Assassin's Creed Unity: 6 Years Later

assassin's creed unity is underrated if you're a hardcore ac fan you might be tired of hearing it and if not i bet you've heard it before because gameplay of unity still gets millions of views on youtube because in 2020 unity not odyssey not origins not syndicate is the top suggested search for assassin's creed what is it about this game that has people so interested six years later how could one of ubisoft's most ambitious projects that now serves as a monument to their sins rise from the grave so long after such a public execution we will find that out and so much more because six years later unity is entirely playable so let's see was it ever a good game to begin with to answer that you're going to need to see something something that'll become very important to bear in mind later it's the intro so let's start at the beginning playing as a child isn't something new for the series so you'd think they'd have wised up to the fact that kids often make for boring tutorials kids can't stab people apart from link that you can't see one but they can steal and they can hide i can't lie the riveting premise that is stealing an apple is elevated immensely when viewed in the context of assassin's creed rogue did you see their faces when we stole those apples during this very conversation shea was only meters away listening he caused everything that's about to unfold come away boy [Music] look at me can't win fairly encouraged so you stoop the thief in your bastard calm down victor i've only come for my watch it's my watch i want it fairly well if you're just well victor i would agree with you but this is not a just world this is france you're a dead man oh step lightly there you'll hurt yourself arno is just the larger than life character that ezio was witty charming and willing to do or say whatever it takes to get what he wants where the rest of us would be stopped by social convention like ezio and edward his character is an escape all of versailles exists as your playground and you'll need it the new gameplay is dazzling but don't forget tonight there's someone special waiting arno hasn't strictly been invited in fact he's meant to be delivering a message to his adoptive father monsieur de lesser nah it can wait [Music] you seem to have caused quite a commotion what can i say you were always a bad influence oh you were a worse one [Music] are you wearing one of my father's suits are you wearing a dress don't even start i feel like a mummy wrapped up in this thing it must be quite an occasion to get you so fancy it's not like that truth be told it's a lot of ceremony and quantification doll is dirt well when you don't invite me to your parties everyone suffers i did try but my father was adamant your father go i'll distract them what you're kicking me out it's complicated i'll explain later but for now out the window oh no no no you're not turning this into a repeat of that apple ultra stop being such a baby i'm sure there aren't any guard dogs this time no the voice acting is good but the motion captured acting acting is better arno's romance with elyse starts warm believable and compelling to tell you the truth i'm a sucker for good romance she's the high society girl you're the poor farmhand she's all mysterious but your intentions are up front she's weighed down by social expectation you're weighed down by being a pleb it's classic there are two kinds of people in this world people who like titanic and lies this felt remarkably similar even pulling the whole oh my god he was caught at the scene of a murder so obviously he's the murderer routine once you come by this bispot i'm in no mood for this give it back take it back if you think you can pierre bellend is probably the most recognizable supporting character from acu discounting elise and for good reason he calls arno pisspot this is funny also his voice actor is brilliant and he's introduced wonderfully after having robbed arno's memorabilia he provokes a fight out of you a bully or maybe something more those drawings you've seen plain as day on his wall no one else could which means you have the same gift as him makes sense a man with charles dorian's pocket watch could too become an assassin your father was an assassinate he gave his life fighting for the liberty of all mankind you stick with me you might just live long enough to join the brotherhood honor your father's memory listen i'm sure your little cult is a delightful bunch but i'm not interested the only thing i care about is finding elise are you planning on doing that from in [Music] here [Music] in the following two months bellic teaches arno as much as a prison cell and a wooden stick could allow only a matter of time before the revolution creates an opportunity sometimes opportunity sounds a lot like cannon fire prisoners follow the lead bella guides you out of the bastille driven by the promise of your talent if you were to join the assassins but things start looking worse the further you get what use is being on the roof arno doesn't understand how are we going to get down what prison scrambled your brains old man drink took care of that a long time ago now get up here i can't that's impossible impossible that's a purview of every assassin boy you can pluck your head out of your own arse come find us make a great fit goodbye this part you back away from the ledge and with arno's leap of faith the first time it's actually lived up to its name for so so many years you get this [Music] oh my god is that a well-earned title drop civilizations have rose and fell since that last happened unity's intro blew my mind belleck and elise received the scarcest of screen time but steal every scene therein it is witty charming dramatic and when the textures load in thoroughly beautiful but i expected none of it no what i remembered about this game isn't the story for which i was now eager to bite into it was the special way this game made me feel that has never since been topped matched or even revisited coming back to this game years after assassin's creed odyssey is truly fascinating because even four entries into 8th gen assassin's creed unity still feels as next-gen as breathtaking in scale scope and visuals now as it did when it released and when it worked it's an exquisite spectacle so the foundation of that unique experience is no surprise paris what did they did they hire a time lord to design this place did they [ __ ] drive by doctor strange and rob the time stone without an ounce of exaggeration if you told me that only a third of unity's abnormally long development went into anything but designing paris i'd buy it without question the size is remarkable but the detail now that's genuinely difficult to describe there must be nearly a thousand fully detailed interiors here houses estates landmarks i heard a woman spent four years of her life detailing the notre dame alone i believe it they pulled a couple tricks here no doubt i must have seen the same interior more than once but you know what if i did i didn't notice versailles is fully re-detailed to reflect the revolution's toll just for a half hour visit later in the campaign this seems excessive and that's because it is but the effect is priceless from start to finish i couldn't pull my eyes off unity a sense of setting place and atmosphere these are among the most subjective things going but by every objective measure unity is where it peaks paris is the mona lisa of open wild cities even outdoing spider-man's new york side by side and you know what for a game sold on its movement i'd rather parkour in paris than webb swing across the pond high damned praise i know i would know but an appraisal of the parkour is what anyone who adores unity will say to you first you shouldn't listen watch [Music] [Music] extrinsic and intrinsic motivation these are two vital times we'll need to understand if we want a chance in hell of accurately analyzing unity's parkour we'll start simple extrinsic motivation is the reasons you'll be given by the game to interact with a system for parkour those are quite clear speed access to additional areas and tactical advantages such as sight lines or assassinations intrinsic motivation meanwhile is the reasons you'll give yourself the satisfaction of total unrestricted freedom of performing all these badass acrobatics without breaking a sweat unity works with both and for the intrinsic side that's plain to see look at it when it works it's a masterpiece of animation arno's motions are not only more fluid but more numerous granting a consistently engaging and surprisingly immersive sense of spectacle but this system wouldn't be revered if there wasn't depth beneath the surface masks off why does parkour play so good the major reasons are threefold and the first of those is one you might remember dedicated buttons for free run up and free run down they do exactly as you'd expect but the benefit is enormous there's nothing like a stylish descent with spins and leaps because it's not just faster it's utterly enthralling a fact paris understands interiors are just as much fun as they were to run through an assassin's creed iii but even outside the city's geometry is complex vastly more so than any other location in the franchise and that translates directly into choices at any time during these building adjacent pathways you can hit free run up or free run down to change which objects arna will grab creating an unprecedented ability to seamlessly customize the visual aspect of your parkour from a rooftop you can transition neatly onto a ledge or an overhang or a rope and you can do this without pause constantly the system works neatly in tandem with paris itself if you placed unity's mechanics in brotherhood's roam you'd have half the experience we have here you can even choose to manipulate the direction of the climb animation depending on how you enter it oh the x-axis won't be neglected god no that's where half the depth is found this is the second of the three side ejects are performed by adjusting your directional input during a climb animation while letting go of the climb button you're looking to do this for two reasons first it looks cool second it's quicker no matter the context with a little mash of free run up you can even use it to save yourself from a climb that would otherwise have you falling right back down the quick precise button inputs make for quite the skill to master it's a good sign when your options increase with your mastery want another example of that because it's never more true than with the last of the three free run up doubles as a jump button just as free run down doubles as a vault button and unlike syndicate unity doesn't handhold if you want to dive off that rooftop you got it better hope you're close enough ferrano to break his fall but committing suicide isn't its primary function obviously no just like in previous entries the jump is all about mastering efficiency skip a slower animation by jumping into a ledge instead of climbing it cut a corner out right or if you're running along a rooftop jump at the peak to make it further faster smart use of the jump has been a feature of many previous entries but unlike in those games unity's jump actually works mostly it works more than it used to the only problem now is that it's too unpredictable a jump should obviously be a consistent and therefore judgeable motion arno shouldn't decide how far to go on a whim i've seen that he can clear incredibly large distances so when i hit the jump button and he instead makes a small hop to a lower point on the same building it feels like i'm being cut but that aside a functional manual jump button increases the frequency of the micro decisions you make twofold rocketing the skill gap and the fun factor both and we're not done yet ask my girlfriend a small thing can make a world of difference unity's happy to provide if you'd like to climb a great distance quickly you can use climb leap that trades the finer control of climbing for a directional leap it is a shame that this doesn't work like the older assassin's creeds where you make an input to catch the higher edge during the leap would have increased both depth and immersion but i'm glad it's here all the same last but not least is the wall eject you can use it to dismount slower but further as an efficient way to swap buildings or even opportunistically is an extremely fast way of scaling too close by it's just like mario's jump kick a little bit ridiculous but i can live with that so many options so much to consider and so little time some of that parkour i showed you earlier here's how much the player had to consider to pull that off watch this [Music] okay so first he goes for a directional free run up to climb the lamp post he then recognizes a side eject point and changes directional input with high profile still held but free run up released now he jumps off with a tap of free run up and begins mashing freerun down for the roll animation next comes the use of the voltable surface with free run down and then another free run up side eject onto the pillar he would have practiced that because the pillar was obscured from view but in total that took about eight seconds he made that many choices that many inputs in eight seconds scanning your environment complex button skill could this movement get any deeper yeah you could just play assassin's creed one yep just gonna let that sit with you for a while honestly i'm only high in the game not in real life this is why i had to explain those definitions earlier let me prove it to begin with animation cancelling was instant there was no such thing as being locked into emotion which meant there was no such thing as being locked out of on-the-fly decisions there was such a thing as a reliable catch ledge button which most importantly meant that there was also such a thing as unrestricted side ejects you could eject wherever you liked whereas in unity it's contextual why why can't i do it anywhere i can wall eject anywhere but not to the side stupid needless regressions but here's the kicker you see how arno will leap to catch ledges it'd be hard to forget they're a divine sight to behold and you see the way he bounds off ropes or flows down a surface with the utmost style of all the problems even beyond the all too common minor glitches the parkour's greatest is how it automates them my presumption is that the system will analyze your current position and provide the most efficient animation in any context problem is you can't always predict the system leo k popularized calling this automation and as far as i'm concerned it can burn in hell if i sit on a rope i'm well within my rights to expect to dive with free run down but instead i drop you can imagine how this might be necessary in a game with no animation cancelling and no catch ledge but let me show you how in the very first entry in 2008 they had this sorted you didn't just have a catch ledge button you had complete directional control over where your arms pointed things are starting to come together now combine that with a consistent jump that will always propel you the same distance and in any case so long as the environment is within range you can use a complex sequence of inputs to do exactly what you can do in unity reliably so why is the shallower system revered and the deeper one forgotten the plot thickens but the answer to this mystery is staring you right in the face you see unity might not have more depth but it did for me i gave myself the depth and i think you did too i've said before that black flag's combat though unforgivably easy could still be deep because your goal in a fight wasn't just to win but to look great doing it intrinsic motivation it's still depth let me drop a bombshell on you assassin's creed regularly provided absolutely no extrinsic motivation at all for stealth mandatory stealth missions and optional objectives existed but outside of these what was ever to stop you from clearing a fort with nothing but guns and swords combat was the easier option one hundred percent of the time so why didn't you take it 100 of the time because you wanted to feel like an assassin it's as true here as it was there it's why unity can be and is for most so much deeper than any other entry because the ways to optimize how you look and feel are overwhelming i spent tens of hours of learning trying not to optimize speed but to chain the sweetest animations get the best control the sense and keep all my movements varied through that unity shifts a little bit away from parkour and a little bit towards free running depending on who you are this intrinsic depth might do absolutely nothing for you but it's no 50 50 split people play assassin's creed for a specific fantasy this doesn't just play into that it revolutionizes it so what a perfect setting i'd free roam in this game all damn day if i could and you know what i wouldn't just be prancing about on rooftops there's someone in need of our help a cry that you can always hear because you're meant to find them a nation is tearing itself apart and to reflect that paris is saturated with faction wars and crowd events for the first time you have a reason beyond casual cruelty to consistently unsheath your swords the parkour isn't so perfect as to warrant never breaking it up few systems are now you'll break things up by breaking things up bones as well as flesh unity's weighty combat is an extreme departure from assassin's creed form and like the parkour it is a resounding success although unlike the parkour that might be a little controversial unity's fighting is slow every other game has been quite the opposite unity's fighting is challenging every other game hasn't been to anywhere near this extent do you fear death yes i [ __ ] do get your cheese out get your croissants out i actually died in an assassin's creed game like multiple times oh my god it's like reuniting with a loved one how did i ever survive without you challenging combat well i suppose my survival was exactly the problem depending on what you want from an ac this might be a blessing or it might be your worst nightmare in terms of depth it is an objective improvement but that's not what i want to talk about look at it unity is trying to be somewhat believable it's trying to be immersive it's got four unique move sets six if you count non lethals so it's certainly trying to be customizable too and with its utterly stunning finisher animations it provides the spectacle in troves it might not be the assassin's creed fantasy but it's close it's unique it might be better running out of a crowd event another thing you'll come across in paris are the red chests heavily guarded and valuable combat may not be the wisest approach early game i say we take to the shadows paris naturally makes a standard courtyard stealth encounter something more than its predecessors through its countless interior spaces it creates a far more thorough encounter out of an equivalently thin space which in turn makes the chest itself more satisfying to loot but that's a very very minor thing the greatest benefit is simple immersion slowly cutting your way through an occupied building shooting gunners from roof to roof it's an incredibly believable assassin experience and arno has some innovations of his own the phantom blade a silent alternative to the pistol its elegance is charming but being just another way to silently kill from a distance i think makes it among the dullest unique assassin weapons we've ever had unity's smartest innovation is far more subtle it takes two to tango yeah for the first time you can equip two items simultaneously which means equally for the first time you might actually use your smoke bombs no one had anything but pistols or another such auxiliary weapon equipped in any previous entry because no one could be bothered to constantly scroll switch between the two and because stealth just wasn't hard or worthwhile enough to warrant thinking about any advance tactic whatsoever these are now non-issues and the result is immense a consistent use of multiple tools that's not just k torino's motto it bumps up depth it makes for a more varied experience and like many other things in this game it makes you feel more like spite note like an assassin were these utterly badass bursts of brutality how could it not unity skyrockets the stealth kill count and every one of them is a brilliantly violent spectacle it's tragic you can't manipulate which of them you get because added hurley intrinsic depth into low earth orbit but are you seeing the link what's common the reason unity is back stronger than ever now if not perhaps we should take a look at why it fell in the first place why did unity fall into what could only be described as the abyss marked with a red cross like it emanated the plague it's multi-faceted but the four primary reasons are rather clear firstly the technical state if you're curious as to how unity performed on launch just pause and unpause this video real quick the second plays into that unity was already on thin ice by ramping up the challenge of a series that until now had been getting easier in a game that worked many might say this just isn't for me in a game that doesn't it's not so easy to draw the line between what is fundamentally bad and what is subjectively bad when you're pissed off third the even thinner ice unity shred on just by virtue of existing resentment was widespread for ubisoft after watchdogs what was collectively considered a letdown of mythic proportions and finally the assassin's creed trend line this is the big one revelations came out in 2011 the fourth entry and even by then nothing much had changed for the assassin's creed formula two was a huge step up from one but the series was largely standardized in terms of gameplay and structure then came 2012 a new assassin for the first time since 2009 and a far more ambitious hand naval warfare hunting even a fully fleshed out american frontier that would dwarf anything the series had tried before and only a year later assassin's creed dwarfed itself again black flag made even three look tiny this was a rapidly expanding trend but with unity the big next-gen game with these insane trailers we were meant to be so hyped for they looped right back round to the old structure i think it was seen as a colossal step back really the same old assassins creed again people thought and they were primed for disappointing things from ubisoft remember behind gta this was the most popular action adventure franchise in the world stepping into next gen and instead of blowing our minds it got smaller as much as this plays a part in unity's failure it can also help explain its recent success the same old assassin's creed it has been six years more depending on when you watch this perhaps not hard to believe but that is very nearly as much time from unity as unity was from assassin's creed one to put that in further context the last assassin's creed that felt like an assassin's creed is closer to 2008 when the mcu was born before ezio ever existed barely after halo 3 than it is to now imagine that it's not a stretch to think after syndicates regressed gameplay and five years of witcher 3 clones some may long for the formula that was so special to so many people that formula that fantasy this franchise took off for a reason and everyone loves a redemption story people like the idea that unity was wrongly accused that it didn't deserve its place in the guillotine yes those six years let the frustration fade and now we can see unity for what it is in spite of all its flaws the epitome of the assassin's creed fantasy there's a reason ubisoft used the notre dame assassination to market this game if the sun is actually being a master assassin of an ancient brotherhood then everything we've had for countless years is freezing a billion miles away but this game unity is glowing one down a couple more to go that's our first answer that's why unity is back now i think some thanks are in order i've been working on this video for two months and i could excuse that immense investment in these tough times because of you 1.6 million views shared between my previous assassin's creed videos a vast spike in patreon donation and the invaluable support of my sponsor squarespace you know who they are you know what they do the web is called the web for a reason and a site can link all the strands you need in one central hub to sell to communicate to inform there is store integration posts that can be scheduled blogging with community features all wrapped in a simpler customizable minimalist package it's crisp no matter the angle see for yourself you only need to bring out your card when you're ready to take the site online so try out their user interface find out the web design really can be done in hours i did it you can too head to squarespace.com white light and use code white light [Music] now stand with me overlooking the great notre dame in revolutionary france as we prepare to kill the templar hiding within impressed the scale of this one-to-one notre dame is [ __ ] mesmerizing even now but that's not what this mission was sold on no this was unity's flagship black box assassination like i said the fantasy you were meant to have a sense of ownership over your process infiltration distraction and finally assassination opportunities for each would be displayed at the start and from there little to no scripted bull crap stood between you and your target a sense of ownership lovely but if you want more than just a sense look no further than paris two aspects combined to make unity's assassination missions so very different from those of the past and black box design isn't either of them you can see the first with ease it's the structure often times before you'd be led through a far more linear environment and the most reasonable way to make a kill by far would be an air assassination or something else the game wants you to do like a blend kill the kenway saga was always more concerned with a cinematic approach unity though isn't it doesn't have to script it so to create a cinematic experience it simply is instead unity presents you with some manner of fortress be it the notre dame or one of the many bourgeois estates in paris the game will often use an opportunity to attract you towards a good place to start but you have complete freedom nonetheless any side of this colossal structure has its entrances and guards you can go in classic or take either of the opportunities for a mostly valuable advantage one you might not be comfortable without because like i said fortress the second aspect is difficulty guards spot you fast and combat is tough to survive you have good reason to make a sweep of the rooftops for gunners and it's advisable to use the smartest stealth techniques you can think of to slowly cut your way towards the target there is never the one way to effortlessly make the kill there is never the easy way out you'll never need to self-impose restrictions to create a challenge and if the game allows it that'll always make an infiltration more fun and a kill more satisfying a sense of ownership unlike black boxes what you see is what you get and the same can be said for what pulls you through the progression the customization screen it's a god damn miracle of [ __ ] victory that the artists managed to provide invaluable variation while in keeping with the codes and conventions of assassin fashion you can be a medieval assassin an aristocrat assassin a revolutionary one or a blend of anything by head chest hands waist and legs each piece has its level and stats same deal with weapons this along with slowly unlocked skills and mechanical mastery drives unity's palpable sense of player progression from beginning to end in no other entry is the gap more tangible which is a great thing of course but there is a problem here the looks the intrinsic value makes these sets desirable not the stats but this game is nonetheless challenging and the stats do matter i shouldn't have to choose between looking the way i want to look and having a gear set that functionally benefits my playstyle this isn't an mmo it's adored now for its portrayal of the assassin fantasy to my taste the master phantomhood is vastly more appealing than the legendary version but i'm hurting myself if i act on that a vanity slot would have allowed optimization of my extrinsic and intrinsic wants and needs with betterment not sacrifice of the customization's less immediately obvious effect the economy of course with looks like these demand for currency is at an all-time high ubisoft know it but don't let their name fool you ubisoft are developers and publishers both they knew exactly how much money they stood to make from capitalizing on that demand helix credits are exactly as all premium currencies are you pay real money to get fake money that skips the grind and if that turns you off the game now i won't blame you the best defense that i can physically muster is that i truly believe the economy is excellent as is but i do wonder if microtransactions had a hand in its design regardless here's how it works much like previous entries you get that bread by killing enemies looting chests and completing any of this game's countless missions but if you're aiming a little higher you also have the longer term deeper economic goal of renovating the city in unity that focuses around the cafe theatre a hotel cafe and theater whose profits you can collect hourly it also serves as the lion's share of arno's crib and just like the rest of this game it looks so good i don't want to leave it you can renovate about five areas of the cafe some of these improvements are purely visual some come with new places to explore but all but the last of them net you one cafe theater mission you're a business enforcer essentially protecting the cafe's interests from radicals they're good fun and i especially like that they have an actual difficulty curve keeping it relevant throughout the game and preventing the average player from banging him out one after the other at the start that's not all a business wants to expand a more literal sense of ownership and to that end there are a scattering of cafes you can renovate all over paris to vastly increase your hourly profit it's immersive it feels good it builds up the world but now you see you want to make cash in this game you got to invest in the economy i love that but i only know how valuable it is because someone told me how many people do you think knew what i did did you the game never once tells you how colossally you can raise your income and i do believe that'll result in a vast proportion of the player base continuing to exist in a much tighter economy so now the question is was that intended you know i can't say because as much as ubisoft's trend points toward a firm yes unity's trend points towards an equally firm no unity doesn't hold your hand at all you've got to figure out the depth yourself and there's no better example of that than the legend of catch ledge we've talked about this before but what we don't yet know is that it's also here in unity not to the degree of its predecessors of course but when it happens it's a sight to behold but it doesn't happen just as often get unlucky and you'll end up ejecting your shins a frustrating inconsistency right not anymore it took the assassin's creed community literal years to confirm this but it turns out the only way to consistently break full is mashing free run down people just had to figure this out and the number of those who did is probably less than a percent of a percent unity is a revolutionary game in more ways than one no one's coming in just knowing the quirks and advanced techniques required to master it so you'd think like any other game the developers would actually tutorialize things right well not in unity not all depth should be taught self-discovery is an invaluable satisfaction but the chances of a player understanding that side ejects are faster than straight climbing or that they even exist on an otherwise unclimbable surface or that berserk blades are the best way to delay detection or that you can just start blowing people away with your pistol if you smoke bomb your location or that if your next attack would deal enough damage to put an enemy into a near-death state you can hold the attack button for an instant finisher or so on probably how do i know these things i know them because leo knows them because forums know them if it weren't for them and their incredible content explaining side ejects and advanced stealth you may not know now either you'd think it's a small issue and for parkour and combat i'd say fair enough many people are going to figure a lot of these things out but stealth is what people struggle with the most in unity you know how useful that berserk play trick would be if anyone actually knew it if that wasn't hands-off enough you've even got to purchase some of your depth because for the first time a number of your abilities are locked behind a skill point system now this comes with its advantages primarily it's well paced so there'll be a consistent introduction of mechanics throughout the game good new mechanics means new skills to blossom it means that the satisfaction of mastery isn't concentrated near the start of the game but doled out over its course we aren't starved of depth at the start to make this happen but we may be later because the disadvantage is that you might not unlock any of the new abilities at all imagine not unlocking the staggering strike or any of the heavy attacks i'd guess most will pick a weapon type and stick to it so chances are people will get their heavy but the staggering strike that's very easy to gloss over and it isn't a minor problem a fairly simple half measure to counter this would have been granting skill points fairly liberally but the reality is quite the opposite you'd think this might again be to incentivize microtransactions right well i think it's actually to incentivize the co-op let's have a look these missions are big budget ordeals full cutscenes heaps of historical context and unique gameplay scenarios you'll be swimming in skill points after just a few but good luck bringing them home with your sanity intact because nothing was hit harder by unity's great scourge than the multiplayer this was unity's one unique marketable feature and with a friend i think it can be a great value but if you in all likelihood end up playing with randoms the decent fun you can have from time to time doesn't really offset the fact that somehow every single bug unity has ever had is put through an amplifier the instant you go online delayed hits lag falling through the map the stability is like being two hours into a game of jenga they might have patched the solo game into playability but in co-op yeah welcome to the [ __ ] show and that's not even the funny part the bit that really gets me lolling out loud is that half of these co-op missions are heists now let's just pretend to not notice that they're ironically mediocre at best as a source of income no the great thing about heists is that you can lose up to 80 percent of the score if you're detected strong-arming you into stealth is completely pointless and outright annoying but who in the [ __ ] thought that asking for complete perfection in a match made game mode was a smart play yeah good luck keeping to the shadows with three randoms and code written on an etcher sketch i'll give ubisoft some credit the fact that you can play these solo at all is fantastic always nice to see a company that understands their servers won't last forever but unsurprisingly the co-op wasn't designed for a lone player either and as a result the solo experience can be hit or miss sometimes it's a decent challenge but oftentimes it's troublesome to put it lightly saving gerondists on the clock is fine with others because there's no chance in hell you'll time out but on your own every second counts so having to sit in front of a guy you're meant to talk to until the game decides you're anonymous is supremely frustrating as is this npc who decides that any detection in a stealth encounter warrants her rushing into the kill box requiring me to drop what i'm doing to go save her doable certainly needlessly frustrating often it's also nearly impossible to get past a particular stage of the tournament solo without a youtube guide and speaking of tournaments detection is a foregone conclusion but this many enemies exposes some flaws of its own don't think our sexy new combat escapes the scourge my guess is that to match unity's otherwise somewhat believable presentation combat was designed without the typical assassin's creed superpowers in mind so for the first time since jesus was knocking about parrying is something you'll actually do and you can't deal damage to equally or higher level opponents without first setting it up you have five options total wear amount use a bomb time a perfect parry trade vulnerability for damage with a heavy attack or trade vulnerability for a damaged window with a staggering strike you'd think that makes the heavy a better choice in the staggering strike in every case but that's not actually true enemies can be grounded in unity which keeps them out of the fight for a good deal of time and opens them up for a free hit it can often be a wise choice then to styring strike immediately out of a perfect parry for the knockdown now you can see how each method of damage comes with its advantages and drawbacks while contributing to the sense of a weighty more brutal battle yes for once the intrinsic depth has some company but the feel of it all has been by no means neglected either if this fighting style appeals to you you'll be bouncing around from one target to another craving those godly finisher animations when it isn't breaking apart it's a sight to behold and the dodge plays a part in that too it looks fantastic to repeatedly roll right under enemy attacks but i must ask why is there no extrinsic point there are times you have to roll you need it to avoid bullets in group fights and to avoid unblockable attacks that does increase depth but not by much it's just button skill there is no decision to using a dodge in these cases if you can parry it's an objectively smarter choice why this makes no sense from a design perspective it could have at least done with some kind of post dodge attack that stuns any enemy it hits to put it on the same level as the parry the confusion doesn't stop there though because some [ __ ] how despite having a completely upgraded engine and an entirely new combat system they've managed to [ __ ] large group fights by one-to-one preserving both of the mechanical flaws regarding firearms just like in the kenway saga some enemies can shoot you with no glow telegraph or no buildup either way this is unpredictable and thus virtually unavoidable which is worse than ever in unity because of the difficulty you can be punished and often killed at the game's leisure due to no fault of your own also just like the kenway saga you could only avoid gunshots that were telegraphed in open combat because without it you had no access to human shield only problem was open combat came and went whenever it pleased in unity we have the exact same issue but once again they've made it worse because it isn't human shield you need to be in open combat for it's the dodge roll right of course god how do gymnasts do it because according to assassin's creed unity it's only physically possible for a human to perform a role when there's someone trying to bash their head in with an axe it's utterly ridiculous that they've managed to recreate the same problem in a new system in a new engine and do nothing about it in the years they must have known it was there have fun brute forcing your way through co-op missions or large combat encounters of any kind without being swiftly reminded of the game you're playing assassin's creed unity the broken one nothing in this game can breathe for long because it is oppressed by this miasma of technical [ __ ] i meant everything i've said up to this point this game can be as good as i make it seem but not without dottings of unrelenting frustration the only people who could have put this game back together were the air crash investigators but instead of them we've got the ubisoft team who bring out a roll of newspaper when you ask him to get rid of a bug regardless i'll give credit where it's due they did an okay job you'll freeze every now and then or clip into an object but the immersion shattering comedy gold is of a bygone time it's the more subtle issues that remain in troves and though in comparison to the kenway saga they may more often affect visuals over functionality not all bugs are created equally the major difference between unity and just about everything else is difficulty rogue three black flag they were all easy unity not at all and the effect is exactly what people predicted it'd be the harder the game is the harder its inconsistencies punish you for stealth this is a fairly simple equation the tougher the encounter the greater the likelihood of significant frustration it's no surprise stealth would be hit the hardest by unity's technical state when a single screw-up results in light speed detection i feel dread at the sight of unity's toughest stealth gauntlets not excitement and i don't think i'm alone even among those who have fully mastered these mechanics it'd be easier to list what does always work but it would also be less fun so let's begin sometimes you can run right up to a guard in his full view in a restricted area and still pull off the stealth kill but other times it's instant detection despite having no line of sight seeing is believing unless you regard in assassin's creed unity in which case telepathy is believing there are some walls in this game they can see straight through and good luck escaping if the parkour system stalls and you're sat there like a plum what can i say life's a glitch but when it's not it's a mechanical problem smoke bombs are far too clunky for reliable rapid deployment cherry bombs though are far too broken because for some reason they only work when an enemy has line of sight to where it landed despite being a sound based weapon there is also no clear range at which a phantom blade shot will get you instantly detected the cover system is slow unclear and too sticky there is no carry body button for reasons incomprehensible to human minds the double air assassination works less often than it does you can't stealth kill smoked enemies if other completely irrelevant enemies detect you and you can't resume stealth killing if you smoke bomb from combat at all even though 9 times out of 10 you were in open combat for less than a second of course it should take you a while to transition from combat back to stealth you'd be able to cheese every fight in the game otherwise but there's a balance that should have been struck the idea that this game has no more significant bugs is beyond misinformation your enjoyment all depends on the equation and how your tolerance factors into it it's a damn good thing then that the countless assassination missions strike a balance of their own they're excellent at bringing the best out of unity stealth with options nicely balanced enemy placement and a sense of a well-earned kill that takes the fantasy of being an assassin higher than ever it's not with these that the stealth falls apart no you'll be focused on a problem of a different kind but one much less severe and it's not the fact that there is so many of them because there really is after unity's fantastic intro elise learns about the letter arno failed to deliver to her father a letter that would have saved his life that guilt compels him to join the assassins and from there the story can be simply described as a hit list you hunt templars one by one hoping each will lead you closer to monsieur de la says killer subplots are rare and struggle to land when they do occur there is nothing necessarily wrong with a hit list but there's plenty wrong with this one you will kill a templar his memories will reveal the next target you'll chase up a lead and then you'll kill them too it is emotionless it is indescribably boring i have nothing more of interest to say on the first six and a half sequences because nothing of interest is exactly what happens everything i loved about the intro has been shadow realm where's elise where's bellend where's arno his charm melted away the instant he joined up with the assassins only to be replaced by unpleasantness in juvenile zeal as he meanders from tommy templar to harry hooligan his one motivation merely being revenge for a guy who had about three minutes of screen time well if all we're doing is assassination missions then let's put a couple of them under the microscope you'd sure hope they pull their weight huh they do we've proven that but not because of these black box opportunities they're the campaign's other major problem that stuck out to me following its fantastic start logically a good opportunity should trade short-term risk for long-term reward thereby creating an interesting decision in whether or not to use them at all a satisfying payoff if you do and a general sense of freedom in just about every possible way this concept is squandered firstly in the way they're presented at no point will you ever understand how arno intends for the opportunities to bear fruit covering up vents in lewadatoon that seemed logical the game did say it had impaired the enemy's visibility but how was i to know that it cover my escape and not my entrance or anything else how was i meant to know that causing a beggar uprising would distract guards on the surface and underground and not just one or the other i still have no idea what the firework truck did for me and marie levesque this doesn't just weaken the opportunity concept it fundamentally and ruinously alters it never will you make an interesting decision from your perch never will you decide which opportunities do and don't fit your playstyle how can you without a functional idea of what they'll do instead you'll pursue those you can regardless hoping they'll be a tall worthy effort believe me they won't be let's talk about le peltier our opportunities for this one include a bribe to get into a specific entrance and some poisoned wine for the assassination brilliantly the entrance you'll have paid 5 000 libras for requires you to get across one of the most well-guarded rooms in the entire game to initiate the unique kill it's easier to just take the stairs i paid 5 grand to make my situation worse i thought this was assassin's creed not university debt simulator the assassination opportunities annoyed me the most in general they trade heaps of short-term risk only for the sake of getting a unique kill but it never came across as a an option to me instead it's simply the correct way of doing things to not use it is to perform sub-optimally i'm not going to give the game a hard time for it because i think it very much depends on the player but the second problem does so in a different way screw you if you don't play stealth i guess because there are never any kill opportunities for any approach but the silent one very odd because what i'd consider to be a loud option was the focal point of the cinematic trailer it feels a bit strange to start a civil war in the courtyard and walk in all bad ass only to poison the dude with tainted wine i would have gladly traded off a third of the side missions for better and vastly more opportunities if there were at least two assassination opportunities for each one it wouldn't feel like the right way or the wrong way the final problem was one i only saw in captain rui's assassination but this whole mission deserves its time in the spotlight it's the opportunities that suck not the missions themselves but this one is an exception nine out of ten players will take the exact same route because nearly everyone will go for the first opportunity on the ground level and from there all your parkour pathways are blocked off by climbing spikes they want you to take a specific route through the bastille so you don't miss a couple of scripted story moments so much for freedom huh the second opportunity epitomizes my first point you're meant to burn this french flag how in the [ __ ] am i meant to know that would ignite the entire sniper tower over any other possible outcome of burning a flag so what if like me you went up there and killed the snipers by yourself then burned it well it respawns them in their exact positions so the game can kill them again for many players this could have been avoided with the exact same climbing spikes this level had already used but i guess they forgot some opportunities are broken some make everything worse you'll never understand how they'll play out in the first place so they don't even achieve their basic goal they're a cool distraction that gives you a short-lived sense of freedom and in my case a [ __ ] conniption you know for a game so filled with opportunities i am surprised the writers took so few throughout these endless sequences of assassinations but let's look at one of the more memorable instances of things happening you get to climb the eiffel tower in occupied paris that's cool and completely meaningless more important is sequence five arno finds a silversmith named francois germa trapped in a mansion by the templars and forced to fashion weapons for them thank god they've been holding me for months please get me out of here one of those weapons is exactly the pin that killed monsieur de lesser ordered jammer reveals by the templar lafraniere seems like we got our man then right it's not that simple after nearly three hundred thousand years since they last spoke arno discovers a templar plot to have elise killed just like her father that mosel de la sierra will soon be on her way to hotel eager to speak with mr sadly mr lafreniere has nothing left to say uh oh spaghettio better go warn her but it seems we've been duped this had nothing to do with la frania in fact he was going to protect elise she soon catches on it was jeremiah the whole time well no [ __ ] how on god's green earth did arno not recognize his voice it's pretty distinctive isn't it turns out jeremiah is leading a templar uprising within the old order getting rid of lafraniere leaves only elise thinks she's scared well prepare your ass because elise is about to have a heated gamer moment so furiously incandescent that killing xiaomi becomes the only thing in the world that matters to her and to you why it's simple you're a simp anna worships this woman but elise is stone she cares nothing for anything that doesn't start with the g and rhyme with shma ma understandable of course shiozano nothing certainly not since he got monsieur de la say killed but the new one-sided dynamic we're subject to frustrates for two reasons first being the obvious one it's boring instead of the compelling warmth wit and charm the pair displayed in belly a minute of screen time we've got to bland and tire some unrequited devotion that follows the equally bland and tiresome six sequences prior not exactly the exciting reunion i had in mind it also greatly irritates to see arno cast aside the assassin templar plot for elise's sake so consistently when mirabosa comes to templar poison arno can barely work up the strength to question elise de la ser a templar am i playing assassin's creed or diary of a simpy kid because much like edward's rum the ideological conflict is gone the intrigue is gone arno's charisma is gone when he's not fruitlessly trying to bone marry [ __ ] antoinette he's being arrogant and acting like a 50 megaton spanner at the same time right along with my investment in arnold the campaign so far suffers for it as if it had any blood left to bleed balak's disappointed opinion of his protege sure seems to have some weight to it after release solves the murder mystery for us and arno uses his eagle nose yeah um the trail leads to bellend guess he finally lived up to his name from his viewpoint the brotherhood has become mired in politics there could never be any peace between the assassins and templars as mirabeau intended you and i could rule this sitiano or we could just fight to the death the fight's a joke a re-skinned agile with terrible camera angles and boring quick time events the real conflict is their perspectives arno loves a templar woman and was raised by their grand master but balak has seen them burn entire villages just for the chance of killing one assassin it's an adequately interesting conflict but why is it only adequate after the intro where balak's personality brought the basty escape to life the character was dropped like a hot potato until the end well what happened to the middle it goes without saying how much more interesting the ideological conflict could have been and how much more compelling the fight would have been if these two had interacted in any meaningful capacity following the intro we had multiple sequences of nothing wasn't that the perfect opportunity the mystery i'm most interested in solving is how the writing could have dipped from a perfect 10 start down to a stone cold 2 in a matter of minutes the contrast between literally every aspect of narrative in that first hour and the rest of the entire game is astounding yeah well good luck figuring that one out right besides with half the story behind us now there's a different murder mystery i want to solve it'll just be a matter of finding it as i progressed further and further through the story and as i casually ticked off paris stories or social club missions i was shocked to see the game tell me i was barely a quarter of the way to 100 22 27 how is any of that even possible well it's because the optional objectives in each mission contribute a frankly ridiculous amount to that figure but it's also thanks to the more honest reason that being unity's sheer [ __ ] scale you have countless cockades and artifacts 12 nostradamus enigmas 50 paris stories 18 co-op missions five cafe theater missions 21 social club missions seven helix rifts the dead kings dlc all these pieces of armor and all these weapons this game is so crammed with content it's ridiculous it makes rogues 100 run look brief by comparison i'm talking a 40 hour difference according to the stats so you'd assume a severe quantity over quality imbalance and you'd be right there is no doubt whatsoever that 30 to 40 percent fewer paris stories in exchange for better ones would have been the right move for most people but what's impressive is that the quality doesn't really sink that low to begin with social club missions are as bare bones as things get just basic gameplay scenarios with a brief note for context but unity is fundamentally fun so even the most skeletal of the side quests work paris stories meanwhile are similar but come with a decently interesting narrative through line with voice acting and everything you'll even get the odd unique gameplay scenario like limited visibility while you hunt down a ghost i played a sum total of none that i didn't enjoy i often hear complaints regarding ubisoft's proclivity to drown the player in icons i've personally never been bothered because as much as it may be ugly you have to go to a specific location on the map 9 times out of 10 regardless no my problem is how the icons bury the lone murder mystery for some i imagine fatally you won't see the rest before you go through that one introductory cutscene a small problem with a potentially massive and shameful effect because these murder mysteries are some of the best content unity has to offer as sherlock mesons you'll use eagle vision to clue for looks and as you do so suspects appear one by one accused correctly you win simple concept but a shocking level of respect for the player's intelligence ubisoft hold little back as you climb the difficulty ratings far more plates start to spin there's far more evidence to consider some of it conflicting let me introduce you to alexandre lawasak ladykiller but ironically dead yes the solar cannon that fires harmless paper at the same time every day had somehow blown a hole through the departed in front of the woman he was there to meet a bouquet of roses splayed by his body well where do we begin gilbert duchamp a bystander says the cannon had been strangely oriented on that day only while the vagabond lagree remembers seeing a limping man fiddling with it the night before engraved on the cannon itself is the name and address of its inventor robert rousseau he doesn't seem to give a crap about the tragedy no he seems excited the commotion would bring his invention into relevancy again and you know what else he uses a cane interesting mr limp suggests speaking to the man who loads the cannon every day sergeant san brie he usually eats at the cafe feverier but not the night before he was with someone a colonel who supposedly became a scientist at a nearby academy on the table is a box of empty cartridges more than one man looks suspicious now the only places left for us to go are alexandra's house and that nearby academy we'll start with the home a letter from his father reveals attention there it very much appears they were royalists but more interestingly is a letter from a lover pauline it's a threat of what she'd do if alexandra were ever unfaithful well let me tell you the woman he was there to charm she wasn't called pauline it'd be quite the revenge wouldn't it looks like alexandra was also interested in a gunpowder competition held at the academy and there are two familiar names on the list robert rousseau and that colonel again huh let's go see what he has to say for himself turns out he's a jackass but his aide does remark about how incredible a scientific mind he is and that's not all the colonel uses a cane also of interest is that the competition organizers are deeply pro-revolution so with all the clues gathered what can we say we've made a false assumption more accurately i made a false assumption i underestimated ubisoft's commitment to respecting the player not every clue location is marked on the map genuinely i thought this was a bug but it wasn't there's nothing stopping you from finding it with observation alone look at the cannon again where is it pointing now ah inside what appears to be a laboratory the details of the competition are expanded upon the winning powder would be the stablest one in the adjacent room are barrels of water and potassium vials below them sounds like a recipe for disaster something the culprit clearly knew the cannon's projectile is embedded into a window but if it had gone any further the barrel would have been burst water would have poured out and an irreparable explosion would have followed this competitor's powder wouldn't look so stable then but the shot never made it in because alexandra's body slowed it wrong place at the wrong time with cartridges on the colonel's table we've got enough to make a play it doesn't take much for the psycho to confess all in a day's work unity understands how to make these puzzles compelling there's white noise for believability multiple characters are fleshed out with interesting personalities and motives there's conflicting evidence and never a more palpable sense of paris itself seeing this gorgeous setting filled with characters and events did more for the immersion than the story itself does the lack of hand-holding benefiting paris is a setting isn't just reserved for these however according to the first mystery the prophecies of nostradamus have a profound effect on those prone to madness and as we can see that extends to the city unity's far more frequently played puzzles are the nostradamus enigmas they are 12 sets of three riddles that's it and yet the process of completing them is some of the most fun i've had playing this game not only do they reward deductive skill but also a general knowledge of your surroundings the game mrs de lesser is on here we have a reference to 24 petals believers and lady so what could that mean believers says church lady says notre dame perhaps given the location and 24 petals well the stained glass window indented into its face certainly fits the bill another one slightly harder refers to a resting rook along with daedalus and a place to either be punished or amused resting rook well i could be a crow's perch perhaps a viewpoint people are amused and punished by the guillotine that's another deathly image but this is a commercial part of town there are no executions here you'll soon learn the value of a bird's eye view for solving these puzzles in this case it reveals a nearby maze could conceivably be a punishment but look at that house in the center a chess piece a rook the solution there's nothing more satisfying than solving a riddle with your wits alone but it's better than that in real life you don't get to look for clues with unity's sweet parkour system even spending an hour scouring paris doesn't have to be a tedious affair i'd know at the higher difficulties some of these riddles can be sadistic i spent a full evening running around the city climbing every square building i could find much to my horror the solution of the four to five star riddles are very rarely nearby the start and they generally shift the required skill set away from observational skill and far more towards historical knowledge for example one refers to the martyrs of herod haunting soundless and macabre grim words sounds like a tomb but who the martyrs of herod turns out herod was a roman king of judea and the martyrs of herod refers to the massacre of the innocents where all male children within the vicinity of bethlehem were executed i looked through the database for references to children but instead i found the cemetery of the innocence a bit of exploring led to the sound and with that it was found unless you're a walking encyclopedia google becomes essential to solving some of these that's not a complaint i'm learning about history and architecture all while feeling like a sass in sherlock good fun but there are 36 riddles from those 12 sets and you need to complete all of them for the prize just for some perspective if you do this legit you'll have spent more time on riddles alone than you will with most other games so let's say like some complete madman you've done it i'm sure arno is pining for elise's ludes but unlucky for him he's greeted with something much more familiar unity has one legendary set the armor of thomas de carnelian it's locked up under the cafe in this ornate dramatic chamber but don't be fooled into thinking those 20 hours were enough no you're yet to complete three individual armor room challenges each with puzzles of their own by [ __ ] what is this armor gonna do put me in communion with some kind of cosmic entity maybe depends on which one because the set of thomas to carnelian is not a set i'm thinking madness yes it's a purely cosmetic outfit with no stats no mix and match customization and no colours what you see is what you get a black altair skin there are no words in the english or french language to properly describe the putrid singularity of crystalline [ __ ] that this whole situation is i was hoping for a moment that barney harwood and the prank patrol would bust down my door and tell me i'm on live tv but alas my door remains intact maybe it's some kind of nihilistic postmodern commentary on the pointlessness of great endeavor this incomprehensible lovecraftian level of stupid is not just exactly that but also completely inexcusable bugs well they ran out of time but this could have been buffed in a patch you're telling me they had time to work on the dead kings dlc but not to prescribe some stats to the most important gear in the entire game i won't be naive no doubt most people with this set just google the nostradamus solutions but that's not really much better there is nothing but tedium to be had in following map markers from google images 36 times i so desperately wish i could sing this game's praise for an hour because i enjoy it just that much but the moments of infuriating [ __ ] never fail to refuse to let it soar it permeates everything it is inescapable parkour can have its wings clipped combat can have its sword blunted and story well the story's got bigger problems to worry about but they're yet to come enjoy it this is the calm before the storm arno's punishment for killing balak is severe but ours isn't we're tasked to infiltrate the king's palace at the height of the mob's fury find his documents and destroy them thing is napoleon bonaparte is too it's a breath of fresh air to see a character just as charismatic and interesting as those from black flag he steals the show with his opportunism and wisdom the instant you meet anna was treated like a friend how better to make the most use of him and if you look closely you can even see him reach for his gun when he asks what it is you're actually after well arno finds his papers but we can see napoleon's prize shines gold care to guess what it is now that is cool if you don't think about it for too long but you don't have to that sure was an engaging five minutes back to the hit list first captain rui then marie levesque but barely a moment later elise barry allen's it down the street and you have no choice but to follow what she did who knows but the nearby hot air balloon sounds like a good idea in the moment so begins unity's most memorable set piece the thot air balloon chase the promise of getting to take a ride in it is a remarkably driving excitement but even beyond that it's beautiful it's timely it's fun it's also romantic and i for one think this actually works after a dull cold patch between the two this felt like a perfectly climactic moment to see the romance reignite the dialogue here is lovely the screwed up kiss animation is hilarious but the scene works congrats ano you did it senpai noticed you but this being elise it's not long before we're back to the gem murdering predictably german predicted this and you end up walking into a trap you both escape but by my judgment popular opinion of elise gets caught in the crossfire apparently there are far too many attackers for elise to fight on her own arno of course wants to stay behind and protect her but elise wants him to stop being a [ __ ] and go after jeremiah unsurprisingly that isn't what you do and after having saved elise's life she calls you a prick and then dumps you oh crumbs according to her she is fully willing to sacrifice her life to see jaumar dead hers isn't anno's life to save first off no one's life is anyone's to save that's not how saving lives works secondly she's completely right anno would rather sacrifice literally the entire point of the game to make sure elise is okay i'd be on board if i was particularly connected to her but one decent scene isn't pulling that weight damn this would be a great point about how anno's incessant love puppy routine frustrates if i cared about killing german either and last but not least she's actually completely wrong the guards are after both her and arno she could have gone after jammer herself and left the guards to me it's dumb character writing to force the lovers apart yet again you'd think things can't get any worse for ano but he then gets permabanned from the brotherhood for his horny tweets and continually ignoring the council so utterly ruined and ruinously depressed anna returns to versailles to go on a two-week bender not kidding about that either he kills about 15 men for a single keg of wine which is inexplicably guarded like the crown jewels this short-lived joke of a section in versailles displays the jarring contrast between the quality of the writing and the quality of just about everything else they redesigned versailles all for this the revolutionary atmosphere is thick and engrossing the population loss the dismay it all bleeds through the visuals it's written terribly but it plays great in an interesting turn of events elise comes for anna while he wallows in self-pity at the palace not in the way he wanted of course she's just here for help with the german murdering but surprisingly anu doesn't fall into her arms no he opens his heart he was doing all of this for elise why on earth would she think otherwise why on earth would she think he would pick jamar over her he can't bear the fact that it's his fault her father died and he won't apologize for saving her life arno has pretty much dictated the problems with his own writing he is only in this for an uncompelling relationship making him unlikable and forcing the plot to revolve around it hirigano admit it gave me a little respect for him but beyond pacing what exactly was the point in this the rock bottom sequence is often the part in the hero's journey that a transformation occurs that our protagonist understands themselves perhaps atones for their mistakes but always becomes a better person well what happened nothing changed how do you go to the trouble of plotting space for character development and then forget to do the character development who knows wake up samurai we've got a german to kill he's making his stand in the temple a genuine templar stronghold that still exists in paris today this is presented as an assassination mission but anno states out loud that the fort is too strong for opportunities if you ask me it's too weak you just have to climb this central tower where else would your man be hiding this is a video game and in true video game fashion german can shoot lasers out of his sword i'd love to know what the first civilization designed this one for the fight is simple you have a damage window whenever he turns his back but anytime you land a hit he'll teleport away first time's an arena change you have to go all the way down to the crypt which arno just knows somehow there isn't much to examine mechanically it's wait for the opportunity and press the kill button three times but i will praise the sense of climax this is a dazzling end i just don't think anna would be so complimentary the final hit traps him underneath a mound of rubble and so elise has a choice save him or fight jeremiah assuming that these characters would develop at some point i thought she'd change at the last minute and save her lover i underestimated their commitment she stays true to her character so the next blast kills her stone dead no last words no emotion just death that takes balls i love it this was already romeo and juliet seems appropriate it ends in a tragedy elise's vicious quest for revenge ended with the betrayal of the only person who loves her and the clothes of her short life this isn't smart because it's sad it's smart because it's real because it's believable this was the logical conclusion to a relationship so rigorously toxic it is incandescent from what i've seen that's not an opinion i share with many but then again i did spend weeks writing about this game introspection reflection these are not things the shallow narrative encourages not until the end with the games close years later anna reflects on everything that happened ideals give way to dogma dogma becomes fanaticism he views the creed as a warning everything is permitted because there is no higher power only ourselves the common factor is dogmatic ideologies and i assume therefore that this is the theme of the game it's the french revolution set in the assassin's creed world there are very few people who haven't given themselves entirely to a cause it's a spark of self-awareness but that spark stretches the definition of threadbare so you've told me that your theme is endless cycles of radical violence okay but i'm not feeling it every previous entry had 20 times unity's nuance what's not working here one the tone is strangely light-hearted two you will only once be shown the ramifications of yours or elise's actions as they selfishly murder their way through among the most important events in history and that solitary moment is merely background it has no impact on either of the characters three it's an assassin's creed these are never dark games so unless they suggest otherwise and more often than not they do the player assumes the protagonist to be the good guy izano as dull as he may be not framed as the witty larger-than-life charmer we all come to expect from a hero and is german as bad as he may in fact be not framed as a cartoonishly evil villain with his speeches and dark robes this game had none of the nuance of its predecessors and those weren't exactly deus ex let's be clear arno is not the good guy not by any conceivable measure an immoral protagonist isn't something new to assassin's creed but i've never seen that as a bad thing not until now edward has what arno doesn't a larger than life quality that arno is stripped of following the intro ideals beyond the most boringly selfish and thorough believable development not a shred of which survives the trip to france even at his most selfish edwards still had goals you wanted him to achieve to create a truly free society to save his friends from the oncoming storm to build up enough money to set his family for life he didn't fight for the greater good initially but a good nonetheless elise isn't good at all arno joined a brotherhood of violent ideologues and massacred for her that's unforgivable yet still not enough anna was enslaved by guilt and love dogmatically following his goddess a false idol enslaved by revenge she knew this arno told her elise de lesser was a psychopathic manipulator and arno dorian was her sword he pulled the trigger so i cannot empathize for long it's evil without the depth to make it interesting without the charisma to make it compelling and without the development or the thematic weight to make it meaningful i keep my praise reserved for the ending nothing beyond that i find it difficult to talk about some of the modern day plots of these games because they can be so disconnected and dully paced that they could only do the same to the video too but i don't have to worry so much about unity here's the gist of the modern day plot germa is a sage abstergo using arno's memories to find the location of his therefore invaluable body the assassins are trying to do the same thing quicker who will win doesn't matter because arno had the foresight to destroy german's body in the 1700s and that's the modern day plot they've just given up babe it is time for your 4pm jermaine miller how better to sum up the story yes honey is one half germain murdering is the other and both are uncompelling it is far more concerned with having you bounce from one dull target to another on a soulless hit list than it is with depth meaningful conflict or growth it is the most thoroughly boring narrative i have ever played in a game of this budget and it is the greatest contrast between quality of a story and quality of gameplay to a grim and mystifying degree unity is the hardest game i've ever had to talk about even writing a simple conclusion is a challenge shot in the woods and buried at release only to return six years later with many of the same bugs crawling out of its skin a remarkably strong capturing of both mechanics and flair make it unmatched at bringing the assassin's creed fantasy to life and despite having among the weakest stories in the franchise by popular opinion it simultaneously provides among the most enjoyable campaigns it pioneered co-op in a city so brilliant it's good evidence for time travel there's even puzzles that respect your intelligence and yet a reward so hilariously worthless it's like you're being made fun of how do you frame a game like this without losing all the nuance it's almost human-like in its deep numerous flaws contradictions and beauties unity is a joke of a diamond fool's gold a mess and a masterpiece a king of the franchise yet rotting dead yet risen again trust me i am going somewhere with this metaphor and so is arno let's find unity's grave [Music] so [Music] dead kings is assassins creed unity's epilogue chapter originally to be released as dlc but following the launch catastrophe it was given out indefinitely to everyone for free albeit not intentionally the epilogue therefore adds to unity's overall value which was already pretty god damn high this is an interesting one we're going in depth more in depth i mean of course i'd struggle to even boot this up if all we were getting was the story but perhaps i was mistaken to think that way frontiard makes even the grimmest of play gridden villages in the witcher look clean and the intro matches that moodiness a secretive meeting in the bar with the marquis de sade one last job for arno before he leaves france for good his mental state matches the setting after having lost elise the sun doesn't shine here anymore dead kings immediately distinguishes itself from the base game by presenting you with opportunities not for assassination but for infiltration and what is your target louis ix crypt buried underneath the solar skeleton of sandinis basilica god has left the building but his light shines on the designers apparently logically a black box opportunity should trade short-term risk for long-term reward what unity failed at was rewarding proportionally to the risk taken and failing to give you any idea of what the reward would even be dead kings immediately does work to correct that the added risk of going for the organ reduces risk further down the basilica by distracting the guards it is also blatantly obvious what playing an organ in the middle of a heavily guarded fortification would do the riot outside is weaker you don't risk anything by pressing a button to make the game easier and it's not entirely obvious how it'll play out but since your only objective is getting inside the building it's fair to assume a riot will immediately pull the outside guards away having slipped into the crypt we're introduced to the unique mechanic that drives dead king's atmosphere about as overtly as physically possible the lantern cockroaches gather by the hundreds bats swarm only the light can drive them away it's a shallow mechanic of course all you have to do is periodically refill your oil but with looks like these it just works following an intense extended and atmospheric infiltration of a nearby occupied library something remarkable happens when i said the sun doesn't shine in front yard i was only being figurative it does in fact shine every so often and i think it might be the most beautiful thing ubisoft have ever created it's not often that a game blows my mind with its visual fidelity 40 hours in unity is one of them and frontiard is where it peaks without question the contrast of hopelessness and heavenly light the purity of the sky against the rot of the streets and of course the utterly ridiculous level of detail from the rank floor to the empty churches god i'd hate to live there but i never want to leave it i don't know if this speaks to dead king's quality or unity's lack of it but among the most incredible things about this expansion is that events happen narratively and mechanically dead kings gives us the small things just for a few examples there was a group of revolutionaries earlier that followed arno into the crypt guided by one who says he knows where a hidden temple is but they find nothing and the captain locks him in the crypt to find it for his life a while later you'll find an actual demonstrably real level design puzzle that requires you to use a shortcut in a loop around to somehow pass a waterfall with a lit fire in hand think any of that happen in the main game or any of the many to come up near the decrepit windmill the second memory takes us to an excavation underneath it where we're soon to see yet more but do they always land raiders are an entirely new enemy type incredibly weak on their own but deadly in groups so the idea is that if you kill their leader the rest scuttle off it's varied i like it introduces something new to the multitude of tough stealth encounters in dead kings but i cannot overlook the execution of this so-called challenge in a group fight raiders will throw stones at you with absolutely no warning so once again you'll be severely damaged at the game's leisure they've actually managed to make a mechanical flaw into a feature at least with bethesda you can give them the benefit of the doubt and don't relax yet because only a corner away is something truly terrifying a child character uh oh chances are slim that any game writes a tolerable child character guess it's my lucky day kinda leon doesn't require endless protection he doesn't constantly pester you he's proactive and has a compelling naive personality a believable one leon is an orphan raised in this mess he's aggressive and mischievous but still being a kid he has this idea in his head that he's gonna save france so when napoleon's [ __ ] shows up with talk of inflicting control by creating the illusion that the wheat can rise to the top leon decides to chase him down arno follows god damn it kid but i gotta be grateful he did give us the guillotine gun if steampunk is all the visual commonalities of the industrial revolution exaggerated to express itself in every aspect of being then frontiard is 1700s paris punk the light choked up by the rot crows coying as the people starve and a giant guillotine-like axe glued onto the end of a cannon it's so perfect as a concept in execution however the guillotine doesn't quite live up to its reputation put into practice it has the exact same moveset as the heavy weapons and by dead kings that's a real disappointment weapon animations are starting to tire by now i didn't appreciate being cucked and as much as i like the idea of a mortar it's not hard to see why that's not much use in the average fight having caught back up with leon arno can't be bothered with playing the parent he forcefully demands him to give back what he took and leon calls anna a prick he's right anna was already a dumbass as well as a murderous psychopath but now he's even more of a waste man but now he's even more of a waste man he tells leon to forget france and that he'll never be able to save the people he takes leon's hope away as angry now as he was when he screamed to leon that he's going to get himself killed for nothing as much as i think arno is a weapons grade douche canoe to witness the consequences of elise's loss was interesting and had me excited for how it might develop which was pretty god damn quickly because her zombie ass shows up the very next minute arno gives chase and upon catching her finds that she was just to look alike i'd call this an effective way of further demonstrating his mental state but seriously anyone would think this was elise she's practically a cosplayer how many women had dyed red hair in 1700s france and that's not to mention the outfit it comes across as more ridiculous than anything else but the game still uses it to justify an upcoming development in a matter of a minute long conversation unity had me invested in leon's foster mother madame margot a great deal of depth is revealed by her sly attempt at guilt-tripping you and her interesting recognition of arno's affliction love is a prison she says her husband made her know that and it's why she abandoned her first son it's at this point i think anna recognizes his delusions over release and decides to rise above them in the only way he can making it up to leon doing the right thing instead of wallowing in his cynicism is that character development in my unity yeah we're going to say france and we're going to do it by getting whatever napoleon's after first this mission presents itself as a hands-off investigation it's up to you to solve the mystery of the basilica and it's abbott sugar his real name's suger but i'm not i'm i'm just going to say sugar i was excited the nostradamus enigmas were great fun and now with relevance to an interesting mystery i'd be more engaged than ever and i was but not with the game i was engaged with deciding which words would best describe my disbelief you don't even have to read the riddle you just press the interact button for an instant display of the next location it was an interesting investigation for about two minutes but now it's a mindless wild goose chase i understand not everyone wants to solve riddles in a main mission so i wouldn't care if it was easy but this isn't easy it's brainless the solution object literally glows gold and the search area on the mini-map is about the same radius as the nostradamus sound effect you follow the marker then the noise you could train a pigeon to do this [ __ ] or a rat for a quick foray into dead king's unsurprisingly vast offering of side content you now have five more nostradamus enigmas this time branded as the mysteries of abbott sugar what's consistent is that they point towards things that could be anywhere at all and what's weird is that all of them are marked as one star understanding what it is you need to be looking for is usually effortless but arbitrarily the solutions might be contained in a small zone around the start or they might be on opposite sides of the map in a supposedly one star enigma i was asked to find some rats some rats how on earth was i meant to know where rats are hanging out or which rats are the right ones easily because by the third riddle i realized all of the solutions were right next to the start so i just ran around for a bit listening for the sound effect and yet in another supposedly one star enigma i was asked to find some kind of grave the expansion is called the dead kings that could be anywhere in the numerous catacombs the giant cemetery and the literal dead king's crypt how in the world could i have known to go to the top right of the most heavily guarded part of france yard over any of the others don't get me started on the time i was meant to look for three white walls bloody sweet can't wait to check every [ __ ] white surface in the village until i luck in to the right one you see the nostradamus enigmas would have clues in the riddle that could be cross-referenced with the in-game database or google but it seems to me most of this front yard was just made up there are no such entries to research in the immortal words of myself these riddles suck us a reverse card i suppose on the situation we had in paris because this time the reward isn't a practical joke for solving every one of the abbott's riddles the eagle of sugar is yours in real life this is of ours but in unity a sword dipped in god's fire in his very name it works god it works with stats to match the sword of eden just as a bass line the blinding light emitted by chance on hit makes this weapon inhuman unstoppable the most heavily guarded of dead king's few clearable outposts wasn't greeted by stealth like the others but by an angel of death wielding the eagle is needless to say an empowering experience the sprint button loses all meaning i think it might be wise to put this away for now but it does effectively contribute to dead kings sense of finality i've said before that usually the end game encounters and rewards come with a sense of satisfying mastery over the game itself where carnelian doesn't bear thinking about the eagle lands and so surprisingly does the economy in unity the best armor can match the grind of its predecessor's legendary sets simply because it's so expensive fret not the amount of cash you stand to earn from dead kings is enormous by the end you'll easily be good to buy a couple excellent pieces of end game armor i went through more than a few sweet looking outfits during my time in front yard but strangely having done this ubisoft still haven't made obvious balancing changes to the heists 2 000 base 8 000 bonus so if you play it perfect you can get as much as one story mission genius though maybe it is maybe it's smart to disincentivize this game's co-op in another stroke of genius dead kings takes a complete 180 with regards to hand-holding and you're thrown into a puzzle dungeon whatever napoleon wants it's behind that door first we need to activate it three beams will do apparently we're playing zelda now too no point in spoiling the first and third both are fairly simple but the second now that's an interesting one you got four sets of symbols corresponding to four images of a horse you're looking to light them in the correct order huh maybe the progression of the horse is rearing nope well each warrior's weapon is pointed either up or down so match them no horsemen of the apocalypse perhaps wrong again okay fine the symbols then after a bit of tinkering i thought we might need to treat this like dominoes match the last symbol with another plates first i was right but it didn't matter because it turns out you have to begin the sequence with either the third or fourth plate depending and i'm being serious on your play through now technically this is fair because though they aren't numbers it's logical to assume the sequence should start with a one but on the other hand how in the [ __ ] did the devs go from literally showing you the riddle answers to the [ __ ] da vinci code in the span of an hour you know i've never been bullied by a puzzle before but now we've got the lock and in a world of locked rooms the man with the key is king napoleon is hidden it deep beneath and what's that it's regicider clark his rat's nest castle is brimming with raiders quite the stealth challenge and because this is dead kings we're also granted a couple opportunities one has you steal the raiders loot to create a riot and another has you shoot a narrator to scare off the rest both of these are everything an opportunity should be risk for reward and self-explanatory finally lock and key are ours time to find out what truly lies in the dead king's crypt the spectacle of the temple cavern is the perfect blend of first civilization with frontiard's moody paris punk art style the roofs glow a dim blue while swarms of bats circle overhead the cruel and now traitorous captain rose provides a beautiful though mechanically dull boss fight he got what he deserved cut down moments before holding the greatest treasure in france the head of sandini an apple of eden bewitched by some dark unspeakable thing the music sells the grim spectacle of the following slaughter to absolute perfection raiders swarm but the curse swarms them faster no one should have this power it's a fitting climax using a fitting artifact truly remarkable how consistently the stylization of dead kings bleeds through its every aspect but more remarkable is this expansion as a whole dead kings ends with what feels like a pathway to redemption the apple is sent to al-mualeem napoleon is arrested for his crimes and arno smiles once more france is saved much to leon's joy the expansion succeeds at telling its own story but also as serving as an epilogue to unity every character received a fitting end not like the story had to do much to sell dead kings regardless franciard is among the most graphically proficient in artistically beautiful locations i've seen within all without this franchise oh i may be an aura of paris but i am in love with franciad it brought more than enough content to justify spending a good deal of time there and its campaign was a pleasure to play through thanks to the consistent variation and strong mechanical foundation dead kings was the perfect note to end unity on i am incredibly relieved that no one has to pay to play it and incredibly happy that a halfway decent narrative eventually graced this otherwise fantastic game it is part way redemption for arno and for unity this game is a monument of two kinds one to ubisoft's sins and the other to all assassin's creed used to be if that excites you then it'd be a disservice to miss it thank you for watching [Music] special thanks go out to fabian flack what's ben played flip slip me dick the one true ethan hundley i know lucky blake noland dylan schaefer murphy marty mr t with some tea gurneel kang sim john laemmle bishop nelson benjamin carter dominic jaworski lex williams l hudson john b sean oddie dan walker arc nines yeetlord brenden frank riff the last great opium den wartholt jack nash paddy mcphee phosphor lucas azevedo thomas h hey i'm tim joshua w shriner psy captain excellent shade quarter gamer ballistic rainbow chance tucker drop zz combat wombat juris purin's holy shift andrei baltuta noah b satelly leon cottondahl and abby

Channel: Whitelight

Views: 2,500,613

Rating: 4.9297266 out of 5

Keywords: assassin's creed unity, assassin's creed unity gameplay, assassin's creed, assassins creed, assassin's creed unity review, assassin's creed unity review 2020, assassins creed unity parkour, assassins creed unity parkour gameplay, ac unity, ac unity gameplay, ac unity review, ac unity parkour, ac unity 6 years later, assassins creed unity 6 years later, white light assassin's creed, whitelight, ac unity graphics, ac unity pc, act unity ps4, unity review, unity parkour

Id: Z5dOporS8IY

Length: 92min 27sec (5547 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 06 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/TheJoshider10]

I will always have a soft spot for this game because of what it attempted with regards to pedestrian density. This is one of the only games I've ever played where the open world feels lived in and it doesn't sacrifice pedestrian density. I'm fed up of playing games set in densely populated areas but there's barely anyone around, case in point any game set in New York and Times Square is fucking empty. It kills all immersion. Spider-Man PS4 clearly tried but was pushing the hardware and hopefully next gen can help fix this, because having pedestrians literally everywhere really makes a difference.

In terms of as an overall game, I can't believe that the fucking French Revolution is nothing more than set dressing for the story. It should have been the key fucking thing with Arno and Elise right on the front lines. I feel the Arno/Elise angle had so much potential but felt pretty underdeveloped which is a shame because if executed properly I probably would have got emotional at the ending.

It's a shame Unity released in such a poor state because I think it deserves a lot of credit for being one of the first current gen games that actually felt current gen and tried to push the technology. As an overall game it's pretty average with a lot of wasted potential but there was clearly a lot of effort put into it.

[u/Qbeck]

As someone who played every single AC before Origins/Odyssey, I think this game was the apex of amount of NPCs on screen and scale of the city, like the technology was finally ready. Also I liked how the assassination missions were presented/"isolated", which I dont think was featured since AC1.

Game just didnt feel that fun though.

[u/[deleted]]

The biggest thing I miss about this game is the "parkour down" feature. It was so fucking cool and the only game that ever used it.

[u/GarbageBath]

God, I hate how much this game absolutely wasted the French revolution.

If you wanna make "Assassin's Creed: Romeo and Juliet", fine, but using an event as epic, interesting, and important as the French revolution as a fucking barely explored backdrop is an absolute travesty.

[u/Ghidoran]

I've tried to get back into the game many times but I always give up after a couple hours. The visuals and setting are excellent, of course, and I love the parkour, and the handful of new mechanics they added to the stealth, but man, the missions, the gameplay, the story are all so dull. It's especially difficult to get back into the game after playing the newer titles, which feel like they have much more to offer, even if they do take some steps back as far as being an 'assassin' goes.

I think if you're looking for a very specific Assassin's Creed experience, that being, running through rooftops in a dense city and being a true stealthy killer, then Unity does have something to offer, but as an overall game it's easily the weakest entry in the franchise.

[u/earwig20]

AC Unity made assassinations a big deal again. Multiple ways to approach and the ability to enter buildings really improved them.

I wish the parkour down feature stayed with the series.

[u/Psymon_Armour]

I enjoyed doing the multiplayer missions so much. Synchronized stabs, chaotic escapes, multiple areas of approach, some of the most fun MP I've ever done.

[u/samsaBEAR]

I recently played through Odyssey and it's DLC, then noticed the Ezio Collection is on sale atm on Xbox so picked it up as I haven't played it in years. I enjoyed both Origins and Odyssey, but after playing AC2 again I really miss a game being set in one big city/three or four key cities where the world feels real. I still love AC as a franchise but the way they've turned it into an RPG, complete with fetch quests and "kill x amount of enemy" missions kinda bums me out.

[u/realme857]

If you can, play the game with French audio and English subs. It's a more authentic experience.