Assassin’s Creed Unity (Musing/Review)

Arno Dorian, the least French Frenchman in the universe

Genre: Action, Adventure, Stealth

Available Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One

Platform I played it on: PC

Developer: Ubisoft Montreal

Publisher: Ubisoft

So I finally managed to make it through AC: Unity, despite the game’s best efforts to keep me from doing so. I’m not even kidding. Before the game was patched, I couldn’t even make it to sequence 2 of the story! Even after patch 1.4 I still experienced random crashes and glitches that just sucked all enthusiasm out of me to finish the game. But, I digress… I made it through the game and came out of France with the one thing that matters here: an opinion!

Let’s jump right in, shall we? Unity is set in France (in case you didn’t know) in the late 1700’s, during the turbulent French Revolution. You play Arno Dorian, an orphan at the onset of the game who is unknowingly adopted into a Templar family. Many years later, after he is framed and imprisoned for the death of his adoptive father (who was a Templar Grandmaster), he learns of his heritage as an Assassin and the truth of his family. Naturally, he joins the French branch of the Assassin Brotherhood and embarks on a quest for revenge, redemption and maybe a spot of saving his country from tearing itself apart if it’s along the way.

The one thing you might notice straight away is that Arno is trying desperately to be Ezio 2.0. He’s a (sort of) French noble with very a rogue-ish, anti-authoritarian attitude, with all the hotheadedness and (admittedly forced) charm and humour of this character archetype. He even has the exact same character arc, with the death of his father figure leading him to the Assassins and his sole motivation being his drive for vengeance and redemption. However, where he fails is that Ezio had actual charisma, presence and general badassery; while he is very bland, boring, downright unlikeable sometimes and ultimately forgettable. He isn’t even really the star of his own game! That honour goes to his supporting cast: mainly his grisled, rough mentor Bellec, and his love-interest/adoptive sister (it’s not technically incest right?), Elise De La Serre, who also happens to be a Templar. These types of relationships are the most interesting part of the story, but they feel so half-baked and unresolved. I WANT to see more of them, I WANT to go more in depth into them and the whole Templar/Assassin allegiance thing that the game hints at. Arno could’ve been a much better character, torn between the two worlds and ideologies, between love and heritage, maybe making him question his own motivations and philosophies. He could’ve been forced to decide which path to take or something like that. Sadly these sorts of ideas aren’t even toyed with in the game.

The story in general isn’t the greatest in the franchise. It’s bland, like Arno himself, and while the setting is interesting, it isn’t utilized to its full potential. Instead of influencing events, Arno just sorts of witnesses them. He’s like a snarky puppet, lead from one thing to the next on a string. He encounters various influential characters from the time period, such as the Marquis de Sade and Napoleon, but even these are just brief passing encounters, relevant for a single sequence before being forgotten completely. The most impact he has in the Revolution comes in the second last sequence of the game! There are the usual twists and turns along the way as you unravel more of the Templar agenda and the truth behind the Revolution itself, but these are also weak and can be seen from a mile away. That’s not to say the story doesn’t have some strong, moving and memorable moments, but again all of these involve the supporting cast. I’ll give an example of one: (WARNING MILD SPOILER) Arno is forced to fight his mentor in what is probably the most memorable, sad and cinematic fight in the entire game. The worst part is that the ending is so lacklustre, confusing and unsatisfying that it all seems hardly worth it… Thankfully the storyline is pretty short, if you just want to run through it. The overarching future storyline of the franchise is also largely forgotten, with the only interactions with this world being a few words now and again from the Assassins Rebecca and Shawn from previous games encouraging you to keep on playing. The only way you can learn anything about the world outside is doing a sequence of side missions to gain “Assassin Intel” database entries that fill in some gaps and drop a few hints as to what’s happening outside the simulation.

The gameplay is mostly the same as previous games, but with a few changes and noticeable omissions. For one, parkour has been improved/worstened by separate “free-run up” and “free-run down” buttons. When it works, it makes free-running much smoother, faster and responsive than in previous games, but it does have some faults, such as lacking any actual control as to where you want to go. It’s a good change, but it needed some more work. Combat has also been made somewhat harder. Parries no longer count as an automatic counterattack/kill move, they just knock an opponent out of their attack and you must capitalize on this opening yourself. It takes some getting used to, but once you have the hang of it, it becomes about as easy as combat in the other games. Pro tip: spam smoke bombs when you’re surrounded. It stuns enemies for long enough that you can take out at least 2-3 of them for every smoke bomb dropped and additionally breaks the line of sight of anybody who’s trying to shoot you (fucking goddamn archers are the worst thing in the world). There’s also a stealth mechanic where you can crouch anywhere instead of just hiding in prerequisite areas. When it works, it’s pretty good for silently dispatching guards, but as with everything in this game it’s prone to just not working properly and making shit harder for you. Small things like being able to whistle from cover to drawn guards to your position so you can kill them has also been removed for some reason, which is very puzzling to me. A skill tree has been added to the game, with many normally classic abilities from previous games (such as double assassinations and certain types of blending) being locked away until you have enough skill points and have reached a prerequisite sequence in the game. Lockpicking has also been added to the game, with the majority of chests now being locked, as well as certain doors, gates etc. This is easily the change that infuriated me the most because it’s not even GOOD lockpicking, a la Skyrim, but is instead a dumb timing mini-game. There are 3 lockpick skill tiers and God help you if you attempt to pick a lock above your current level. The last level doesn’t even unlock until sequence 9, so you won’t be able to get the majority of chests and a handful of side missions until you reach that point. Each piece of your equipment is customizable and have their own stats and benefits, such as belts affecting how much of certain types of consumables you can carry. You can mix and match armour pieces as you see fit to suit your particular play style. There are unlockable costumes (some of which, like all the previous protagonists’ iconic Assassin costumes, being locked behind the Initiates companion app, which is bullshit), but they are largely useless because your stats are still affected by what you actually have equipped, so they’re just cosmetics. There’s also a wide range of weapons, bombs and firearms available for your usage and a new Phantom Blade which is basically a crossbow fixed on your hidden blade, but this is largely useless because it’s not as stealthy as you might imagine and bullets are just cheaper.

Let’s talk about the actual meat of the game, because there is a lot to touch on. There are an absolute metric fuck ton of collectibles and side missions for you to collect and participate in. Before I continue, I just want to warn you that finding all of these collectibles and side missions can be a chore because obviously the viewpoints don’t actually reveal them all (why Ubisoft? Just why?). I spent a great deal of time running around France just searching for missing shit and if you’re a completionist this will really test your patience. On the collectibles side, you have the usual chests (most of them fucking LOCKED), artifacts (largely useless but completed sets do unlock certain pieces of equipment and weapons), sync points which are only found in co-op missions, and cockades (not what you might think), which is also useless and just unlock new colour schemes. The side missions are similarly largely useless, but thankfully are more interesting. Easily the best side missions are the murder mysteries, where you are required to put on your best Batman impression (complete with detective/eagle vision!) and solve numerous murders around Paris. These get repetitive after a while, but for the most part they are very enjoyable and I had the most fun with them. There are the generic side quests, known as Paris Stories, which are only interesting because you can interact with some more notable characters from history and learn a bit more about the time period. You can also renovate cafes and these unlock missions which involve helping the people of Paris out in various ways and add to your overall income. There are also “Helix Rifts”, which take place in 3 different time periods of France’s history, namely: the Middle Ages (specifically during the Hundred Years War with England), the Belle Epoque (the golden age of Europe, taking place between around 1870 until the start of the first World War), and finally World War 2 occupied France. These are explained in the game as glitches in the “Helix”, which is the in-game platform you’re experiencing Arno’s memories through. While interesting when they first appear in the story, they quickly devolve into a nuisance because each of them must be played at least 3 times in order to collect all the Assassin Intel I mentioned before. There are 7 in total and they basically involve you running around beautiful, small environments collecting points in order to free Assassins trapped in the rift before the time limit runs out. Finally, there are the co-op missions. These come in 2 flavours, namely Heists (which are as useless as pretty much everything in this game unless you want some extra cash) and the actual missions. Completing these co-op missions gift you with additional skill points you can use to upgrade your abilities, as well as pieces of equipment. Each mission must also be played at least 3 times if you want every piece of equipment from them. Thankfully these missions can be played solo if you’re like me and don’t play online. They also actually contain some real story and involve moments in the Revolution that aren’t shown or mentioned in the main story and are worth giving a play through just to see the story and bag those extra skill points. I must confess that I didn’t finish all of them because I actually got pretty bored and fed-up with the game after a certain point and just wanted to get it over with.

There is a lot wrong with Unity: from the crippling bugs, crashes and just overall not-good-ness, to the weird design decisions and some dumb A.I (I’ve actually had quest NPC’s get stuck for no reason and had to physically run into them to push them back into their animations and pathing). But, for (almost) every wrong misstep Ubisoft has taken with this game, they actually do something really cool. France is an absolutely stunning, dense and highly detailed sandbox that actually feels like its living and breathing (despite some occasional A.I fuck ups). The actual assassination missions in the story are amazing, with you choosing your own way to approach the target. This freedom is refreshing and you can literally take down targets however you like. Go in guns and blades blazing, pick off guards until you isolate your target, or subtly set up pieces around the area to unlock new opportunities for yourself (such as allies, secret openings and unique assassinations). It’s all up to you. The soundtrack is awesome and the voice acting is very good, despite the fact that for some unknown goddamn reason all the voice actors have ENGLISH ACCENTS! IN FRANCE! WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK UBISOFT?! It’s certainly disconcerting, especially if you’ve played the other games in the series where the accents matched the actual locations of the game, but you get used to it after a while.

In conclusion, Unity is a broken, deeply flawed game. When it actually works, at its core it’s a pretty good game, just not great… It’s the one game in the AC franchise that I wouldn’t necessarily recommend to anybody unless you’re already into the series. Even if you are a fan of the series it can be a hard sell. It doesn’t even contribute anything worthwhile to the overall franchise mythos or story, at least at face value. While France is a beautiful playground and there are some truly enjoyable aspects, there is a lot wrong with it, maybe too much even (even putting aside the technical issues). Play it for whatever reason you need to rationalize it to yourself if you truly feel like it. I hear that the co-op is actually quite fun, so if you like that sort of thing then it could be a saving grace. I’m gonna start on Rogue soon, which I heard is the better of the 2 games from last year. Also, AC: Chronicles: China is coming out this later this month, so get hype!

Conclusion: 3 FUCKING MOTHERFUCKING LOCKED CHESTS out of a possible 5