Assassin's Creed Unity

( PC (Ubisoft Connect) – Action, Stealth – 2014 ) + TRAILER

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I briefly talked about Assassin's Creed Unity over three years ago and how I was in the middle of playing through it. Well, that took a while to finish with multiple false starts. I'm finally here. Beat the game at long last and amusingly enough a lot of my initial thoughts turned out to be spot-on and opinion on the game steadily sinking.

Continuing to move our setting of choice forward with each game we step into the French Revolution and, if you played Rogue and saw the setup ahead of time, into the shoes of one Arno Dorian during childhood. Here he witnesses his father get killed, meets a tomboy girl destined to become a love interest and get adopted by her father. We fast forward to adulthood where Arno is revealed to be a rogue type of a character not interested in much beyond dalliances and Elise's attention. Alas, tragedy strikes again and his foster father is killed as well revealing the eternal Templars vs Assassins war to Arno as well as both of his fathers' respective ties to their camps. There's more to it, but because of his moment of laziness Arno blames himself for what happened as does Elise leading to their estrangement and our protagonist finding himself involved with the Assassins. Completing a kind of boot camp he sets out to avenge his foster father, clear his name and win back Elise. Order of these priorities shifts depending on how the game feels.

It doesn't take long to hit my first snag with Unity – entire narrative department is just so incredibly weak. From story that's essentially five hours long when you tally it and take out all the optional stuff, to storytelling and pacing that seemingly pull you between events and historical characters with little rhyme or reason, and finally Arno himself. His problem specifically is that he's supposed to be the fleshed out, likable character along the lines of Ezio who is simply never given enough room to breathe and becomes merely a vehicle for the plot to drag along more than a person in his own right. I find it hard to put into words how little I cared for the less than basic premise and execution. Romance subplot does not escape this either, and I have a feeling Unity had a checklist of points I was supposed to accept simply because they're expected to be included.

In almost morbid fashion to balance out the above you have what is possibly the best realized setting in the franchise so far, and finally return to urban locale. Yes, singular because you'll never really get out of Paris in any meaningful fashion... which isn't bad when you take into account Ubisoft truly did the legwork to realize a 18-19th century city. Dense urban zones are perfect for parkour playing up to series' strengths and customary Database returns with all the historical information you could ask for on top of some snarky commentary. Timeline is a bit wonky if you're unfamiliar with events proper, but that's why you can read up and go sightseeing historic sights. I can't do much shower praise here and it truly is a major selling point for Unity with even attention paid to newspapers and pamphlets you can read for added immersion.

Time to get into systems and gameplay because that's where Unity stands out if not necessarily shine. What we have here is both trimming down on “character becomes a walking armory” of Assassin's Creed of yore, and culmination of the familiar formula only upset by couple of major additions I'm divided on personally. Removal of endless counter-kills and general slowing down of combat pacing were things I liked overall, for example. I don't think this really affects the difficulty per-se, but rather it's a design choice I prefer.

Game toys with the idea of exploring other time periods, but it never goes beyond just momentary diversions from the French Revolution.

I was shocked to see how well Unity holds up considering it's a 2014 release. This sometimes comes at the expense of performance hit, though.

In case you don't like the gear aesthetic, which you need for stats first and foremost, there are outfits you can wear on top of that with callbacks aplenty.

There are two major additions, or at least changes, that bear putting a spotlight on – changes to parkour and gear system itself.

I realize former has garnered a somewhat controversial reputation online, but I love how fluid movement became simply by separating UP and DOWN directions. This means by simply altering which button you're pressing Arno navigates across obstacles in ascending or descending manner. Once you master this, as well as distance between objects with functional climb points, you realize what a step forward for the franchise it is. No longer do you have to slowly scale down or drop like a sack of bricks from a building, for example. Add to this the inclusion of more interiors letting you cut through buildings, objects to glide under/over, etc... well, freedom of movement has never been this liberating before.

Sadly, gearing changes were not exactly up my alley. What used to be “buy new gear/weapons as they become available to maximize your health/armor/damage” has now become a convoluted mess without clear direction when in terms of progression. This isn't only the case of having to choose between form and function, but also how difficult it becomes to regular a system like this in Assassin's Creed. There's really nothing preventing you from grinding money and buying the best Legendary gear as soon as you can. Unless it's locked behind co-op missions, or Murder mysteries, or some other form of arbitrary lock-out system. Fortunately, Unity is such an easy game you can wing it and there's too much imaginary finagling with stats or choosing your play style that doesn't matter at all. Maybe for co-op multiplayer, but ironically playing that solo was the most engaging content in the game precisely because you can't just wade through everyone with ease.

To those familiar with the series it's still your familiar setup of reaching high-up synchronization points, revealing collectibles along the way, and gradually completing those “!” marks as game is dead set on drowning you in optional content. In fact, having completed both base game and DLC, as well as about half of chests/cockades/etc, I stood at only 54% completion. Upon realization that a convention was broken and Ubisoft wanted you to buy district maps, as well as other “conveniences” for Helix currency if you wanted EVERYTHING revealed I called it a day as far as completion went. This insidious practice of trying to get your money also creeps into a very integral part of the game with equipment. It's unwarranted because you should be swimming in both currencies you need for purchases and upgrades through normal play, but that option shouldn't have been there to begin with.

Since I brought it up I might as well talk about the only worthwhile DLC game received in the form of Dead Kings as you go to Franciade. Set after the main story and involving a rather trite premise of disillusioned Arno trying to leave France it presents a far manageable playing area with an underground level. Franciade manages to hammer home just how bloated Paris is and dotted with all kinds of distractions. Here you go grave delving for an esoteric artifact, get a new weapon type that functions both as melee and ranged weapon combined and, provided you enjoyed those exquisite Enigmas that have you tracking down runes with only descriptions to go by on, getting your hands on the best weapon in the entire game. You have no reason to skip Dead Kings provided base game hasn't put you off.

What to say in conclusion? Production values are impressive on their own, until you witness just how often Unity buckles under the weight of gliches and performance issues. Multiplayer? It's there, but jumping through hoops is required and you're clearly meant to play with friends. I liked the inclusion of new forms of content like Enigmas and Murder mysteries that did not involve killing everything in sight to progress. I don't know how Syndicate turned out, but couple of highlights barely edged Unity into an average title that came close to sinking for me.