Assassin’s Creed Unity was touted as a real next-gen game from Ubisoft. Well, we know for a fact that Ubisoft say a lot of things but this was to some extent believable because they promised huge amount of NPCs, crisp graphics, and the game was made only for the next-gen platforms and PC.
Most Ubisoft games receive a lot of flak before release mainly due to early leaks that show their games in a bad light. Watch_Dogs was hyped as well but received polarising reviews. Obviously when a company promises grand things they will be scrutinized, so now that we have our hands on AC Unity we can tell you exactly what it does right and wrong.
First things first, the game is absolutely beautiful. This is a phenomenal achievement by Ubisoft and it’s no wonder they have an entire armada of people working on Assassin’s Creed games. They’ve put all that manpower to good use.
Unity takes place in Paris, France, set during the French Revolution. As expected, things are very chaotic with humongous crowds thronging the streets. This was the tech Ubisoft was bragging about before the game came out and they’ve succeeded in pulling it off.
You play as Arno Dorian, an assassin who will remind you of Ezio a lot due to the matching personalities. The core of any Assassin’s Creed game is, well, assassinating people, and that’s what you will do here too. Things are a lot more complicated this time due to the huge crowds and due to the fact that the city is so pretty that you can’t help being distracted by various sights and sounds it has to offer.
Paris is divided into many districts and there’s a fast travel option as well. AC Unity will remind you a lot of the previous games where core mechanics are concerned. You still climb tall buildings to unlock sections of the map; there are collectibles littered everywhere; and the gameplay is still quite similar too.
Where the game is shines is offering you a huge living breathing city as your playground. The details on some of the buildings is simply astounding. Obviously, with such an impressive tech there’s bound to be some problems. There are videos of glitches everywhere on the internet but fortunately I didn’t encounter any of it. What I did encounter was some frame rate drops while running through the city which wasn’t really a big deal for me.
The story is quite intriguing too and it’s a love story as well which is quite refreshing to see in video games. The characters show a lot of emotions and are wonderfully animated. Considering that this is a huge open world game, Ubisoft’s tech is quite impressive.
The lack of innovations in gameplay is a bit disappointing. You are given tons of weapons and skills. The weapons obviously costs money which isn’t easy to come by early in the game. Fortunately, there are chests littered everywhere with some requiring your lockpicking skills which you can unlock after you get the required points for it.
Stealth is also finely tuned and is quite rewarding to kill someone stealthily in a mission. The assassinations are the best thing in this game. It would be wise to unlock stealth assassination skills before doing the main missions because it makes them considerably easier. You can, however, also go all guns blazing and just kill every guard or thugs in your way, but why would you do that?
The main story lasts around 20 hours and after the 10 minute credits you can go back in the game and aim for 100% completion. You can also upgrade the cafe, which is your default ‘home’, and it will generate income regularly. Doing the cafe missions are also very rewarding.
There are certain sections in the game where you will travel through time via portals and get to see some impressive scenery. Climbing the Eiffel Tower was in particularly a very exciting thing.
AC Unity has co-op, although main missions are excluded. The co-op missions are conveniently located in the map and you just have to go there to trigger them. You can also unlock co-op skills to make the missions a bit easier. Since there are a lot of great customization options in the game, you can really create a unique looking assassin.
You cannot shake of the feeling that you’ve done all of this before in the previous games. Aside from a truly impressive city, the game does not innovate a lot. It’s still the same Assassin’s Creed you know and love, or maybe hate. There may be some new features but they are not impactful. The series needs a serious rehaul if it wants to stay relevant.
However, if you are an Assassin’s Creed fan then you will get your money’s worth here. People hoping for a change will be slightly disappointed but all said and done it’s still a very good game.
