Sequels: Assassin's Creed

In between weeks of work, I decided to replay my Assassin’s Creed games I’ve enjoyed. The roller coaster that is the success of these games is pretty interesting. So here’s my (opinionated) visit of these games, and how they fare in comparison to each other as sequels.

Assassin’s Creed 2 (AC2) (Remastered)

Story-wise, a solid game. The revenge story is (slightly) more nuanced and thoughtful on how it’s affected the character and those around him. The wider Assassins vs Templar lore goes quite deep here, especially the ending. Overall, satisfying and surprisingly long story with more interesting characters.

In comparison to the newer games, the parkour here is much more clunky in this gameplay. There’s no fine control of whether you traverse up or down. No fast mantle like in Unity. And leaping up for a ledge requires two button presses (the parkour is more a game mechanic in this one as opposed to just getting around, so I’ll let that one pass). Combat is hit-and-miss (pun intended). There is some weird balance issues with some of the weapons: knives don’t feel useful, fists and hidden blades are sometimes more effective than swords. Using the hidden pistol for assassinations can feel like a cop out.

Graphics aged the worst. Characters and faces are noticeably low-poly and low-resolution. Some crowds look especially bad. The hard low-res shadows look blocky on larger screens. The color grade in this game (desaturation + wash out?) feels weird compared to more vibrant graphics nowadays. I did try a popular mod that enables higher resolution shadows + better LOD management. Despite some glitches, it definitely helped for most cases. Animation is still smooth.

Content, while less than successors, isn’t small. There’s “The Truth” videos to discover, weapons and armor to buy, feathers to collect (which are a lot), and contracts to fulfill. It’s honestly pretty comparable to the sequels. I found myself quite busy for a couple weeks.

Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag (Remastered)

Story is by far the most interesting in the series (that I’ve played). Kenway’s character arc is revolutionary and dramatic in the best way. The “modern day” missions, however, are frustrating interruptions (with embarrassingly shallow characters compared to the main story) that just make you wish you could skip them.

Black Flag was revolutionary in its gameplay, particularly with the Jackdaw. I don’t think anyone expected to have as much fun as they did on the high seas, raiding other ships, searching for treasure, and of course, singing sea shanties. Combat is more interesting and balanced than AC2.

Graphics are definitely a middle ground between AC2 and Unity. Colors are fixed, lighting and the character models fare better. It’s no Unity, but definitely an improvement and still runs fast.

Content increases dramatically with a larger map: fighting the ships in the four corners of the map, lots of treasure. While the content may not seem quantitatively more, it feels like more since you have to travel further to get to everything.

Assassin’s Creed: Unity

(note that this was the first Assassin’s Creed game I played, so note my bias)

The best summary I can give of the story is “cliche” in the absolute worst way. Love story is typical, revenge story is more watered down, and lore rarely builds on previous games. You won’t get anything special in that department.

The gameplay, however, is far more polished. The variety of weapons and equipment each have their own uses, making the combat far more diverse and engaging. This game is also by far the smoothest parkour experience. You can quickly force your character to go up or down (which allows for fast mantles of low objects, something I missed in AC2) or take the most forward route, all based on the button combo. It feels the most natural out of them all.

Graphics are still quite stunning. The engine uses baked lighting which, while it takes up a lot more disk space, looks spectacular in interiors and runs decently well. Some then-experimental Nvidia features (HBAO+, soft shadows, AA methods, tesselation) still hiccup even on newer machines, but overall looks and runs great. Animations are fluid as ever.

Content? Lots and lots of it. Co-op missions, raids, hidden symbols, and contracts. Not to mention the (very) high difficulty DLCs now included. Detective missions are surprisingly difficult and require you to be thorough (although it is frustrating to spend 20 minutes on a case when it really was the first person you talked to).

Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate

Sadly, the story did not improve much. Evie is a great female protagonist (note that technically she’s not the first in the series), but overall it did not rise beyond “eh, it’s nice.”

Gameplay is very similar to Unity. Parkour is mostly the same, but I think what makes it feel worse here is the level design. London’s wide roads makes it really hard to navigate from building to building with just freerunning. You have to use the zipline, vehicles, or go down then back up. It’s just not nearly as fluid as the tighter city blocks of Paris. Combat is still great, especially with the boxing matches.

Graphics is pretty similar to Unity. The engine hasn’t drastically changed, but the art and assets themselves have (better textures and models, faces are more human-like). Apart from some new graphics settings (better soft shadows, more AA options), it runs about the same performance-wise.

Speaking of which, there is still plenty of content, and my favorite section out of all the games: World War 1 London. It just works so naturally with guns + melee combat. I do appreciate that the side missions tend to be more relevant to the era (Jack the Ripper, child liberation, boxing) as well as engaging. “Liberating” London was a great way of exploring the city.

Overall

Story wise, Black Flag takes it all. AC2 had great lore for the series, but Black Flag’s pirate arc was far more engaging for me.

Gameplay is a close call between Unity and Syndicate for me, mostly because they are very similar. But Unity’s location makes the parkour more meaningful, so it will take the trophy.

Graphics is another close call between Unity and Syndicate. I think Syndicate will take this one since the lighting, environment, and character details are far more refined.

Content is a tough one: quantity or quality? Black Flag had some engaging missions and quests, but requires a lot of grind and traveling around the map (I am sound old, don’t I?). So back to Unity and Syndicate. It’s a close call: I could honestly pick either. I think the feeling of relevance to the main story and worldbuilding leads me to Syndicate.

So for graphic and content, Syndicate takes the cake for me. But gameplay and story goes back to earlier games in the series.

Is Story Doomed to Fail in Sequels?

I think Syndicate and Unity was their sign to quit or pivot. They knew the gameplay and more modern settings was stalling, and they needed to pivot to Origins (while I haven’t played it all the way through, I’ve played some of it on others’ consoles).

While I haven’t played the first game, Black Flag beats AC2 in terms of story. It’s a rarity to see sequels succeed in story, let alone be better than a previous game’s. However AC2 is more high-concept with its modern day lore. Would be worth studying when sequels do the story better.

What do you think? Even outside of Assassin’s Creed, what sequels tell a better story than the original?