Last week I sat down with the intention to pen a review of 'Assassin's Creed: Origins'. That plan existed until I realized that there was a lot of history in this franchise that I had to cover first, so somehow this turned into a franchise retrospective. (No one ever accused me of being too organized, I guess.) With that new direction I went over all the things that past-Ubisoft did to turn their Prince of Persia replacement series into one of the biggest franchises in gaming, and now I want to convey how they squandered all of that with a vain desire to pump out as many titles as humanly possible. With that said, there is a huge spoiler warning that those who care should pay attention to. We're about to cover every game until 'Origins' and show the ways how they all, in some way, failed to push the franchise forward.
After what was arguably the single best game in the franchise, Brotherhood, Ubisoft were eager to capitalize on their success by rushing to a sequel that would once again thrust everyone's favourite, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, into the limelight once more. At the time it was exciting to imagine following our hero on one last adventure, but in hindsight I can see how much of a bad decision this really was. By focusing on Ezio for the third game in a row, Ubisoft cemented that character as a stable of the franchise which is a bad idea for a series that was constructed to be an anthology-like affair. How could any preceding character go on to live up to the legacy of Ezio? I'd argue that none have since then, to be honest, and the blame rests on Ubisoft's shoulders for setting the bar that ridiculously high.
In terms of story, 'Assassin's Creed: Revelations' was not a direct sequel like 'Brotherhood' was. Indeed, Brotherhood had pretty much completely wrapped up Ezio's journey and 'Revelations' felt like a tacked-on tale about Ezio on the hunt to discover the secret of the man who had shaped the 'modern' Assassin order; Altaïr Ibn-LaʼAhad. Now, despite all my criticism to this game I will admit this was a great way to unite all the franchise fans. Linking the first two protagonists of the series together is always a huge draw and works to make everything feel a lot more intentional than it probably was. Ezio's journey does, however, seem in sore lack of a definitive purpose. In AC2, Ezio lost his family and, in searching for vengeance, found an entirely new one. In Brotherhood, Ezio matured into a mentor for his new family. And in Revelations, he goes soul searching like a kid on his gapyear. It just doesn't quite fit, does it?
His journey brings him to Constantinople (Not Istanbul) in search of... you know, I honestly can't remember. Give me a sec to... Right, right! So he discovers this library under Maysaf that is sealed with Precursor tech somehow. ('Precursor', by-the-by, is what this series started to call the Martians because it sounds less stupid.) Ezio then goes on a journey to find the keys to open Altaïr's library, out of curiosity I guess, and winds up in the middle of some Templar plot to seize control of the city. (You know- standard Assassin's Creed fair.) The kicker is that every library key also doubles as a memory recorder, (Which makes actually no sense) meaning that whenever the player discovers one they are thrust into the memories of Altaïr after the events of the first game to discover what his life was like post the credits screen. (Because that was something we really needed to know.)
From a narrative perspective the big problem with this game is the fact that we really don't see anything new out of our protagonists. Ezio wonders about the place playing mentor to the local Assassin's Guild and lusting after this Florentine immigrant who literally looks young enough to be his daughter. (And don't get me started on the fact that he travelled to another country and stumbled upon the only woman there who is not only from his home country but literally his hometown. What are the actual chances?) And Altaïr seems to completely lose his mojo and becomes a mirror of boring-mentor-Ezio. I suppose fans might find some closure from seeing Ezio finally settling down with someone, although most always expected him to end up with Rosa or, I dunno, someone we actually knew and/or cared about!
There is another huge problem with the entire modern Assassin's Creed franchise that this game originated, and that would be the lazy modern-day storyline. Previous titles showed us how the journey of our rock, Desmond Miles, would mirror that of his murderous ancestors, giving us a sense of progression in the story even when we switched through ancient plot lines and ancient characters. In this game, Ubisoft threw Desmond into a coma after he was forced to murder Lucy and treated the whole game as a 'let's talk about the past' story. Apparently, the Assassin's decided to throw Desmond into an Animus in order to stable his mind (You know, the same machine which can turn your brain into jelly if you stay in it for too long. Seems great for a recovering coma patient, right?) In that dreamy haze, we finally meet Subject 16 (or his consciousness) who has seemingly been trapped here since his corporeal form lost it's mind. (Okay... the story's starting to lose me again.)
Now as far as 'backstory episodes' go, Revelations has to be one of the laziest that I've ever experienced. In order to unravel his past, (Which Desmond has no reason to be doing, by the way, he already knows all this stuff!) the player must traverse through first person puzzle-platforming in a low-effort block world whilst Troy Baker narrates Desmond's story for the audience. (Couldn't you have just given us a text wall?) From here we learn that Desmond grew up on a farm of Assassins and was being trained by their leader, his father William Miles, before he rebelled and ran away. He became a bartender, then got picked up by Abstergo. (See how long that took to summarize? Why did the Ubisoft team think they could extend that to cover an entire game?) And the worst part about all of this? You have to buy the DLC in order to unlock another few puzzle levels to explain what the heck happened with Lucy. Turns out she was a double-agent, kinda maybe. (And the Martians knew that? And cared for some reason? My interest level in this story is still slipping...)
There is one cute moment at the end wherein, after Ezio finally gets all the keys, kills the badguy and gets the girl, he enters the Library only to find Altaïr's skeletal corpse holding his Apple of Eden. (I'm not sure if this is the first time that we are made aware of the fact that there are multiple Apples, but there it is.) Ezio then, seemingly having lost his fragile grip on sanity, begins talking to the camera. (Oh god, not this again...) He assumes that everything he experienced is still be watched by 'Desmond' and presumes that he's making more sense of it all than Ezio can. This leads him to wishing Desmond good luck and hoping that Dezzy-boy finds the peace of mind that Ezio finally has. (Wouldn't hold my breath on that one, Ezio.) and with that the game comes to a close. Oh wait no, he wakes up from his coma, realizes that his dad is there, says something vague and stupid like "I know what we have to do." And then the game ends.
This was the first time when cracks were beginning to show for Assassin' Creed, as many came away from that game thinking. "Did I like that? I think I did, but I'm not sure." All the gameplay additions felt gimmicky (Like the awful 'tower defence' minigame) and the story was just boring from start to finish. But things looked up for the future; not only was Assassin's Creed 3 going to follow a whole new character and time-period, it would be evolving the game engine into something more robust. Cautious optimism was the name of the game here, as fans dared themselves to hope that this would be the start of a whole new era for Assassin's Creed.
At first, Ubisoft seemed to be getting things right. The modern storyline started with Desmond, now in the real world once again, travelling into a cave somewhere in North America in search of a grand Precursor vault that held the secret to saving the Earth from the sunflare through the use of Martian technology. (Huh, it sounds dumb when I write it like that.) Although, I'm not entirely sure how they transported a comatose man from some catacombs in Italy to North America without hassle whilst the biggest company in the world, who is essentially the Illuminati, was searching for them. (How did they get past customs?) But at this point it was clear that the story had hit that lamentable moment where the writers just don't care anymore. Things didn't have to make sense, just be somewhat coherent. (I'll let you be the judge of how well that turned out.)
To their credit, I will say that Assassin Creed 3's story did tell half of it's tale incredibly well. Taking place throughout the events of the American war for independence, players were offered the chance to play both sides of the historical conflict as well as the fantastical fictional one. We started off as Haytham Kenway, grandmaster of the American Templars, before being thrust in the shoes of his bastard son, the half native-American, Ratonhnhaké:ton. (Once more, glad this is a written blog.) This allowed us to finally learn just what the Templars were about and actually sympathize with their members and their plans, which made it all the more cool to go up against them as Ratonkn- screw it, Connor. (As he is known for most of the game.) This really is highlighted in the post murder ghost-chat scenes. (Which is a concept that is never actually explained in the franchise. Throw it on the pile.) In AC3, each Templar has a role they pursue and believe in fully, and they lament Connor for being more harmful for the land than good. Each time you off someone, you are hit with a healthy dump of shaming until you're not entirely sure if you're still the good guy, which allows for Connor and his father to meet and play off each other in a really cool way.
Unfortunately, the other half of the story followed the journey of Connor Kenway from childhood to adulthood, and he was easily the least likeable part of the game. As opposed to the charismatic lovable charm of Ezio, Connor was serious and mostly humorless. This would have been fine if he wasn't also grumpy, ill-tempered and even a bit pig-headed at times. And it's a little bit of a problem when your key character is thoroughly unlikeable and you prefer it when you played his villain father in the prologue. There were some attempts to soften him up, by making him the landlord of a fledgling community in which he knew everyone and helped them with their issues. But those missions were, inexplicably, all optional, meaning that a lot of fans only saw the arsehole Connor and ended up thinking "Man, I miss Ezio." (Which is why you have to be careful not to set the bar so high, Ubisoft.)
The Gameplay was the most fun part of it all, transforming the free running to feel more fluid and free, although the world design suffered as a result. New York and Boston in their colonial forms were very bland locales and the 'Frontier' which connected the lands felt overlarge and underpacked. Whilst Brotherhood and Revelations had managed to marry their freerunnning and world design to a point where their platformer gleamed shades of Tomb Raider/Uncharted in it, Assassin's Creed 3 lost all of that in favour of more flashy moments. That being said, the combat felt like a decent improvement and there were the bones of a stealth mechanic to this game. (Finally.) If only they had completely left out all of the annoying 'evaesdropping missions'.
Connor's story follows his uncovering of 'The grand temple' and his gathering of the keys to open it. (Haven't we seen this one already?) And Desmond's story showed us the evolution of our plucky bartender into an actual field agent. Some of the biggest set-pieces in the story revolved around Desmond's missions to secure the Temple keys and it was at this point that folk started to get hope for the future of this franchise. Even if the past-protagonist was feeling a bit lame, the modern day protagonist would start to steal the show as things became more involved. Desmond's tale reached it's zenith once his Father, William Miles, is kidnapped by Warren Vidic and Dezzy is forced to storm the holding facility in which he was once kept in order to get his dad back. We get to see Desmond bring along his Apple (the one he killed Lucy for) and twist the minds of hundreds of guards into shooting themselves. (Which would be somewhat horrific if this series felt half as serious as it takes itself.) Desmond gets into a stand-off with Vidic, makes Warren off himself and rescues his dad once and for all.
That was the moment when it became clear that even if Connor sucked, Desmond would supplant him to become the rock of the series. It made sense, afterall Desmond was the man who Ezio gave his blessing to, so who else could carry that cool legacy? All that was left was for Desmond to activate the grand temple which generated a huge forcefield over the Earth that soaked up all the cosmic radiation from the sunflare. (Ugh, I hate this story thread.) Only... something strange happened. Because as soon as the planet was saved, Desmond fell down dead. Wait. Then who are we supposed to follow in the next game? There would be a next game, right? Of course, Ubisoft assured us, we'd just be going a new direction with things. And that was the start of the end.
Next came 'Assassin's Creed: Liberation'. It's terrible. What do you mean you want more of a review? Urgh, okay... Liberation starts the new thread of the modern day storyline wherein Abstergo have founded a new division of their company called 'Abstergo Entertainment' which adapts the memories of Assassin's into video games that can be played by the public. (How is this story thread even dumber than the Martians?) Aveline de Grandpré is the 'star' of this game and she... is just the absolute worst. Whereas Conner was annoying, Aveline is a cardboard cutout throughout the entire story with no flaws, quirks, charm or residual personality whatsoever. The game also brushed by all the parts of her story that could be interesting or bring us closer to her core motivations like, oh I dunno, the process of her becoming an Assassin! That's right! Aveline is the first Assassin who wasn't born into this world and the game simply skips through her finding out about the world of Templars and magical Pieces of Eden. (Writing is hard, I suppose.)
For this game the player is framed as a nameless, faceless consumer of Abstergo Entertainment who bought their copy of 'Liberation' and has it hacked into by some Assassin's. Which makes no sense considering the game was made for home consoles, (Despite the real-life Liberation originally being exclusive to handhelds) so there is no online capabilities for the Assassin's to get in through. (But what did we say about this series and making sense?) The Assassin's explain that, whilst Aveline's story is a real one, Abstergo have altered the events to hide the truth from the tale. Through their help, the player is then tasked with unravelling these events whilst enduring the most frustrating storyline that the Assassin's Creed team have ever put together. (I wish I could get into details but I just cannot bear to right now.) At the end we find out the shocking truth... that Abstergo are hiding the existence of a secret shadow cabal called 'The Templars' which they themselves are likely part of! Kinda already knew that one, Ubisoft, but thanks for wasting 10 hours of my life re-revealing that to me. I appreciate it.
Then was 'Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag', which was the last time that Ubisoft got close to recapturing the greatness that was 'Brotherhood.' This was game built on the back of the naval encounters that were a small sub-section of AC3's content, and they built it into a gimmick that spanned the entire game. Players would take control of Edward Kenway, Welsh sailor turned pirate and, incidentally, Haytham Kenway's father. Edward was a roguish thief with a heart of gold and ambitious dreams of a free world. (Oh my god! A character with ambitions? Are Ubisoft feeling okay?) The main selling point was, of course, the ship combat and wanton piracy which would take up the majority of player's time, but the story wasn't so bad either.
Edward ends up getting shipwrecked on an island and stumbles into the clothes of a nobody that the audience can identify as an Assassin. Some light graverobbing later, he discovers that the man was carrying a package to the governor of Cuba for a nice payday. Never one to miss out on an opportunity, Edward deigns to deliver the message himself whilst coming across a ship of his own and befriending some historically appropriate pirates along the way. (Just like in any good Assassin's Creed game.) Once there, we discover that this Assassin was really a defector who sold out his compatiots' secret bases to the Templars, but Edward doesn't know any of this and just plays along.
Throughout the course of 'Black Flag' we get to meet a slew of colourful characters, including Mary Read, Anne Bonny and Edward Thatch (Blackbeard), and begin to discover just where Edward fits in with all of them. We get to become part of his struggle for liberation from the thumb of the colonies and governors and even start to gain some sympathy for the thieves of the age. It's very similar to a tale about Cowboys, like RDR 2. They're criminals who lie, cheat and steal to get what they need, but they don't know any other way of life and are desperately just trying to stay afloat amidst turbulent times that threaten to drown them. As the narrative moves onwards and pirates start dying, we start to see more and more how Edward is a beacon for a dying age, and soon it becomes clear that he has to jump ship or go down with all his friends. There's one scene that I love where Edward is struck by a second of clarity at his lowest moment and remarks "When I turn around, and look at the course I've run... there's not a man or woman that I love left standing beside me."
Of course, there has to be one thing that lets it all down (This is a Ubisoft game, afterall) and for 'Black Flag' it was the modern day sections. Now with Desmond gone, there was this big question about who would be the next protagonist that would provide the connective tissue to untie these anthology games once more; and Ubisoft answered: "No one, ya idiots!" Yep, this game starred another faceless no-body, although this one worked for Abstergo Entertainment under the Chief Creative officer, Melanie Lemay, who is decidedly too cheerful at every waking moment.You are tasked with digging through some rando's genetic memory to prep it for sanitation before the editing team got to it. (Will the fun never stop?)
Along the way your communications get hijacked by a mysterious guy from the tech department who is mean and makes you do weird tasks around the office by blackmailing you. These include hacking into terminals, trespassing and delivering packages to the delivery girl in the lobby who is- oh no, it's Rebbecca and Shaun again! Is this my hell? At the end of the game it is revealed that... oh god, there's so much to go through... bear with me. So, the guy who's blackmailing you just happens to be a dead-ringer for a pirate who betrays Edward called Bartholomew Roberts. That is because this man is actually the long-dead ancient lover of the Martian Juno, an evil Martian Scientist who sought to survive the solar flare by transferring her mind into a machine and leaving it there until she got freed, which is what Desmond did at the end of Assassin's Creed 3. However, she couldn't bring her lover along, so she came up with another solution. As the designers of the human race, (Oh, did I mention that the Martian's created the human race with their pieces of Eden? That's a thing) Juno knew how to code the genetic makeup for her man so that he would be reborn again and again throughout history until the day where she was freed... so they could be together? (I'm guessing at that last part.) This guy was the latest rebirth in that chain and was working to connect Juno into Abstergo's servers so that she could start her conquest of the human world, which is something she know wants to do for whatever reason. (Oh, and he was also working with the Assassin's on the side which really speaks poorly of that organization's ability to perform background checks on thier secret operatives.) You still with me? Cause I'm not even with me at this point. This franchises narrative started off so goddamn intriguing and now it feels like it's jumped the freakin' solar system.
Finally we come to 'Assassin's Creed: Unit-', oh wait, there was 'Assassin's Creed: Rogue'! That game was released at the same time as 'Black Flag' under the knowledge that Black Flag would be too demanding to the processing power to effectively run on the lower gen, meaning that they made 'Rogue' to cater to the lower gen whilst 'Black Flag' would appeal to next gen. Although, I suppose the porting job wasn't as hard as they originally thought, because I played 'Black Flag' on 360 originally, so they managed it. 'Rogue' was still there, however, and it used 'Black Flag's ship mechanics and bought them to the cold Atlantic sea. 'Rogue's story was bleak, dumb and told the story of an Assassin, Shay Cormac, going rogue and joining the Templars because of a misunderstanding that could have been cleared up over a coffee. Also, the modern day game developer ends up joining the Templars at the end for literally no reason as he/she is well aware how evil these guys are at this point and honestly should have quit after all the weird crap that happened in 'Black Flag'. This game also introduced the new big bad of the franchise, Otso Berg, who uses the data that the player collects throughout this game to transmit a chilling message across the Assassin's online information channels (Which he knows about, for some reason) about how William Miles, their current leader, is dead. Of course, it literally takes a few messages to confirm that William is not dead and that Otso is just trolling, but he got to disorganize the Assassin's for the space of 20 seconds so... victory to the Templars? (Seriously, who's writing this garbage at this point? And what even bigger idiot is paying attention to it all and trying to make it all somewhat coherent on his blog?)
Now it's time for 'Assassin's Creed: Unity', and oh boy what a dumpster fire that was. Unity marked yet another jump forward in the game engine and a jump forward in the storyline away from the Kenway family and to a french man; 'Arno Dorian'. (Although, Haytham Kenway's protégé, Shay Cormac, does murder Charles Dorian at the end of 'Rogue', which is the event that kicks of 'Unity', so there is some connection there.) Predictably, this game took place during the french revolution and would follow the events of one of history's largest class revolts ever, something that Ubisoft were very serious about portraying given that they are, at heart, a french company.
To this end Ubisoft debuted a mind-blowing E3 showcase that was full to the brim of incredible graphics, bustling crowds and dynamic gameplay opportunities. Who could forget the moment when the player, upon observing a bubbling crowd outside of a aristocrat's house, fired a pistol into the air to ignite the crowd, Boston massacre style? Or how about when Ubisoft slyly revealed that the gameplay was cooperative, with 3 other Arno clones helping him pick apart the mansion guards and close in on the target in that hyper-organized fashion that we never see out of actual multiplayer matches.
All this excitement built to a fever pitch which the final game did not satisfy for many key reasons, although mostly because the thing was broken. Most ports could barely run those huge crowds from the demo without chugging to a snail's pace, crowds would never actively riot regardless of what the player did and glitches and bugs sprung up everywhere surrounding this game. Models wouldn't load properly, players would glitch through floors and key items would magically stop working for no reason whatsoever. The exciting multiplayer aspect was nigh-on unplayable, and even when it was the action was mostly limited to a selection of unrelated missions that could largely be completed without any help. Also, Ubisoft thought it was smart to add microtransactions into their game for buying weapons and armour pieces; because the game barely runs so they might as well charge you for more of it.
In terms of story, the game actually disappointed yet again, once more the player was put in control of a faceless Abstergo Entertainment consumer who's game is hacked by Assassins. (Do they need a better filing system at Ubisoft? They keep recycling the same crappy scripts.) The player is then recruited in a hunt for the body of a man that they are calling 'The Sage'. This being the title that is given to the human reincarnations of Juno's lover. (Glad we're pursing this stupid plotthread...) This is intercut with little recorded scenes of things that the actual Assassin's are doing, including one scene where Otso Berg shoots Shaun Hastings. (Too bad he didn't kill the annoying pri-)
As for Arno's journey, this one really bugs me because I actually saw the potential. The game starts with Arno witnessing his father being murdered (by Shay) and consequently being taken in by his father's friend, François de la Serre, becoming an adoptive member of his family. Fast forward to adulthood and Arno is a budding swordsman who is sleeping with Élise de la Serre, who is his sister. Wait, what? Okay, so she's his adoptive sister, but that's still kinda supremely creepy. Anyway, through some contrivances Arno finds out that his deceased father was an Assassin and ends up joining the order. From here he finds out that the Assassin's and Templars of the age are currently in a truce (which makes no sense) and that Élise is a member of the Templars. Do you see the potential there? A story of two lovers caught on opposite sides of a generations long war, twisted between their feelings for each other and warring philosophies, likely ending with one having to take the life of the other? Yeah, none of that happens.
Instead, Élise and Arno just kinda team up as they navigate the French revolution, make friends with various famous people (Yeah, they meet Napoleon) and uncover a plot that threatens to shatter this fragile truth. Honestly, there's a lot of this story that I plain don't remember, so if there's anymore to this that I'm missing out, I'm sorry but it doesn't matter right now. At the end of it all, Arno and Élise track down the Sage, who is trying to screw with everything for some reason, and have a really bad boss fight with him down in the Paris catacombs whilst he wields a new piece of Eden, (Finally!) The Sword of Eden. Events transpire, things go awry and Élise gets killed by shockwave (literally the most pathetic on-screen way to die) and Arno finishes the Sage. The final events of the game show Arno hiding the Sage's remains among the bones in the catacombs, somewhere where modern day Abstergo will never find them. (Basically meaning that the entire problem that this game poised itself upon had solved itself before the game ever began. Wonderful.)
That was probably the peak of Assassin's Creed and after that a lot of the hype from this franchise seemed to die off. The game's were getting more and more repetitive, sometimes the bugs were nigh-on game breaking and the overarching plot was circling around itself, going nowhere. The next game, Syndicate, was okay to some degree, but failed to move the franchise forward out of it's rut and actually dropped the ball bigtime in terms of combat. (Why remove most of the weapon categories? That was literally the only thing giving the combat any remote depth.) I will say that I liked the industrial London setting and thought Evie Frye was cool, but Jacob Frye was a trainwreck and the final boss fight was honestly one of the worst that I've ever seen in gaming excluding those that are literally just quick time events.
Syndicate didn't sell too well and people began to wonder if the magic of Assassin's Creed was finally starting to run out. Watch Dogs was proving to be a more positively received franchise and Ubisoft refused to mix those two brands out of some odd pride that seems prohibitive. (Those franchises wink at each other all the time, let them consummate already!) Instead, Ubisoft decided to go back to the drawing board and give themselves a full year off to envision the next Assassin's Creed game, one that would set the franchise back on track and reboot the modern story thread. And that is the game that I will be reviewing next Sunday (As soon as I'm done reminding myself everything that happened. It's a long one.)
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