isn’t possible in the deserts of Egypt, the islands of Greece, or the rolling hills of England. While parkour and climbing is still present in recent Assassin’s Creed games like a vestigial reminder of the past, it is nothing compared to how fun and challenging it was to run rampant across the skyline of a cluttered cityscape.
Paris was not only a great setting for classic AC gameplay, but it was rendered in the stunning historical detail that Assassin’s Creed is now known for. In fact, it was so well-crafted that after the Notre Dame Cathedral fire of 2019, Ubisoft’s mountains of data were integral to restoration efforts. The company offered up the data for free, which resulted in a rare case of positive review-bombing years after the game’s release. Now, Ubisoft has dived fully into the potential of the work it does to recreate history in a living digital space, creating the Assassin’s Creed Discovery Tours.
Despite all the work that went into AC Unity‘s graphics and environments, it was still a victim of a heavily rushed development schedule that had been cranking out AC games year over year without cease. Gamers had become accustomed to games releasing before they were fully ready, being updated with huge day-one patches and waves of bug fixes shortly after release, but AC Unity was something else entirely. For a AAA game to be so fundamentally broken on release and still ask for a full $60 was completely unacceptable to countless fans, and the backlash was immense.
Fans lost a lot of faith in Ubisoft, and even though AC Syndicate was much more polished (and a very underrated game at that), the damage was done. It would take a total series revamp to make Assassin’s Creed launches something to look forward to again. Even beyond the graphics, though, there was more to AC Unity that made it special. Likely because of how ambitious and promising it was, its fall from grace was that much more disappointing to fans and damaging to Ubisoft’s reputation.
Perhaps the most groundbreaking feature that AC Unity promised was co-op in Assassin’s Creed. Co-operative multiplayer was a feature that players had been requesting for a long time, especially when Assassin’s Creed‘s competitive multiplayer was at its height. The ability to customize a personal assassin and hop into multiplayer stealth missions with friends is something that people thought would totally change Assassin’s Creed for good, but it turned out to just be one more feature that broke Unity‘s buggy engine.
It’s unfortunate that it ended up that way, because even now a co-op Assassin’s Creed would be an amazing gaming experience. Ubisoft, though, is a company that pays close attention to games that fail, and it rarely repeats major mistakes. For that reason alone, it is unlikely that even some of the best ideas that Unity attempted to make reality will ever end up in newer AC titles. It may be a long time before Assassin’s Creed abandons the far past in favor of the dense, parkour-ripe city streets of the 1700s, and even longer still before Ubisoft is willing to draw from the now-tainted well of ambitious mechanics like co-operative play.
Assassin’s Creed: Unity is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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