Assassin's Creed Unity (2014)

What I liked:

• The graphics were fantastic, though the optimization could have been better.
• The parkour was enjoyable, but not perfect. I lost count of how many times I got frustrated because of a misjump or accidentally jumping to the wrong object, or even trying to leap into a window before being caught.
• The AI was surprisingly smart and tough—definitely one of the highlights.
• The story was good but didn’t quite live up to Assassin’s Creed standards. It felt more like a Romeo and Juliet fairy tale than the usual Assassin’s Creed narrative.

What I didn’t like:

• The map navigation was a nightmare.
• Many of the skills to upgrade felt useless. For instance, the double kill move—how is that supposed to be a kill when it wasn’t even effective? It has been there since AC1, which made me think the developers were too lazy to come up with new mechanics and just reused the old ones.
• Too many pointless online missions on the same map as the offline gameplay, making navigation even more annoying.

Overall:
The game is good, but it lacks polish in several areas.

I avoided it initially because of its reportedly sordid state - floating eyeballs , oh my! Coming to it several years later I found a beautifully realized Paris and the ability to run around it in a manner that felt semi rooted in reality. The fidelity of the game was incredible and having played all the mainline entries since (Mirage not withstanding) I think it's one of the best looking ones. Other positives include a reduced emphasis on tailing missions and a pretty fun variety of side missions - playing detective, etc.

On the negative side, the story really didn't do anything for me, and considering they were exploring THE REIGN OF TERROR I was extremely underwhelmed by what they chose to explore (or rather didn't) within the setting. You have to remember this was also the height of Ubisoft 'map of icons' bloat.

Enjoy it!

*4.5

Okay this game is the bees knees and everyone is lying to themselves. I originally played Unity in 2016 and while I would say I enjoyed it, there wasn't much about the game I could remember as LOVING. Upon this replay, however, I can safely say there's plenty to love about Unity.

Pros:

• Paris is BEAUTIFULLY realised, the environmental storytelling and 1:1 world design lends the setting a grandiosity unparalleled in the series, even better than the Ezio trilogy's settings. (how they even managed to make this game in 2014 astounds me!)
• Ubisoft gave Arno the thickest most juiciest azz of the series
• The side missions are all unique and interesting! Seriously, the amount of references to various niche historical events and people in the Paris Stories side quests is ridonkulous! (Personal Fav: The murder mystery of Marat)
• The story offers something a bit different to the past games, calling back to Altair and Maria, here Arno and Elise find themselves going rogue from their respective affiliations. There are some nice parallels (exiles, violent revolution) that help to deepen the thematic side of the story.
• THEY REDUCED THE AMOUNT OF TAILING MISSIONS AND NOW WHEN YOU LOSE A TARGET YOU DONT INSTAFAIL I COULD C*M
• The game can be HARD, these stealth missions never quite reach the level of Hitman, but the complexity of approaches is really refreshing. It's also good to see a return to large dramatic assassination missions, even if the targets are somewhat thinly characterised.
• The Dead Kings expansion is perfection. The Gothic ruins of Saint-Denis and the darker side content act as a great foil to the sun-soaked boulevards of Revolutionary Paris. Arno's story also gets a much more satisfying ending than in the base game, and again picks up on the series wide theme of father-son relationships.

Cons:

• The modern-day story flopped more than it has ever flopped before. It also just... is poorly integrated exclusively via cutscenes and doesn't get any resolution?
• While I love a lot of Unity's side content, it doesn't always reward the player very well. You have to be willing to lose yourself in the world and complete these tasks for your own enjoyment rather than because of any reward you receive. (This could have been remedied by tying more unique weapons/armour to them.)
• The primary antagonist is weak, and absent for most of the game. They also just dropped the Juno x Sage plot and relegate Juno's story to the comics, so here we're just chasing after a sage because.... why not?
• While the co-op missions are enjoyable, and can be completed solo without too much trouble, I think locking skillpoints behind these missions was a mistake. Furthermore, the game's relatively short main campaign is probably meant to be balanced out by these beefy side missions, but I would have much preferred more time with Arno and Elise.

Overall, I consider Unity a vast improvement over Black Flag. It's a really strong entry in the AC series, unjustly marred by its reputation for technological glitches upon initial release.

Assassin's Creed is a very oversaturated series. They release a game practically every year and more often than not get decent to mediocre reviews. Assassin's Creed Unity is a very interesting case.

It was the first 8th Generation Assassin's Creed game. It had a brand new engine, and look. Its gimmick was the multiplayer and it also has one of the greatest reveal trailers I've ever seen. It was one of the most highly anticipated games of the year and rightfully so.

And then the game released in 2014... And it sucked.

Riddled with game-breaking bugs, technical problems, slow and janky gameplay. It was an extremely disappointing response.

I played the game when it released at a friend's house and it was unbearable. However, I recently decided to play it again.

It's a lot better now. The single-player has practically been patched besides a few minor issues here and there. The game looks amazing and it has very exciting gameplay. Multiplayer is still absolute garbage and doesn't work tho.

In my opinion, Assassin's Creed Unity is probably the most immersive game in the franchise. Taking place during the French Revolution. You see the Revolution get worse and worse as the game progresses and I love that.

Its story is pretty hit or miss. It's extremely fun gameplay-wise and immersion-wise. You follow Arno Dorian, a young troublemaker douchebag who lost his father at a young age and is adopted by your friend's father. After being framed for murder, he tracks down the men responsible in a revenge like story.

The opening is fantastic and has one of my favorite title cards in the whole series. The ending is very bittersweet which is a nice touch. However, the story in the middle really dips in quality, and all the charisma Arno has is suddenly gone and he's just a serious badass now.

The game still has gameplay problems and some jank, But it's a lot better than when it launched.

Assassin's Creed Unity got better with age, with great gameplay (for the most part) an extremely immersive Revolutionary Paris to explore, and a great opening. However, it still suffers with a mediocre story with a lot of jank and dumb stuff that hampers the experience

Should've been like this when it came out

At launch

1/5

Wouldn't Recommend

Now

3/5

Would Lightly Recommend

FUN FACT

Assassin's Creed Unity is currently being used to help reconstruct the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France

Underwhelming. That is my main takeaway from this game.

Spoilers ahead, obviously.

Arno was a likeable enough character, and Paris was beautifully rendered - I was particularly impressed with the stained glass of Sainte Chapelle. The story was fine but nothing felt fantastic, especially compared with Black Flag which I only recently played through. I was especially disappointed at the lack of a modern day tie-in story. Not once does the player 'exit the animus' to wander around in 2014 (or whenever) and reveal clues about Abstergo's machinations. The fact that Germain was a sage also seemed to have no relevance to the storyline apart from why Abstergo was interested in him. We didn't learn anything more about Sages, or even the precursors which was another disappointment.

Also Elise died and no-one was surprised. Thanks Ubisoft.

Intro

This is an Assassin's Creed game - a third-person action/stealth game that takes place in an open world filled with a ton of crap to pick up & a bunch of missions to do.

The Great

There are about half a dozen missions in which they actually let you play an assassin! You get a target, an area where they're located and that's it. You get to find your own way in and deal with enemies like you see fit. It almost feels like a dollar-store Hitman at times!

The Good

• It looks really good, especially early on.
• Paris feels like a fairly 'real' city. There's tons of people going about their business. And it notably lacks conspicuous groups of warriors/courtesans standing on every corner waiting for you to hire them.
• Combat is better than in earlier games, with more weapon types and gadgets.
• Berserk ammo is still super-fun to use, especially on assassination targets.
• There's a fast-descent option now.
• Stores have a single-button refill all ammo option.
• There's always someone to murder.
• The detective missions are a nice addition.
• Money quickly becomes irrelevant.

The Bad

• Movement is still awful with Arno constantly climbing on tables and getting stuck behind tiny ledges. One time i actually had to Alt+F4 because i got stuck during a mission.
• Despite being improved combat is still poor. More than two different attacks would help.
• Attack warnings are on the enemy's HP bar, which makes it a pain to avoid them.
• The maps that show chests/missions are hidden in the E-store in the main menu?
• It takes forever to unlock the third lockpicking skill and the difficulty level of chests/doors isn't shown on the map...
• Outfit colours cost Creed points instead of money.
• There are a ton of weapon/outfit options and 99% of them are useless.
• Super-predictable story.
• The inventory is bad, you can't even compare items.
• Some of the enigmas require you to know really specific stuff about Paris and French history, and are thus almost impossible to figure out on your own for most of us.

The Ugly

• It's AC so there's instafail stealth missions, scripted platforming and godawful trailing missions. Just... why?
• You can only gain skill points from story/co-op missions. This means you can play for hours, killing hundreds and opening dozens of locks and essentially make no progress at all.
• Sometimes it's really really unclear where you have to go. The Bastille is especially painful to navigate.
• During detective missions the "new location unlocked" pop-up covers the "view this clue in the database" pop-up which covers the actual text of the clue. How can you even be this incompetent?
• Soldiers will attack you for 100% total bullshit reasons. After escorting Napoléon his bodyguards attacked me for walking past them. Wtf. Same goes for the soldiers next to the officer who asks you to disable cannons.
• There are other bugs too, i even had a CTD.
• This game came out only 6 years ago and Ubisoft has already discontinued support for some of its online elements.

Conclusion

This is the first AC game (out of 4) that i liked enough to complete the main mission. Whenever it stops desperately holding your hand it actually manages to be really good at times. It's kind of ironic that AC games are only fun whenever they're not being AC games. Black Flag is fun when you're doing pirate-stuff. Unity is fun when it's imitating Hitman. Maybe Ubisoft should take the hint.

As I gradually play catch-up with the Assassin's Creed franchise before Valhalla comes out, I considered skipping Unity. It was such a mess when it first came out, but apparently it then got better, so I flip-flopped a lot before deciding to give it a chance. And it was...well, it was a game I played through to the end. I guess this game can be broken down into the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good: After playing Black Flag and Rogue, it was refreshing to have an Assassin's Creed game that takes place in a city. Hopping from building to building, infiltrating palaces and cathedrals, and more! Don't get me wrong, Black Flag and Rogue were good video games. Arguably better than Unity as just video games. But as Assassin's Creed games, they left a lot to be desired.

The Bad: So, one of the reasons I ultimately picked up Unity was because it takes place during the French Revolution. Which, at least to me, is one of the most interesting points in history. But the game wasn't really about the Revolution. The main character, Arno, interacts with it a bit but it's more just there in the background. This isn't like Assassin's Creed 3 with the protagonist involved in every major event. The Templars are puppeteering a lot things, cause that's what they do, but the game is ultimately about Arno, not the world events happening around him. Not necessarily a bad take on things, but bad for me cause it's not really what I expected or wanted from the story.

The Ugly: In some ways, Unity takes a few steps backwards. The big way was buying skills. Do story missions, get skill points, buy skills. Sounds good, right? Well, for some reason some of the iconic game features are locked behind this. Things like throwing money as a distraction and performing double assassinations. And despite there being side missions EVERYWHERE, you have to get about 2/3 of the way through the story before all the skills are buyable. They also made key assassination targets immune to anything but the hidden blade. You can shoot these people in the head with a gun from across the room and they just go unconscious. No in-game explanation for this either. A passing line of "that's how Arno did it, so that's how you have to relive the memory" would have made this a lot better.

I didn't even do many of the side missions because they weren't really necessary to gather enough resources to beat the game. Not that the main plot was particularly compelling either. It's just a revenge/love story about Arno. And character stories can be really fun, but Assassin's Creed is never going to top Ezio because he had 3 full games for character development.

Anyway, I wouldn't say this game isn't worth playing. The multiplayer missions seem next to impossible to do since not that many people are playing this anymore. But the rest of the game is viable. While the AC games are good, this is by no means my favorite genre so that is coloring my opinion a bit. But if this is what floats your boat and you love doing side mission and hunting down collectibles, it's a decent option.

I deserve a trophy for completing this game. In what world did the creators of this make the decision it was ready for release. This is easily the worst assassin creed game I have played and one of the most broken games I have come across. At certain points, the character refused to properly walk/run and would get stuck on locations. The animations were glitchy, faces were off, the world was just broken. Completing boring missions and stories were extra hard due to these technical issues and god forbid you died because what awaited you were extra-long load times. The fighting was also very poor and clunky, the finish moves were buggy and looked awful. Lastly, the protagonist was uninspiring, dry, and a lot was left to be desired with the "kill this person, then kill this other person" storyline. The only thing successful in this tragedy was the environment and visuals, the city looked beautiful and the setting was interesting. Sadly, the game is just too broken to play and people on the internet were saying it had been fixed since launch, I disagree, this is just a mess of a mediocre game.

This game was crucified at release for being a buggy mess. Even in 2019, it still has a healthy serving of bugs, but nothing to make it totally unplayable. Granted, I probably had to replay about an hour's worth of content due to various bugs where a contextual button choice didn't show up when I needed it during an assassination mission. Multiple times, I got stuck hiding beside a doorway and the "Leave Cover" command disappeared, forcing me to restart from the last checkpoint. And other times, the combat commands would disappear, forcing my character to leisurely walk around while baddies murdered him.

The graphics are leaps and bounds ahead of all of the previous games in the series. The huge crowds of people on the streets are really impressive to see. Additionally, the music is used exceptionally well to set the mood of various scenes.

The game controls mostly the same as previous games, though the downward parkour controls are an extremely welcome addition. The game picks up an RPG-lite style skill tree, along with armour & weapons with an actual affect on stats.

This game suffers from a serious case of map-barf, unfortunately. Assassin's Creed IV had just enough collectable stuff on the map to make me want to go after the various chests & trinkets. Then they piled on a little more for Freedom Cry & Rogue. In Unity, you can barely even see the map behind the solid mass of icons. This put me in the same mindset as AC3, where I had no desire whatsoever to do anything outside the main story missions.

Overall, the game has a decent main story mission, and did a good job holding my attention.

Oh dear, I'm going against the grain here, cause I didn't find Unity to be the awful disgrace most consider it. I rather enjoyed it. Granted, playing it now I don't have to deal with all the numerous bugs & glitches that plagued launch day. Some of the hate also came from people randomly deciding with this entry that no women assassins made the game bad. It probably didn't help this was the next entry after the blockbuster success of Black Flag.

AC Unity actually feels more like a return to the original Assassin's Creeds. It especially feels like a return to the Ezio games. Arno is a fun character, but feels like he's the French version of the roguish playboy. I wish Arno didn't wear his hood all the time, they look silly & it covers his face, hurting the ability to build a connection. Being you're in Paris France, there's no ship combat. The big selling point of this one is accessible interior spaces. They sorta dabbled with them in AC 3, but here in Unity Paris is filthy with inside spaces because there isn't the vast forests and fields of the other colonial era games. The city has an open door or window to leap through about every other house. It makes sense as Paris is a congested, urban city, so being able to get through houses quick is a necessity to escape Templars. Another selling point was the co-op mode, but seeing as I'm playing this game 4 years after the fact, there wasn't anyone online to pair up with.

Again, UbiSoft's best work seems to be in creating the world spaces. You get a feel for being in Revolutionary Paris. The dingy alleyways, the umpteen different fancy palaces you break into, and the general restlessness of the population. I think this game had the most NPCs on screen at once of any game I've played. You could wade through huge crowds of people to complete missions. It was an impressive feat, but it did lead to trouble with pop-in of characters and people walking into each other.

Yeah, while most the heinous glitches were gone, there was still some general issues that make this feel more like a AA title, character and texture pop in, bad NPC pathfinding. It was nothing I'd consider game breaking, but it did ruin the suspension of disbelief. What was worse than any bug was the fact that EVERYONE in France spoke with English accents and used English phrases like "pisspot". It distracted me & made it seem like I was in colonial Britain. It seems very much like a marketing change, because no one likes the French. I went as far as to change the langue to French and just read the subtitles like it was a foreign French film. I recommend trying it that way, it really helps with atmosphere.

The combat and traversal have been updated as well. The combat feels quicker and more responsive over the older games and the simple free run climbing sees less of Arno making the incorrect jumps or getting stuck on scenery. This also has the last known location silhouette and Hitman-style assassinations that would be seen in Syndicate.

The base story of this game is the same of most Creed games, here's a group of Templars, now spend the next 10 hours killing them. Starting from this formulaic foundation, the story does have some neat twists to it, there'll be some spoilers from here on. I got into the AC series with the Colonial games; #3, Black Flag, Liberation. So it was strange for me to see a whole Assassin Brotherhood set up with rather lavish living conditions. For the most part they aren't really part of the story, they act as the stuffy old codgers who don't like Arno's wild & new ideas. I don't even know most their names. You do end up killing your mentor after he betrays the Creed, but you spend so little time with him, that it doesn't have the impact they were aiming for.

The bulk of the story involves Arno the Assassin working with his love interest, Elise, who happens to be Templar. Of course a story set in France would be one of romance. She's also a redhead, and with her, Anne Bonnie, and Caterina, I think a UbiSoft designer has a thing for gingers. Both Arno & Elise are sort of black sheeps of their respective secret society. The Templar Order killed her father (your adopted dad & the former grandmaster) so she wants revenge, and as an assassin your one job is to kill Templars. I kinda figured the story would end maybe with the Brotherhood ordering you to kill Elise, or her fighting you on the basis of principle, but nope, she stays with you for the whole game and gets iced at the very end.

The history of the French Revolution doesn't really play into the story all that much, it's more a background issue. Sure, the Templars are behind the Revolt in order to obtain power, but Arno doesn't really work with the Royalists or Revolutionaries in any capacity. Granted, I'm more an American historian, but the big moments i know of the French Revolution are storming the Bastille and King Louis' execution. The Bastille storming happens early on with little pomp and the King's execution is one of the last levels, but you really never see much of the king and Marie Antoinette is completely absent, no "Let them eat cake." scene. Arno isn't a part of the history like Edward was.

France also has special significance as it is the real origin of the Knights Templar. You start the game with a medieval prologue as de Molay hides a special sword, that doesn't really play an impact until the very end. I think they should've drew more from the fact this land is the origin of the Templar Order.

The modern sections in this game are the least intrusive in the series. Just a few cutscenes from an Assassin talking nonsense. It didn't take you out of the story for long Desmond sections, but I still prefer the Abstergo Entertainment plotline. You also have moments where the player as Arno jumps through time to visit France during WWII or the Victorian Era. It isn't as well done as the WWI section in Syndicate, cause you're still Arno, but he never comments on it, and it just raises a host of issues about how that all works. Still, WWII would be a fun Assassin game, it'd be the Sabetour basically.

The whole game actually feels rather short. There's some side missions, but they aren't really engaging. You run a cafe to make money, but outside that, there's not a lot of open world to explore.

All in all, I think this a fine, serviceable entry in the series. The story is not awful & I think this game's rap isn't completely deserved anymore, but I think the writing was on the wall that AC needed to take a break & build itself back up. Next up is Rogue.

I was close to a three star rating. And then I suffered through the end of the game. Unity is unfortunately dripping with narrative cliche that might actually give Watchdogs a run for the title of worst Ubisoft release. It's disappointing because there is a lot of great ideas in the game buried under poor mechanics, excessive filler and generic storytelling. While I experienced none of the bugs that were present at launch, I still found elements of the game that need significant polish. Free running is plagued with problems, problems that made even the tragedy that is Edward's land based movement in Black Flag seem elegant. Unity is the best example of the problems inherent in pushing out a game this big every year. Thankfully Syndicate was better executed and makes up for this game's vast shortcomings. I think Ubisoft made a wise decision taking an extended period off between Syndicate and Origins. Origins might hit the sweet spot of great ideas combined with great execution, the latter of which Unity is completely missing.

One last note: the fact that my total sync is only 40%, even with the completion of the main story and side tasks like climbing towers and unlocking all social clubs and completing contract assassinations, is a significant indicator of the level of content bloat in this game. There is simply far too much to do that I barely have the energy to care about completion.