Zachariah Kelly

Assassin’s Creed fans don’t agree on much right now. Some fans debate over whether Assassin’s Creed 4 Black Flag is better than Assassin’s Creed 2, many argue about which of the newer games is the best, and even more are caught up feuding over the series’ shift to become an RPG – over the divide between the ‘Old school’ games and the ‘New games’.

The semi-genre shift caused a massive fracture in the fanbase. Some fans want games going back to the old ways, which seems to be the dominant opinion of the r/assassinscreed subreddit, whereas others like the direction of Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla, arguing the more dense, massive roleplaying worlds are far more interesting. With the community pulling in all different directions, it feels like Assassin’s Creed doesn’t have a solid identity anymore, apart from the series’ iconic touch-stones; white robe, hood, eagle, hidden blade (some of these have even been absent in recent titles).

Making matters more interesting is that next year Assassin’s Creed will be hitting the soft-reset button again with “Assassin’s Creed Infinity”, an ‘online game’ (could be an MMO, could be GTA-like) set across multiple time periods, with gameplay, mechanics and narrative to be confirmed. Will the Assassin’s Creed well dry up soon?

It’s unlikely – Assassin’s Creed has been Ubisoft’s baby ever since it was first released back in 2007, and Valhalla was reportedly the most successful Ubisoft launch game to date. Even if the upcoming game is a disappointment for new and old fans alike, we’ll likely see games after Assassin’s Creed Infinity that target that old itch (be it the ‘Old school’ itch or the to-be ‘Old games’ that will soon become descriptive of Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla). As for creativity, Assassin’s Creed hasn’t been sparse for ideas ever since its shift to larger, RPG-style games in an effort to mimic The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (for comparison: Assassins Creed Syndicate came out that same year, and the contrast between these games is quite dire on more than a few levels).

But now we’re back to defining what Assassin’s Creed is as a game. In 2021 Assassin’s Creed is a brand – there are books, there’s a Netflix show on the way, and there was that movie featuring Michael Fassbender (let’s not talk about that). The non-game content seems to carry the veneer of the franchise better than its mainline games, keeping its iconic livery front and centre, while games like Odyssey and Valhalla are far more caught up in exploring stories separate from the Assassin’s, but still very firmly in the universe of Assassin’s Creed. This isn’t a complaint by the way, Odyssey is one of my favourite games right now, and I raved about Assassin’s Creed Valhalla when it came out.

Why the heck am I rambling about Assassin’s Creed?

It feels cheap kicking off my blog with a piece on a multi-million dollar franchise like Assassin’s Creed, even cheaper to discuss a game from a company that has been at the centre of harassment allegations over the past year – but I just haven’t been able to stop thinking about this franchise. Throughout high school it was my favourite story and fictional universe, so I can’t and still cannot get enough of it. The sense of mystery, the gameplay, the characters and the freedom in the games had me absolutely amazed growing up, and to see the series evolve into what Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla are is incredible.

I’ve recently finished playing through Assassin’s Creed Origins for the first time, after the release of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s second expansion The Siege of Paris. When Assassin’s Creed Origins came out I didn’t play it – it seemed like a bad thing that Assassin’s Creed was completely changing its formula to be less about parkour and more about gear systems. Assassin’s Creed Syndicate had also left a bad taste in my mouth narrative and setting-wise. Boy was I wrong! Origins is an insanely beautiful game with terrific protagonists, with my only major criticism being that the shield is annoying, but Odyssey quickly fixed this. Compared to the old games, Origins felt like a necessary evolution, but Odyssey just innovated on its gameplay and mechanics tenfold.

The Siege of Paris felt to me more like a gutting of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and a return to more linear, uninteresting gameplay from the earlier games. Although the DLC features the return of ‘Black Box’ assassinations, where you’re given more freedom to pursue targets (I wasn’t phased by this) the DLC has very few dialogue checks and didn’t really build on the games RPG mechanics, beyond the addition of scythes and swords, the new weapons. This is probably just because it’s a DLC, which wouldn’t be unusual, as I had the same issue with The Curse of the Druids, the first DLC for Valhalla.

Ultimately it felt like a step back to Origins, as if the game was tired of being an RPG and wanted to go back to being more of an action game than a hybrid of the two. I already felt this in parts of Valhalla when compared to Odyssey, but Valhalla definitely gives you lots of choices, actions and consequences. To me it felt like Ubisoft was trying to impress fans of the ‘Old games’ with a more linear experience.

Old vs new

The ‘Old school’ games might have had more thorough cinematics rather than repetitive talking heads, but the new games are just so much better gameplay-wise. In Assassin’s Creed 2007 through to Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, you could eliminate most enemies with a single counter-attack, which made gear progression fairly redundant, especially when armour progression was removed in Assassin’s Creed 3. This was good for a time, considering Assassin’s Creed was a new game (for a while), and the ability to insta-kill most enemies definitely made you feel like a competent warrior in whatever setting your game was in.

The cost of this is that it’s simplistic, repetitive, and that it got boring as more games came out. The ‘Old school’ games were also plagued with tailing missions and boring side quests. With Origins, there’s only one or two tailing missions in the main questline, and many of the side quests are interesting. In Odyssey and Valhalla, dialogue choices, actions and consequences were added. Across all three, weapon variation and experimentation is deep, with tonnes of weapons to find and use, and every game gives you a more challenging time as you enter higher level areas. While Assassin’s Creed Unity and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate gave the player a decent amount of weapon choice and introduced levelled enemies, it felt awkward with the gameplay and the loop of the old game design.

To me, the choice is easy – more interesting, deeper worlds with greater customisation and a more engaging story, or a more linear game that makes you ‘feel’ good without making you play better. To Ubisoft, it’s definitely shaping up to be more than a choice between one or the other, with different systems introduced to appease older fans, such as the addition of the earlier mentioned ‘Black Box’ missions and the ‘guaranteed assassination’ button.

What’s next?

More crumby opinion pieces from fans like me probably. Watching Assassin’s Creed evolve has been fascinating – not just watching it jump from time period to time period, but watching it deal with what its fans want. We’ve seen the power fans have over games when they make them angry enough – Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is remembered by many as a turning point in the Call of Duty series, where in which Activision’s studios would avoid futurist settings in titles to come (excluding Black Ops 4, which made a big deal about not having jetpacks when it was announced).

Ubisoft would be foolish to blindly obey the demands of its older fans, but it’s got to avoid a situation like Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. Assassin’s Creed Infinity could be met with disappointment by fans at the drop of a trailer, but we don’t really know yet – everything’s up in the air.

The good news is that Ubisoft appears to be proactive about keeping all of its fans happy – Ghost Recon: Breakpoint featured a tiered loot system on launch that was met with massive disapproval by fans, so a more traditional non-tiered loot system was patched in that plays more like a normal MilSim – and the best part was that fans could choose between one or the other. Watch_Dogs: Legion was also criticised for its lack of narrative and memorable characters, so it even saw fan favourite characters and a linear narrative added in a DLC.

On a slightly related note, it’ll be interesting to see what happens with Immortals: Fenyx Rising, a game that grew out of Assassin’s Creed from the studio that made Odyssey. An action game with incredibly obvious inspiration from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Fenyx seems like the perfect game to experiment with right now, as it features Assassin’s Creed swordplay without the assassinations and with more puzzles.

So to wrap up, the future of Assassin’s Creed is vague. We’ll likely see more DLC announced for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla as it moves into a second year of content, but beyond that, it hangs in the balance of Assassin’s Creed Infinity, which we know little about. It definitely looks like Ubisoft is interested in keeping all parties happy, even if ‘Old school’ AC fans don’t like the RPG focus of the new games. Let’s just see where Assassin’s Creed will take us next.