#Assassin creed cyndicate series

There are plenty of no-name assassination targets who get quietly taken out and forgotten over the course of Assassin's Creed Syndicate.

While discussing the story, I'd be remiss not to give special mention to antagonist Crawford Starrick, and Syndicate's general approach to villains. Story missions force you into one role or another, but they're given about equal screen time, and the swapping made sense in the context of the twins' often opposing viewpoints on the correct path forward. In side missions, you can choose to play as Evie or Jacob, and aside from some very minor differences in the skills they unlock as they level up - Evie ends up just a little better at stealth, while Jacob has a tiny bit more survivability in fights - the two play nearly identically. Syndicate also does a good job of letting you largely stick with whichever twin you prefer. Hopefully this marks the beginning of a more outwardly consumer-friendly attitude for the series. There's one particularly cool and lengthy segment I won't spoil that absolutely struck me as the kind of thing that Ubisoft would normally have tried to section out and sell as DLC. It's also notable that despite having an already announced paid downloadable add-on, Syndicate has plenty of meat on its bones. I finished the game with 80 percent completion in around 30 hours, and managed to hit max level, purchase all gang upgrades and do most of the crafting I wanted without ever even considering buying extra material with real money. And despite still having the ability to purchase in-game currency with real money, Syndicate never feels miserly. The game now features a single option in the menu to log in to a 'Ubisoft Club' account and unlock a few extras, but it never pushes it on the player. But there was nothing on the level of the nonstop problems that Unity had.Īlso absent from Syndicate: the dozens of chests and bonus features that could only be unlocked via a second-screen app or joining the Assassin's Creed Initiates group. I ran into a couple of crashes and enemies spawning into weird places.

In addition to a higher quality of design, Syndicate suffers much less from the bugs and glitches that plagued last year's Assassin's Creed. While some might miss the company of other assassins, it seems clear that the game has benefited from a focus on developing and polishing the single-player experience.

#Assassin creed cyndicate series

What about multiplayer and all that other junk?įor the first time in a main release in the series since 2010's Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Syndicate features no multiplayer at all - neither the unique spin on competitive multiplayer nor the cooperative play that was added in Unity. But Syndicate strikes a perfect balance in making those segments add meaningful progress to the overarching plot of the series without overstaying their welcome - much needed for a story that's barely moved an inch since 2012's Assassin's Creed 3.

Twin assassins Jacob and Evie Frye have come to the city looking to interrupt the reign of Crawford Starrick, an evil Templar industrialist who gives out marching orders to the gangs running the city's streets.Īs in previous Assassin's Creed games, there's a metafictional frame to this narrative: You take on the role of a character recruited by the Assassins of modern time to play through the memories of Jacob and Evie. Assassin's Creed Syndicate feels like a long-needed course correctionĪssassin's Creed Syndicate sees the history-jumping series moving to Industrial Revolution-era London. Meanwhile the core world design has improved as well, shifting away from the focus on realism in its virtual London and focusing instead on playability. The open-world bloat that Assassin's Creed has been known for is trimmed considerably here, leading to a more streamlined experience.

But that low point wasn't an anomaly it was an inevitability on the downhill slope the series has been on since 2010's excellent Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood.Īs the franchise has layered on new complexities and an increasingly baffling plot, it's failed to compensate in the other direction, to clean up issues that have been lingering as far back as the first game. Last year's Assassin's Creed Unity was by most accounts the lowest point in the franchise thus far, at least as far as the main-line games are concerned. More than anything, Assassin's Creed Syndicate feels like a long-needed course correction.