Assassin's Creed 1 Director's Cut

 Hello everyone. I just finished Assassin's Creed 1 Directory's Cut after putting 45 hours into it and wish to talk about it.

Assassin's Creed 1 Directory's Cut is the PC port of AC1 that came out a year after the original game on consoles. As someone that doesn't play PC games, I can't offer too much insight on how this game fares compared to other PC ports. From my experience, once the game got going, it seemed to run quite well. Initially, I had issues setting it up on my 2015 MacBook Pro and 2019 iMac. The game would take 10 minutes to even launch the application, then it would lag on menus so hard that it would take 4+ minutes just to move one screen. So it would take 4-ish minutes to get to the main menu, 4-ish minutes to select "Create Profile", 4 minutes to type "w", 4 minutes to hit confirm, 4 more minutes to confirm again, 4 more minutes to mouse over and exit the game.

It took a lot of tinkering. My solution was downloading SteamTinker and setting the game to disable something called FSYNC and ESYNC prior to launch. After that, it generally ran really well with 1 hard crash across 5 different devices. On my 2015 MacBook Pro, I got around 28 FPS at the lowest settings (although the little guy's fans were on full blast. I knocked the resolution down to the 800s). On my N95 DreamQuest Pro, I could get around 30-50 on the lowest settings and a 720p resolution. And my Lenuvo Ideapad Slim 3 and iMac could get max settings at 70 FPS at a 1920p resolution. I did chuckle when I first launched the game and said I met all the minimum requirements except for the CPU and the minimum Operating System of Windows ME. Sadly, no controller support.

 

I did run into a multitude of issues that seemed to vary across devices. For example, Hitting Command-Tab or using the workspace switcher or clicking anything outside the window when using multiple monitors would throw the game into a permanent "window-ed mode". I couldn't ever seem to full screen again for that session. Moreover, the window wouldn't capture my mouse which made it impossible to use the mouse as a control option as my now invisible mouse could ever so slightly move outside the window where a click would freeze the game until I respositioned the mouse again. My Lenuvo and Asus Laptops would sometimes "freeze" for around 30 seconds as if it were loading the game despite the game being saved to the internal SSD. The game also seems to be  missing features like Steam Cloud Save. Even exiting the game requires exiting to the Animus and from the Animus to the main menu and from the main menu to the desktop (or Command-Tab-ing out and closing the application from there).

 

If there's any praise I can give AC1's PC Port, it's that once it got going, it generally ran really well and I was enjoying my time. And that secondly, getting AC1 going was painless compared to installing AC2 PC. I felt that was impossible 😭. I had to give up, refund the game and buy Hades 1 instead (and find a more......unorthodox means of getting AC2 running on my Mac without the DRM. Thanks a lot Ubisoft 🙄)

Onto more positive aspects of AC1's PC Port, it offers an alternate control scheme to play Keyboard only which I immediately used since I am terrible at using Mouse and Keyboard at the same time (and also the aforementioned windowed mode issues). I wish every PC game I played offered this option. I bound movement to "WASD", contextual camera to "Q", Reset Camera to "E", Lock on to “F", the 4 weapons to "1, 2, 3, 4", the camera to the arrow keys, and high profile to left shift.

 

On my keyboards with a numpad, I bound HEAD, WEAPON HAND, LEGS and EMPTY HAND to numpad up/8, left/4, 5 and right/6 respectively. Those without a numpad instead were bound to "P", "L", ":" and " ' "  keys. I found this keyboard only setup the most intuitive to me. The biggest issue was that I couldn't move the camera and perform actions at the same so I was relying a lot more on the Reset Camera button. The default Mouse and Keyboard controls do address this by giving you full camera control while moving and doing actions but I found it more confusing to "remember" the controls in this state. I also found my left hand more "overwhelmed" by needing to hit Space Bar for LEGS. "Keyboard only" also let me use only my fingers while resting my hands on the keyboard in a more comfortable way. My friends said I was weird playing like this. The game does have a built in control scheme for a 5 button mouse and now I wish I had one just to try it out. Though, the game is a bit of a rebel as you can still bind and use the mouse on the "keyboard only" control scheme lmao.

With all that said, how was the game itself? AC1 has a bit of a mixed reputation online. It's not uncommon to see people refer to it as "a glorified tech demo" and a game whose sequels (especially AC2) improved on every aspect of it. People especially complained it was repetitive with boring missions. I was apprehensive playing this game. It had been nearly 13 years since I last played it when it came as a free install with my PS3 Copy of Assassin's Creed Revelations. But to my surprise, I had an absolute blast with it. I'd play it for hours at a time. Which I imagine probably sounds weird to people.

Imagine the following example: Lets say there is a fighting game. This fighting game is pretty bare bones in terms of modes. All it has is a pretty basic ladder. No fleshed out super cinematic story mode. No Verses/PVP or multiplayer mode. Not even a practice/tutorial mode. And this ladder/arcade mode is pretty easy, you can get through by just using your basic attacks. Each stage/fight doesn't change what it asks from you. I imagine from the average player's POV, this game wouldn't be too remarkable or win them over.

But now imagine if someone else plays this game, finds out not only does this game have combos but they're really cool. Even though the individual fights don't require combos and can be won with basic attacks, it's really fun to still juggle enemies, lab moves and do them. It's more fun messing around like this than actually completing the fights.

That's how I feel about AC1. On the surface, it feels incredibly lacking and never shows you any of its qualities, but actually messing around with them is something novel.

AC1's most unique selling point (and indeed, the USP of the AC franchise) is its parkour/climbing/free-run system. By holding down the "HIGH PROFILE" and "LEGS" buttons, you make the protagonist, Altair, automatically run up walls, jump and climb structures. From just a gameplay perspective, this alone is cool because it offers you more options. If you need to enter a heavily guarded area, instead of being limited in how you sneak in, there are way more ways to climb buildings to get in. You are only limited by the handholds around you.

 

 This is enhanced by the animations and "physicality" of it. In something like Zelda Breath of the Wild or Spider-Man, the character climbs all walls the "same way" every time. Makes sense in Spidey's case. He has superpowers, he doesn't need to care about handholds. But in AC1, Altair climbs and moves with a sense of weight. He reaches out for handholds, feels like he is managing his weight. His arms and legs shift depending on what he's climbing. Obviously his climbing is superhuman by normal standards but the game still tries to make Altair feel "heavy" enough to be somewhat believable while still feeling light enough to be acrobatic and not tedious to control.

But just climbing alone isn't what makes movement in AC1 fun. After all, AC Origins to Valhalla also let you climb everything (if anything they let you climb even more stuff). The secret is something these older AC games never tell you about: ejects and grasps.

When wallrunning or climbing, pressing "HIGH PROFILE" + "LEGS" will make Altair jump off the wall behind him. Pressing "HIGH PROFILE" + "LEGS" + a direction will make Altair jump in that direction. And holding "EMPTY HANDS" + a direction in midair will make Altair stretch his arms out and stick to anything he reaches. 

 

So imagine you have a wall in front of you, you could just  "HIGH PROFILE" + "LEGS" into it and Altair will climb normally. You don't need to think or plan anything out. Or..... you could wallrun, then side eject to a beam, wall run up that then side eject again to climb the wall in a fraction of the time in a much cooler way. You can also use this to make horizontal movement by jumping along a wall, ledge catching the wall just as you're about to fall and horizontal wall eject to continue your path. Essentially giving you a "realistic double jump".

These movement mechanics transformed the way I played the game. Now instead of just mindlessly moving towards an objective, I was analyzing my environment, looking for cool routes and executing quick sequences of button commands to climb more stuff quicker and cooler. It's that fighting game example from earlier. It was fun to just run around in the open world, improving my technique and learning tricks. I always had a smile on my face whenever I'd bypass a slow climbing section by ejecting my way up to a higher point. Even if that move was unnecessary, it felt cool and that I was expressing my style of playing the game that was unique to me.

I was watching old YouTube videos and found AC1 has a vault/"parkour down" command you can execute by doing 2 jumps + "EMPTY HAND" on beams/rails. It was so cool whenever I pulled it off. Especially when I used it to land next to a guard, assassinate him and move on without breaking flow. You think web swinging in Spider-Man games is fun? This is more fun for me lmao.

The controls for this are a double edged sword. One of the things AC1-Rev do well here is that ejects and grasps are manually triggered. If I wall run up and input the command for a side eject right, Altair will side eject right every time. Granted, he may snap/lock onto a beam, or do a full jump. It's finicky without ways to offer more controls. But at least he gets the idea. Compare this to AC Unity, a game with far cooler animations and even more moves. In that game, side ejects require you to point the camera in that direction and tap "HIGH PROFILE" + that direction and its a contextual action. Meaning the game decides if there is something Arno for something to side eject to, and if it's what you wanted. Leading to a system that, when it works, is way cooler but less consistent.

The biggest issue here is that "HIGH PROFILE" + "LEGS" are your only inputs for 99% of your parkour jumps. The game has to use just that to decide if you want to jump far, or snap to a beam or structure with no way for you to influence it. I wish there was a "parkour mode" you could trigger that swaps your buttons with more parkour commands. For example, lets say pressing "Q" twice enables parkour mode. Now you can still do regular ejects with "HIGH PROFILE + LEGS" but maybe "HIGH PROFILE + HEAD" tells the Animus you want to jump far and ignore snap targeting, "HIGH PROFILE + WEAPON HAND" tells the Animus you want to decent/jump low. "LOW PROFILE + HEAD" tells the animus you want to swing around and climb on a pole/beam.  "LOW PROFILE + WEAPON HAND" tells the Animus you want to vault over a thing. Etc. 

Of course, there are issues with this suggestion. For one, most AC players don't know about the moves that are already there and rely on the auto movement which works fine for them. Or they are distrustful of the auto parkour with how finicky they can be. Moreover, the games never require you to use any advanced parkour technique. You can beat AC1 without ever doing an eject. In AC2, ejects are used sparingly in one off Assassin Tombs which are optional so a lot of players probably have no idea they can be used in the open world. AC2's main story tutorializes the Lunge but not the ejects. Brotherhood has races which allow the ejects to shine......but they are hidden away in the menus. AC1 and 2 have races but they are so easy even with the basic movement that there is never an incentive to ever push the mechanics. For the players that don't care and are fine with the basic movement, they aren't affected. But I imagine there are players that would enjoy AC's parkour way more if they even knew parkour had more to offer and there were chances to use it.

The Spider-Man games actually handle this well. A while back I was playing Ultimate Spider-Man (2005). In that game, there's a ton of races, including a chain of racing side quests to beat Johnny Storm. The races are grouped into Easy, Medium and Hard with Bronze, Silver and Gold Times for each. The easy races are easy to clear with even a silver without trying but later hard ones require mastery to even Bronze.

While that would probably be too intense for AC, some kind of Bronze, Silver and Gold ranking system for a chain of races introduced as side quests as part of the story with the minimum being bronze for completion/progress would probably be sufficient. For players that don't want to learn, the bronze is sufficient. For players that want something better but don't know about advanced parkour, this could be the nudge they need to learn it. And for the players that do know, they'd be ecstatic.

-Combat.

AC1's Combat has been criticized by many people for being slow and dependent on counter-kills. I used to think the same, but after watching videos by Kinosphere, I had a change of perspective.

Firstly, lets talk about how combat works. When entering combat, you lock onto enemies. You can cycle between them by moving towards them. Tapping "WEAPON HAND" does a basic strike. Holding it does a charged strike. Doing strikes in rhythm as you hit enemies does a combo which can lead to a combo finisher. "EMPTY HAND" lets you grab and throw people. "LEGS" lets you step. Combining this with "WEAPON HAND" lets you break through the defense of an enemy. "HEAD" does nothing. Holding "HIGH PROFILE" enters a defensive state which lets you counterattack with "WEAPON HAND", break grabs with "EMPTY HAND" and dodge with "LEGS".

What's cool about AC1's combat even compared to many of its successors is that elite guards and Templars have the same moves as Altair. They can break his block (requiring a dodge in time), counterattack/parry, do a combo move and break grab. So it can actually be somewhat challenging to fight a large horde of elite enemies.

 

AC1 actually gives players the tools to be proactive in fights to end them quicker. Sitting around waiting for counters, although viable, is super slow. Especially as elite enemies can bait out attacks and do grabs, slow attacks and break defenses to throw off your rhythm. For example, you can break out of combat by disengaging, use "HIGH PROFILE + EMPTY HAND" to perform a run/shove and knock an enemy to the ground, switch to the hidden blade and assassinate them instantly. This can cause other enemies to either do a flinch, cower or taunt animation which can leave them open to being instakilled by the hidden blade. So the strat can be to wait for an opening and do a counterkill or tackle, and use the chance to read enemy animations to sweep through them. A technique dubbed "Shock and Awe" by players. It looks goofy as all hell but is so satisfying to pull off because of the timing, reaction and perception required. Especially as the more enemies you kill in quick succession, it breaks the morale of the remaining ones, often leading to the last 2 running away in fear. It feels like a manual version of the chain kills in AC Brotherhood onwards which makes it feel that much cooler. That I am the one tearing through all these enemies like butter rather than the game doing it for me.

The biggest issue with combat, similar to parkour, is that the game rarely gives you the incentive to get more out of it. Most combat encounters are against basic guards which never counter or do anything threatening so you can get by with basic combo attacks. It's not until Sequence 6 when the guards start packing more bite. Hell, that criticism can also be directed at parkour. You don't unlock the grasp until Sequence 4 which really hampers parkour's potential until then.

-Stealth.

I remember when I first played AC1 back in 2008 after my dad traded in his copy of Devil May Cry 4 for it, I stumbled across a walkthrough for it online. It straight up said "Don't be fooled. AC1 is not a stealth game. It has some of the elements of it, but it's not a stealth game. Stealth is slow and optional".

Which......isn't entirely incorrect. With how rudimentary the stealth mechanics are and how OP combat is, stealth doesn't exactly put its best foot forward. Based on my review so far, you might be thinking I am going to pull out a "well actually Stealth is super deep". And my response is...."kinda?"

Watching a few of Kinosphere's videos, it was cool learning about how to exploit blending, how AC1 does have Air Assassinations and a version of the high profile ledge assassination from AC2, how throwing knives work, how to scare away beggars while maintaining low profile, how to cheese pickpocketing, how to lure guards using dead bodies etc. And it is possible to do a manual version of AC Odyssey's chain assassination move in AC1. It's enough to actually be fun at times but I still found myself "roleplaying Stealth" rather than actually doing stealth many times.

Mission Design:

AC1 is unique in the series for how much it commits to the "Hitman mission design". Every target requires you to gather at least 2-4 pieces of intel before you can even begin the assassination mission. Intel comes from completing missions like pick-pocketing (sneak behind someone and steal their document), interrogation (beat someone up to get intel), eavesdropping (sitting on a bench and overhearing info).

The Director's Cut actually makes some changes here. Players complained a lot about these investigation missions being really repetitive. So the Director's Cut swaps out around 2-3 investigation missions per assassination with "Informant missions". There are 4 types of informant missions. Assassinations (assassinate 2-4 targets without getting spotted under the time limit), Archery Assassinations (assassinate 2-4 archers without getting spotted under the time limit. Don't ask me why these are considered a separate category of mission with their own icon). Flag Collecting (Collect all flags under the time limit) and Merchant Stall Destruction (Throw people into merchant stalls to destroy them under the time limit). These missions are fun and do mix up the pace but the 2-3 time limit they have is so generous. I felt it could walk there and back and still have time to spare. 

 

I do actually like what these investigation missions are going for. Altair is supposed to be one with the crowd and learn from the people. By spending time amongst them, he picks up intel that leads him to his target. The Bureau leaders may give him leads but the rest is ultimately up to Altair. It feels more....."organic" compared to later ACs which opted for more traditional missions. I especially love and recommend and Mirror and Image's fan novelization of AC1 for how they really brought life to this aspect.

Moreover, a lot of the intel actually comes into play during assassination. Take William of Moffat's assassination. You can get intel that gives you a map of outside scaffolding you can use to take an easy route around the battlements dealing with easy archers. And a map that tells you where William likes to sulk after meetings. And you can actually read and act on these maps. And this intel is missable depending on what missions you chose to do beforehand.

Later ACs rarely operated like this. AC2 for example, being more story focused, kinda gave you the info and path upfront. You could take different routes but it never felt as freeform. Unity had Sandbox assassinations that while cool and fun, didn't really rely as much on intel. Odyssey actually kinda had intel in its Cultist Clues. I remember collecting clues that 1 Cultist was a slaver and in x region. I made the guess he was in the stone quarry I passed earlier, went there and killed this guy in purple robes and got the popup saying it was legit.

It's a shame AC1's specific version of the Hitman mission design was never expanded upon in future entries. I can imagine a version of AC1 - 2 where when pickpocketing, you can get keys you can use to open certain doors. Or how certain investigations/opportunities are exclusive. For example, completing one investigation makes it you have a guy on the inside who can open the door when the target is assassinated vs you have a different guy on the inside who can't open the door but tries to make the target less guarded. How about one where the target has decoys and you can use intel to get ideas on which one it is without the game telling you (e.g target has a limp and a cough so you have to look out for that or assassinate every possible decoy). Hell, I'd love Odyssey's Cult Clues idea where you could assassinate key targets before you get all the intel.

 

I will complain however, that the repetitive approach of the missions does start to creep in eventually. My second playthrough did start to drag at times. In between my AC1 sessions, I did some wrestling with the Ubi Connect launcher to get a version of AC2 running. And despite the combat being a huge step back, the variety in mission design for regular missions, Assassin tombs and set pieces did feel like a breath of fresh air at times. I imagine an ideal scenario would be a game where you had AC1's approach to investigations and assassinations, inter-spliced with AC2's regular missions and side content (kinda like Unity).

Maps:

AC1 takes place primarily across the cities of Jerusalem, Acre and Damascus, as well as Masyaf and the countryside connecting them.

First off, these cities are absolutely beautiful and atmospheric. There were times I noticed areas later ACs even on the same generation improved (e.g, AC3 had more bustling NPCs and even animals), AC1 still impressed me with its artstyle and aesthetics. Between the sound effects, Jesper Kyd's theme, visuals etc, these look really good and detailed. I found myself really getting immersed. Say what you will about Ubisoft open world games, but AC games never miss in details.

Damascus and Jerusalem did start blending together as I played. There wasn't as much to visually separate them. Acre at least had the blue-ish and cloudy aesthetic as well as more burned buildings. All 3 cities were nonetheless fun to traverse. I will note that AC2's 3 main cities felt a lot better to parkour through. Venice and Florence had taller buildings, more diverse structures and varied terrain than AC1's cities. 

Masyaf felt lacking from a purely gameplay perspective, but the Kingdom was the absolute worst. It's this massive span of empty countryside between the cities. And it is not fun to play through. The lack of buildings and cities means most of the gameplay is just riding your horse between POIs which aren't even that interesting. There are a few areas I enjoyed. Such as the docks and those set of ruins with 5 flags. Those were a fun puzzle for me to figure out how best to climb them. But aside from those, the Kingdom has little offer. Take those few POIs out and transplant them into the cities.

 

The only solace is that once you reach Sequence 3, you can fast travel between the major cities and completely skip the Kingdom. Which shows just how lacking this area is. Good thing Assassin's Creed learned its lesson and would never design entire maps and games around primarily rural environments in the future.

 

I do want to make a sidenote regarding Altair's robes/outfit. In AC1, from what I have heard, Altair's robes were designed to look visually different in low profile (being very narrow) and high profile (being more flowing). And it's neat to see here. In later AC games that recreated Altair's robes like PS3 Revelations and 3, they are often a lot more rigid which hurt the aesthetic and make it hard to image the character running or parkouring.

I also want to highlight the UI and aesthetic of AC1. The game is able to blend its historical setting with a sci-fi/high tech look thanks to the Animus in a way that feels visually cohesive and cool. If the Witcher 3 had the UI of Cyberpunk 2077 or Watch Dogs, it would feel out of place. But AC1 doesn’t have that issue. Stuff like the DNA Double Helixes, map, weapon icons etc feel “high tech enough to feel novel but not overwhelming but still look congruent”. The SSI icon has small text flickering below it and the pause menu looks like a system monitoring tool. It reinforces that Abstergo is here, utilitarian and watching your every move. They don’t care about style and sleekness like Rebecca’s Animus. They’re not hiding their debugging from Desmond the way Abstergo polished up the Omega and Gameplay variants of the Animus. As a result, I feel AC1 has the strongest and arguably most novel aesthetic in the series.

-The story.

I really enjoyed the story of AC1. I wish it had subtitles to help me out. I read Mirror and Image's fan novelization as I played and it was so fun seeing elements of the base narrative expanded upon.

Altair's story and arc was interesting. He started out as an arrogant d!$khead (thanks to the events of Assassin's Creed Altair's Chronicles). His actions ended up greatly costing the Assassins and getting him demoted. He works his way back up by completing several key assassinations. What carries it for me is the progression, tone and writing.

In Sequence 2 and 3, Altair is still visibly annoyed and impatient with everything. Causing him to butt heads with Malik in Jerusalem (since it was Altair's actions in Sequence 1 that got Malik amputated and his brother killed) and Rafiq in Acre (who takes offense to Altair's attitude) with only the Rafiq in Damascus offering anything friendly to him (with some light roasting. My man, what was with that "I don't envy you" comment?). However, as Altair assassinates his targets, he starts to see his own flaws in them as they point it out ("I see what happens to men to place themselves above others").

 

Moreover, AC1 makes an effort to paint the main targets in shades of grey. Take the doctor in Sequence 3. Originally, the Assassins paint him as evil because he is kidnapping mentally ill people from the streets and experimenting on them. After Altair assassinates him, he confesses his reasoning. Altair confronts him about ripping these people off the streets, taking away their freedom and experimenting on them. The doctor counters that -1- what freedom? These people were dying on the streets and had no mental faculties? In fact, killing him means that these people would be cast out on the streets again and -2- The doctor's work was advancing medical knowledge that Altair now stopped. Altair doesn't have a rock solid counter to this and is shaken about this afterwards.

The game even shows the consequences of Altair’s actions using gameplay and story. In one of the later assassinations in the Acre docks, the area is full of annoying beggars and disturbed folk that can knock you off your balance into the water for an instant failure as this version of the Animus doesn’t support swimming. Just as Altair’s previous targets predicted. By assassinating them, it means there is both no shelter for mentally ill patients nor anything to prep for upcoming famines.

Al Mualim also walks a fine line between "wise and caring mentor and father figure that speaks in riddles to help Altair learn" and "shady af". It was fun with hindsight seeing all the hints of his betrayal as I played. AC1 has a simple story but it works well. After reading Mirror and Image's novelization of AC1, The main thing I will complain about on Altair's side is how little we get of his thoughts and feelings. Especially in the final Memory Sequence. Emotionally, this is Altair's "Empire Strikes Back". He was betrayed by the person he looked up to as a father figure his entire life, was forced to kill some of his fellow Brothers and just learned the world has magical artifacts made by a race of time time travelling aliens. And he's..... still the same stoic guy. Mirror and Image's version captures a lot of the horror, fear and confusion Altair was going through while the game makes Altair seem like business as normal.

We also have the modern day story. Poor Desmond Miles is kidnapped by Abstergo and forced to relive memories of Altair via the Animus v1.28 in order to get valuable intel to them. As someone who is a fan now of Desmond thanks to Mirror and Image, it was great seeing the ways they were able to "Draw Blood from a stone" to make Desmond's story interesting. And I got a kick out of seeing how potentially wacky the lore is here. I am here for that. But man, AC1 the game doesn't do Desmond any favours for people that aren't fans of him.

Desmond's sections often break up Altair's story, don't progress the plot or have much synergy. Mirror and Image's approach was to have Desmond, Lucy and Warren commentate Metal Gear Solid Codec style when in the Animus. Allowing Desmond's personality and situation more opportunities to shine. AC1 the game on the other hand..... well, I am reminded of a quote by Desmond's Voice Actor Nolan North describing Desmond as "whiney" and "the part of the game nobody wants to play". Like yeah, he was joking but.... poor Desmond 😭.

 

The funny thing is that we can see hints of how having commentary from Desmond and co could have improved the experience in quite a few places. In the manual for AC1, it's actually written as a semi in-universe manual that Lucy wrote and Vidic is giving feedback on. And his notes include stuff on how the controls are confusing and how Lucy should shuffle certain sections around, or how recent updates to the Animus allowed for some memories to be skipped or done out of order. It's really fascinating stuff. Later AC games would sadly only continue this commentary approach sparingly. Be it in their manuals or brief spurts of conversations outside the Animus or a couple sentences max to Desmond in the Animus. It is a huge missed opportunity.

 

I will complain the the unskippable cutscenes and slow sequences make the early game and replays drag quite a lot. For both Desmond and Altair's sections. The game doesn't really get good until Sequence 4. I did find a way to skip some of the cutscenes. Normally, stuff like rescuing citizens or talking to informants locks you into an unskippable cutscene where you can move around a bit. But if you jump at the NPC, lock on them to initiate the cutscene, Altair will bump into them and this will instantly skip the cutscene. I exploited the hell out of this on my replay to skip a lot of the more repetitive cutscenes. It is limited to NPCs that can let you jump at them so it is kinda situational but better than nothing I guess.

-Conclusion.

In the early 2010s, there were no shortage of memes and posts saying Assassin's Creed never changes. The funny thing is that I'd argue that despite there being 13 mainline AC games, 16 spinoffs, 1 live action theatrical movie, 5 short films, 10 novels and countless comic books, in many ways, AC1 is kinda unique. AC2 dropped its approach to combat and  mission design in favour of something more standard for open world games. A lot of AC1's ideas never got fleshed out in future games, or were cherry picked and mixed and matches in parts rather than as a whole.

I'd still recommend people new and familiar with AC1 to give it a shot. But even though I loved it, I believe that's because of how I was playing it. I was going into the game looking to explore more of its sandbox and features. Especially getting more out of its parkour and combat. I imagine the average player probably doesn't expect that. Imagine telling someone "bro, you should play this racing game, the manual transmission with no assists is rad". I imagine they'd be won over more by stuff like an interesting or varied career mode or progression or cool variety of cars or something.

AC1 is a very "YMMW" type game, but it's one I feel deserves a chance for more people to take a second look, flaws and all. If nothing else, to see a game that in many ways, is still the most unique there is.