2: Assassin's Creed: Syndicate Comments

2: Assassin's Creed: Syndicate Comments

The context here is my response to a Facebook comment towards a guy who loved the game AC Syndicate. I recommend having completed the game before reading this:

"While I haven’t played the DLC, I enjoyed my time with Syndicate the base game.

I loved the world, the details, the designs, some of the characters, the premise and the city.

Ubi has put the kind of effort into building their city that few companies can come close to (several tens of millions and thousands of employees can do that)

The gadgets and equipment (especially the poison blade and grappling hook). Many missions were particularly cool (especially the main assassinations)

Sadly, I feel that the game was a bit of a step back overall compared to Unity and Rogue:

Firstly the tone and approach:

Syndicate is channeling AC 2 and Brotherhood more than any recent titles. The thing is, after AC3, the series took a turn for grander things: the games had a more layered, complex and morally grey story and world that was better explored.

For example, 3, Rogue and Unity were quite poignant as they didn’t hold back in their critique of the time period. 3 showed the racism and flaws inherent at the time, Rogue showed the stretch of the 7 years war, and Unity was quite brutal with its depiction of the French Revolution. These added weight to the worlds.

Syndicate by comparison, by going for a more black and white world, sacrifices a lot of those nuances that prior titles had.

We don’t see the the extent of the brutality that the working class suffered, or the crimes they did, we don’t see the scope of industrialization of the time, or the prostites. Syndicates London looks better than what it actually was.

In other words, Unity and 3 felt like a brutal documentary of the Time, Syndicate feels like a high school history textbook in how the material is covered.

I feel that the lighter tone robs AC of a lot more than it gains.

Onto the story: I felt it was decent but nothing as poignant as prior titles.

The quest regarding the shroud and the quest regarding the Rooks don’t expand or feel extravagant.

For example, we don’t get much time with Jacob chilling with, Exploring and personally expanding his crew. No moments of relaxation, barley any heist or team sections. With no management features like in Revelations to 4, the gang feels more like a last minute addition than an integral part of the experience. (By contrast AC3 adds a lot of “relax” quests with the homestead. This really made the place feel alive).

Recall the story ends with Jacob and Evie just racing off to their hideout with not a care in the world (I thought this was an AC game, not a Marvel movie). This highlights the lack of stakes or real tension in the plot.

The final fight with Starrick was a joke. By hopping back in forth when one character gets unconscious it feels quite ridiculous when it happens. Plus, compare that to GTA V, the final mission with all 3 characters are intense and brings all the characters together in interesting ways and methods. Syndicate somehow felt strapped for time there.

The Assassinations were quite fun if a little less open than Unity’s. I really liked the one at the opera for how Joker esque the target was.

Regarding Starrick, I felt he and many of his crew were pretty one dimensional as we don’t see much of their humanizing traits and motives beyond be evil and get artifacts (again, the black and white tone at work here).

That’s why that Joker like target was so great, he stood out, was complex and even surprised Jacob at the end.

Gameplay:

Generally good.

While climbing and running are pretty good, combat has been degraded.

Gone is the Arkham Like 3-Rogue or Unity’s more finesse based style. Instead, a button mashing and counter style gets old really fast. I would have liked a Unity or Arkham like combat to be present to make fighting less tedious. (Though the multi combat takedowns are amazing).

We also get fewer creative Assassinations in the side quests:

We get fewer of those “optional: poison one target to kill another target” and more “optional: hidden blade use it”.

Not to mention that some of these areas for side Assassinations were not as open as I would have liked. 

The arrest missions were great. Those involved a lot of good thought and options to stealthy kidnap a target.

The soundtrack was fitting but not as creative or memory as prior titles but that’s subjective.

So Yeah: that’s my take on Syndicate. 

A really good game that plays it too safe by sticking to a good vs evil plot and tone"