Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (completed)

Well, I was pleasantly surprised with this one. After the messy gameplay that AC Unity had, I was a bit nervous that this one would be the same. I’m so glad I was proven wrong, because I really liked this game. I actually liked it enough to take the time to fully complete it. Since they’re similar games, I’ll be using Unity as a comparison a lot.

First off, the story. It’s nothing special, but not bad by any means. Evie and Jacob Frye (the 2 playable characters) are charming and extremely likable, and they were written well. The side characters are all interesting have a really interesting dynamic with the twins. Most of the story missions are very fun and nonlinear, and you usually can choose which character to play as too. Assassinations are just as good, if not better than Unity’s. There are really cool unique kills for every assassination, and a lot of different approaches you can take, though stealth is always encouraged (yay!). I will say that that despite all this, the story really doesn’t have much to do with Assassin’s Creed, which IMO is fine, but a bit strange considering it’s an Assassin’s Creed game. Yes, the protagonists are assassins and there’s still all sorts of lore, but they’re more gang leaders and justice seeking rogues rather than assassins.

AC Unity received a lot of criticism because of it’s poor optimization and shitty performance, but there is a reason it was like that. The detail, graphics, amount of people, shaders, effects, etc all pushed the game and everyone’s systems to its limits. Yes, some people had bad performance, but wow it was breathtaking. However, because of these criticisms, Ubisoft was forced to downgrade Syndicate. The detail of London is considerably worse (meaning less detailed buildings, less trash, worse character models, etc), the graphics aren’t that much worse but it is noticable, and I can’t explain it but it just all around looks worse. Most notably, the massive crowds that made Unity seem so real are gone, because they were too performance hungry. Consequentially, Syndicate looks beautiful, but much emptier than Paris and is not as realistic or immersive. Another thing about the world worth noting is that where a large portion of Unity’s buildings have interiors, Syndicate has almost none. It’s something I took for granted and now I’m disappointed they weren’t in this game. I would like to stress that while Industrial-era London is not as good as Revolutionary Paris, it is still a massive, realistic, and very impressive city to explore. It’s just that nothing can compare to Unity’s Paris.

In my review, I talked about how my performance was actually pretty good, and I didn’t experience any glitches. Where Unity was supposedly an unoptimized mess, Syndicate is apparently a good port. Unfortunately, that wasn’t my experience. At 1080p, I couldn’t run the game at a steady 60 fps on max settings. I don’t mind a lower framerate, but 1. It shouldn’t be happening in the first place and 2. Dips down to 30 fps are unacceptable. The shadows are what seemed to be the problem, and lowering them to high fixed things and I didn’t even notice a difference, graphically. I also had a notable amount of crashes (around 10), which isn’t something that’s ever happened with any other game. My experience seems to be unusual though, as most everyone says it runs well.

Gameplay wise, Syndicate took everything Unity tried to do and made it good. The gameplay is superb.

1. The stealth works! Unity’s stealth had a lot of potential, and that potential was realized in this game. You can whistle again (praise Jesus), corner cover actually works well, you have plentiful supplies (such as throwing knives and smoke bombs), and a lot of the time it can actually be challenging, but in a fair way. I can with confidence, actually call this a stealth game instead of a “stealth game” (like all the other AssCreeds).

2. The combat is good. It’s still not my favorite, but after I got used to it I enjoyed it a lot. It’s not slow and janky like Unity’s was, and there are a lot more options for combos, multikills, etc. It’s been simplified a lot, however it can still be very punishing during earlier parts of the game. If you’re level 1 and try fighting a level 10 guard, chances are you’re going to die immediately. I like that there’s still some challenge, and ultimately the whole combat system has really been refined.

3. Unity brought in some RPG-like mechanics that really added a lot to the game, and they’re still here in Syndicate, but they’re drastically different. Instead of gear determining your level and stats, you have a skill tree that unlocks abilities and once you unlock enough, you level up. It’s a nice, simple system. Evie and Jacob are very different in terms of playstyle. Evie favors stealth, and Jacob favors combat and a more direct approach. They’re both very capable with combat and stealth, but they excel in their respective fields. While I tried to balance the two characters, I found that I ended up playing as Evie most often, because of her skills in stealth. Overall, they simplified the weird RPG mechanics that Unity had, and it worked out really well!

4. Finally, the freerunning. It’s really good. It’s much more refined in this game, and because London is so massive and the buildings are so far apart, you get a rope launcher that you can use to get around faster. It’s very fun to use, but it can slightly detract from the freerunning if you accidentally find yourself overusing it, like I did.

Overall they did a really good job with making the gameplay fun again. I enjoyed it so much, that I didn’t even find it tedious to 100% the game.

This game is great, and I would definitely replay it in the future. Even though I enjoyed it a lot, I still don’t think it comes anywhere close to being as good as previous AC games. The gameplay is really what makes it so good, without it it would be a very mediocre game. EDIT: You know what? Scratch that, this game would still be really good even if the gameplay was as bad as Unity’s was.

Would I recommend this game? Yes, even if you’re not into Assassin’s Creed.

I’ve finished every main AC game, and now I have no idea what to play next. I’m thinking about a shooter, just so I can get used to using keyboard and mouse so I can move on to The Witcher as soon as possible. I’m not sure though. Any suggestions are always welcome.