Assassin's Creed Megathread

Might as well start it with a history, seeing as the first one is kinda being discussed elsewhere and mentions of it being remastered and DLC for the upcoming Mirage. If leaks are to be believed:

AC1: I liked it. Rose tinted glasses and all, I don't recall the missions being overly repetative and the graphics blew me away at the time (console player so they were impressive to me). I loved the story, even enjoyed the modern day bits, and wanted more.

AC2 Trilogy: Nothing more can be said about these that are already said. The only thing I didn't like were the base defence missions in Brotherhood, but everything else was magnificent.

AC3: I enjoyed it, but Conor was a bland aul soul. Hard to follow the Eziology, kinda enjoyed the base building.

AC4 Black Flag: Still my favourite, sea shanties, good characters, a pretty good story with an fairly good opening imo. Naval combat was ace at the time. Yeah, just loved this one.

AC Rogue: I actually enjoyed this too, Oirishness aside. Was kinda fun to play the baddie for a bit. Don't remember much more of it, but it's part of the Kenway saga, as they call it (3, 4 and Rogue), so nice to get more of that.

AC Unity: Didn't really play this one. Was aware of the performance issues at the time, so didn't jump into it. I feel like something else was distracting me at the time... most likely GTAV. Wow...

AC Syndicate: I got this on release, and was enjoying it, but just never went back to it one day. Not sure why. Combat felt meaty, but I think I felt disconnected from the characters/story. And it was a very bad icon covered map. Think that put me off.

AC Origins: I thoroughly enjoyed this. I like the new direction, I liked that my own belief that they were exploring the.. ahem... origins of the pieces of Eden and the First Civilisation. Yeah, it wasn't an AC like the last 9 main games, but it needed to be fresh as I had definitely lost interest in the formula. I loved the mythology and it played more into my preference of fantasy vs reality. Never played the DLC, but I'm not great for that anyway.

AC Odyssey: My second favourite. The draw distance initially blew me away, seeing something in the far off distance and being able to go there was something I hadn't properly experienced before on console, so coupled with the stunning graphics (at the time, and still today tbh), a story I could get behind, a customisation system that makes sense, and RPG mechanics. It came at the right time for me and I sunk over 100 hours into it.

AC Valhalla: Got it, was disappointed. It gave up the fantasy-ish setting for a more grounded, realistic take (compared to Odyssey, for a while at least), and the drab snow covered rainy environments didn't do much after the gloriously coloured Odyssey. But, I was also at the start of my open-world burnout as most games I was playing around and before then were similar in scale.

I'm interested to see this Mirage, because it does need another shakeup. Most will want the stealth back and full centre. I think a modern take on the older games without anything new may not do it, but I'm open to it. Thinking that the first game will be DLC for Mirage makes me excited a bit tbh. But I'll wait and see! Christ, that's a lot of games and I haven't even included the spin-off ones! 12 main games and 12 spin-offs, milked dry nearly at this stage!

Short version of my opinion:

AC1: Good ideas poorly executed

AC2: What AC1 should have been, but still even better

AC Brotherhood: Improves on most of AC2, story and characters didn't have the same impact though, and the Brotherhood could feel overpowered at times

AC Revelations: Again, some great improvements, and I loved the ending of Ezio and Altair's stories, but the modern day bits were annoying as hell

AC3: Every chapter felt like another tutorial, Connor's story was great but he himself was bland, setting didn't lend itself well to the usual traversal of AC games

AC4 Black Flag: Ship and general combat fantastic, the setting and story were perfect, such an absolute joy to play most of the game. A lot of on-land mission were awful though, particularly a lot of eavesdropping or tailing missions, and the present day stuff suuuuuuuuucked

AC Rogue: Didn't play

AC Unity: Struggled to get into it. Once the open world opens up, the game just felt extremely bloated with map icons to the point where I just couldn't bring myself to go through the whole process again

AC Syndicate: Didn't play

AC Origins: Played maybe 2 or 3 hours but couldn't get into it. Just felt soulless

AC Odyssey: Loved it. Obviously a huge departure from the usual AC formula, but I loved the powers and abilities, the freedom, most of the RPG elements, and the game map was incredibly beautiful. Had a lot of busywork and resource bullsh*t, but it was still fun enough that it never felt too much like a chore. A lot of performance issues though.

AC Valhalla: Similar to Unity, while I loved Odyssey the thoughts of playing Valhalla just felt like starting again from scratch and probably wouldn't be worth it, particularly as they reduced the powers/abilities, and the game setting seemed hugely bland and dull compared to Odyssey

Odyssey won back a lot of lost graces of the franchise for me, but I couldn't bring myself to play Valhalla. Hopefully a pared-back next game which is more focused could blend together the best bits of the older Ezio games, and the last few RPG-lite games.

Mirage officially announced

Since a few of us are doing this:

AC1: Absolutely loved this game, it felt like such a breath of fresh air from all the dumb space marine shooters that were kind of the dominant AAA trend at the time. I never really felt the repetitiveness that other people talk about, and to me the parkour traversal, the "hide in plain sight" conceits and the different ways you could approach assassinations were revolutionary.

AC2 series: I only actually played AC2 and not the others, and I didn't complete it either. I loved what I did play, but it just came out in a period of my life when I didn't have time for gaming. I've been tempted by the Ezio Collection that sometimes comes up in sales but I fear the games won't have aged well

AC3: So bland. The wilderness was empty and the towns seemed like such a backward step from the previous games. I didn't stick with it for long

AC4 Black Flag: Made me fall in love with the series again. The ship stuff was superb, the characters were great, very solid game overall. Also the only one in the series where I actually liked the modern day sequences, because they had some fun with them and didn't take them too seriously

AC Unity: Not a common opinion but I think this is my favourite AC game. I never came across the bugs people talked about, and the city was just stunning and a joy to explore while the "traditional" AC gameplay reached its peak

AC Syndicate: I was really looking forward to Victorian London and I did enjoy the game, but it felt a bit stale compared to the previous two and the grappling hook made the game worse if anything because you ended up zipping around the place and kind of skipping over a lot of what was fun previously

AC Origins: Felt like a great reboot of the series, with smart gameplay improvements and a spectacular world to explore. I don't remember many of the story beats or characters when I think back on it though

AC Odyssey: While everything looked beautiful, the boats were a let down after black flag, and a lot of the scenery and islands felt very copy and pasted. Kassandra carried the whole thing though as the best lead character in the series

AC Valhalla: Too big and too long. I enjoyed it a lot for a while. I like the characters, I enjoyed the storylines of some regions and the fact that the correct path wasn't always obvious, I like building the little town, I liked the raids and the gameplay variation they brought. But middle ages England is such a bland done to death location (as is the Vikings theme) compared to the more interesting historical settings of other AC games, and the game just drags on and on and on until you're sick of it

(moved from gaming general thread)

I heard all the AC warnings before that they were bloated etc etc

But I had to try one, so I chose AC Odyssey when the gold edition with all the DLC was on sale and the 60 FPS patch was out on Xbox Series X.

So, I really enjoyed it but then some strange things happened that ruined the game and that are not often mentioned. After a certain level you can fall from any height. Also, you can climb anything. So this 3D game effectively became a 2D game with no navigational challenges. Also, even though you have "deep meaningful" conversations with well realised NPCs, including famous philosophers in the birthplace of philosophy .. most quests involved slaughtering stuff. So, it just became tedious. The tombs/dungeons are all the same as well ...

Anyway, looks stunning. I recommend it just for the scenery and "history" on a decent TV. Navigating to all the islands on your ship is fun. You can turn on sea shanties and just leave the dead beat crew behind when you want to go explore and slaughter on some new gorgeous island. The water physics are great, at times your boat can scrape over land covered by shallow water. And the swimming and diving is amazing at times. I think they have really good artists behind them for these games with a beautiful artistic style.

I've recently tried Origins and it feels and plays a lot better. Riding a horse across the desert, for example, feels a lot better than the janky horse in Odyssey. Also, the combat feels a lot better, maybe because you've got a shield, or maybe because I was used to it after Odyssey. Plus it looks stunning. Incredibly beautiful at times. Alexandria, the lighthouse, the water, ... amazing. You need 60 FPS, HDR, 4K to appreciate it. But I don't have the time to play it. Will get to it or play it between other games.

Also, got Unity because it was 2 quid and on Xbox Series, you get 60 FPS and all bug fixes they released. An older game, but wow, looks beautiful at times, and the interiors even more impressive than e.g. RDR2 which came out years later.

I'll probably get Valhalla + the DLC when it's cheap as I love the locations and art in that game. Also, I want the Irish DLC ...

So, they have the technology chops, and the artistic chops but they need to sort out the gameplay and game design. Hopefully that's what the new AC game will bring. It'd be a shame if this kind of historic video game world, with these budgets was discarded.

Finally Japan, but it has a very high bar of Ghost of Tsushima to contend with. Will be keeping an eye. Hexe also sounds promising, possibly throwing in a bit of horror.

Trailer for Mirage, looks like it's going back to the roots, but getting serious AC1 vibes from it. Will be interesting to see how it'll be different.

This AC Infinity sounds interesting too. What is starting off as a hub, will evolve over time. Basically, it'll be like your own Animus that you use to launch the AC games. Instead if a "library" of games, they will be presented as DNA. Initially just a hub, it will grow to become a kind of game, with its own things to do and how it links the memories together. The modern story will basically be set in Infinity which allows those who have no interest in it to just play the games/DNA.

It's a good idea I think. Just hope they can pull it off and it doesn't go all MT crazy.

I don't think it's a filler game, because won't AC1 remastered (or whatever they're doing to it) be DLC for it? Maybe I just misheard. It will be smaller than Valhalla et al, but I reckon it'll be the same size/length as the original AC games.

A dev diary for Mirage has leaked early.

What we think of this?

Wear Mirage top where you can actually feel what it's like to get stabbed???

(Haptic clothing for sensations)