Remember those iconic games before 2014? The OG, while dated was really unique for its time, the Ezio Auditore Trilogy that became the standard for the franchise, 3, that was very ambitious (probably too much) with it’s setting and story telling. Even 4, although it was the first time AC escaped from the base of what an assassin’s creed game is supposed to be.
Unity was the very first big misstep and since then the franchise has become unrecognisable, taking gameplay and mechanics from batman games and now went into unnecessarily long, repetitive and bloated RPGs than the real fans of the series couldn’t care less, especially since the core legacy mechanics of parkour and missions were gone. Not only that but they completely threw the modern day story on the trash since Desmond’s death…
AC was one of the last original franchises a triple A company gave us and now is just a Witcher wannabe.
“Oh wth are you talking about, it sells well” sales doesn’t equal quality. The last games are such a step backwards for the series.
Because they were getting really stale and they wanted to hold onto the franchise name anyways. People are nostalgic now, but when AC games were coming out back to back people were getting really bored of it.
When Assassin’s Creed 3 came out, everyone was saying how this is the third time they remade what is basically the same game (AC2, brotherhood, revelations, then 3). People weren’t impressed. Unity and Rogue didn’t sell that well. Syndicate apparently also didn’t sell very well.
So they basically remade the franchise into an RPG starting from Origins. They aren’t that special, but honestly, neither was everything after Revelations.
That doesn’t explain throwing all the loved mechanics away. Imagine if CoD just becomes an strategy 3rd person game… Same shit. You don’t just shit on your fans just because your previous games were bad. Remember the biggest criticism wasn’t the game was the same, the biggest was the lack of polish plus not been an assassin in 4.
I know I am in the minority but if they kept the original gameplay loop, and implemented the multiplayer from Unity a little better, I think it would have gone somewhere better.
If you took a page from Helldiver’s 2, with their dungeon master guy, had that guy control the inquisitors, and make all the players assassin’s that had goals and missions, and got even more points for being practically ghosts (like an assassin is supposed to be) it might have turned into a fun game. We might feel like we’re actually part of a secret organization playing like that with our friends.
Anyway, I liked the multiplayer in Unity, and saw extreme potential in that mixed with the original game loop.
Rogue was barely advertised and the concurrent release with unity was doomed. Unity was so full of bugs (and there was the whole sexual assault scandal) that Ubisoft lost a ton of goodwill before syndicate.
They fired the lead designer in the middle of Brotherhood because he didn’t want to push shit games and you feel it. The only good things in Revelation is nostalgia and the bombs. After that you lost the parkour in 3 (although Rogue has some).
I’m tentatively hopeful with Mirage but I don’t expect the Japan one to be any good.
Honestly killing off Desmond started the fall in my opinion. They had us invested and just killed him off suddenly. I personally think they should remove the assassins creed title at this point. It’s open world combat barely any sneaking assassin stuff. The new Japan one is wasted at this point. It’s what everyone wanted back when the start setting it up with ezios short movie. They shot themselves releasing it as a crappy side scroller…
The series died when they killed desmond in favor of keeping the story open for endless sequels.
Couldn’t agree more, currently rotating between Unity, Syndicate, Origins and Odyssey and the difference between the first two and the last two is massive. By the time you reach Odyssey it truly stopped feeling like an AC game. Still really like Origins though, vaguely felt true to the spirit of the rest of the series while introducing really nuanced and interesting changes.
My biggest complaint for all of them is how mtx is interwoven with in-game progression. Played them all on PS4 and they felt like a real slog to get through. Now on PC where I indulged and unlocked those features for free they feel accurately balanced. That’s the real problem with Ubi’s games. At some point features are hacked out to be monetized and squeeze out some extra dollars.
Not to mention how predatory the helix credit system is/was, haven’t played Valhalla nor Mirage.
Valhalla will feel a lot like Odyssey, though I would mention that they were much more careful about reusing layouts. Odyssey suffered from so many of the forts and environments being literal carbon copies of one another which is fine (I guess) for a glory fighter but really destroys the puzzle aspect.
I greatly enjoyed Origins after having played Odyssey (which was an absolute slog). I could NOT get into Syndicate, it just felt like a beat-em-up with bullet knife-sponge enemies. Unity was fun.
I’m playing Unity right now and I’m about to switch to something else. I really like Unity, it is also the biggest collect-a-thon since ACIII. Referring to my earlier point, the maps for the collections are largely locked behind additional purchases.
I had the same complaint about Syndicate, really felt like you were hacking away for way too long on even basic enemies. And again locked behind mtx was basic gameplay balancing.
Origins was great because although it had largely the same mtx issues the new mechanics allowed you to work around them. Odyssey then rolls around and undoes much of the changes Origins made in that regard. It’s an obvious pattern of using questionable design to boost margins.
I loved Origins for the story, it felt very cohesive, and the voice acting was fantastic. Each major area had fairly memorable characters and tales, truly hateable villains, whereas Odyssey… most areas are forgetable.
I get the sentiment, even though I wasn’t too much a fan of the original series. That said, while sales don’t equal quality, nor does sticking to the same thing. Changing style, direction or genre doesn’t equal lack of quality. I was quite a fan of Origins and Oddysey.
The real risk is losing the original fanbase, which did happen quite a bit, probably.
Valhalla is oozing with personality. It’s freakin’ huge, beating out the amount of content in Odyssey. It’s not all great content, but it isn’t terrible. Even the DLC is huge.
You’re completely in your right to think that. I’m also glad there’s an audience that thinks otherwise.
