Assassin’s Creed: Unity. Rin’s thoughts and feelings
I haven’t played Assassins Creed: Unity since 2015. I know that I might be looking back at it through rose coloured glasses, but this review is purely my opinion, and I love my pink glasses.
This review also isn’t going to be a critical gameplay and story review, just more my thoughts on the game after four or five years, what I remember, and how it still lingers in my mind.
Over the last couple of days, I’ve been having thoughts about co-op games that I played in the past, and Assassins Creed Unity was honestly one of my favourite games at that stage of my life. It was also the last Assassin’s Creed game that I finished, I played Syndicate, but never got around to finishing it.
Assassin’s Creed Unity came out while I was in secondary school. about the time Black Flag came out was when my friend, I’ll call him Jacob, introduced me to the Assassin’s creed series. he lent me all the games on Xbox 360 and I played through AC2, Brotherhood, and Revelations before returning them to him. I never really played the first Assassin’s Creed game.
When the trailer for Assassin’s Creed Unity came out, Jacob and I were excited to say the least. The world premier trailer still holds it’s place in my mind and is one of my favourite trailers. Along with 2 more of our friends, we were talking about the game every day on the school playground. We actually started team-building exercises playing other games together like Payday 2 and Left 4 Dead 2.
I pre-ordered AC:U, got the metal case a day early and installed it overnight. Went to school the next day excited to play the game when I got home. If anyone remembers the release of Assassin’s Creed: Unity, it had one of the worse receptions of a worldwide launch. the game was extremly buggy, including an infamous no face bug which was kinda disturbing. But, I didn’t experience any bugs. My game ran just fine.
The story of the game is a little bit lost on me all these years later. I remember trying to seige a castle in the first mission, a romance with Elise, some of the later missions too. the story was good enough to keep my attention for it. But, the story was something I didn’t really focused on. I was there for the Co-op.
The Co-op in the game was open world, with a handful of missions that had randomly generated elements, like where a painting was in a building or the route that guards took. the variation mission to mission made it fun and added a replay value.
We had all decided before hand we would all use different weapons, all look into different skills to be the best team we could. I was the Stealth girl. Jacob was the all-rounder, mostly a fighter. Then the remaining two of our group was the heavy weapons man and the ranged guy. Regardless of how you play the game, you’re still not limited to any specific path, which was helpful for Jacob and I.
The other two members of our group weren’t as active as we thought they were going to be. Our heavy weapons guy only played with us a couple of evenings, and our ranged guy had a curfew before he had to leave for homework each night. Most of the time, it was just Jacob and I. The several months we played bought us a lot closer together.
Jacob and I were driven, the games Social Clubs gave us a goal to aim for. For every assassination, every kill, the game gave points. the more intricate the kill, the more points it would get. We soon got to a point were we would run around a city, see two guards and with a word, we would assassinate our targets simultaneously. Every week, we aimed for the top of the leaderboard and moved up the ranks. after a month or two, we reached some of the top in the UK.
I also fondly remember part of a mission, while the mission was able to completed either in stealth, or as loud as we wanted, we set outselves to complete it stealthly. With the ever shifting guard patterns when we failed, we soon found that the best strategy was not planning, but playing it by ear. Our teamwork and individual skills combined allowed us to clear the mission, gaining a large amount of the points we sought after.
Looking back at the game, while it’s got a fairly contriversial name as being a bad game, I really did enjoy my time playing. I might even go as far as saying it might be my favourite Assassin’s Creed game. Not for the story, or the characters. But for the fun experiences I had with my friends.
In honour of calling myself a reviewer, I have to change the tone of this review. I can’t go on about all the good points of my personal experience, and fail to mention any of the bad ones. From my own view, there were very few bad things about the game.
One thing I wished while I was playing, was that there were more co-op missions. After a while, we had finished all the missions several times over in many different ways. there was only a handful of co-op missions, even after the DLC was released too. Everyone had wanted the whole story to be Co-op too. I really would have enjoyed the story being co-op, but I feel that the game was limited by it’s ties to real life, and it’s way to have set paths through missions.
The story also isn’t memorable. I only remember parts of two or three of the missions, I don’t remember what the goal was apart from something about the Sword of Eden, I don’t even really remember who the main antagonist of the story was either. If you played Assassin’s Creed for the story, I personally felt it had been going downhill ever since Assassin’s Creed 3. The story didn’t seem too important to the overall story that the games were telling.
Now onto some more positive notes. For the first time in an Assassin’s Creed game, I felt like I had my own character, and I wasn’t playing as someone else. And I think that might be a reason why there wasn’t a strong story or characters. not being bound to the Assassin’s code like many of the former assassin’s not out for revenge like Connor, or out being a pirate like Edward. I felt like I was free to make my character my own. I picked up the spear as my main weapon, also using the hidden blades a lot too. I customised my outfit rather than just having the colour changed or a slight difference. While I moved around the city, I wasn’t calling my character Arno, I was referring to myself. I was immersed in being my own character.
The skill trees I wasn’t too sure on at first, but after exploring the game with my friends and carrying out missions, I felt like I had worth in a team. With two players and three enemies, my double assassinations were needed. While I lacked the chance to have openings in main combat, I was able to fill in by throwing a smoke bomb. The way I played my character was different from how Jacob played his. If I went back to play the game again today, with a new save file, I would feel different from how I played before. and that’s the experience I love in a game, that I’m making my own story, not fufilling someone else’s.
Since I played Assassin’s Creed: Unity, a lot of things have happened in my life. Four years is a long time and no time at all. I look back at my time playing Unity and I did thoroughly enjoy it. I think it’s a shame that the game was so badly recieved.
I know ever since Unity, there hasn’t been any Co-op Assassin’s Creed games. Since the games went back to being set in the BC timeline, I haven’t had the urge to pick it up and play the game. I don’t have enough understanding of the games to properly review them, but as a player, I do have my own thoughts on them.
The current Assassin’s Creed games and my own thoughts
Origins and Oddesy never took my interest because they had a setting I’ve personally never been interested in. I’ve never thought about wandering around Ancient Egypt or Ancient Greece. My first thoughts were that the Assassin’s Brotherhood was started in the 12th century, so going back 1200 years just felt illogical to me. However, I do see their issue after Syndicate, not being able to move too far forwards in time due to it catching up with where we are now.
From how I understand the games, they’re much more of an RPG game. you have to collect skins and pelts and other materials to create new armour and weapons. And while a lot of people like RPGs, myself included. I feel that the game stepped away from being about Assassins. The story that was built up from Altair to Ezio, through to the Kenway’s just felt like it had been abandoned. I still don’t know if the “Modern day” story has been developed any more since Assassin’s Creed 4.
While I liked customising my character in Assassin’s Creed Unity, I feel like i’m contradicting myself. But the main reason I haven’t picked up the new Assassin’s Creed games is the same as why I haven’t played Skyrim for several years. I don’t like playing games alone, and I don’t see a point of customising a character that no-one will see.
I had a lot of fun with Ezio’s games, and fun with the Kenway games. but Unity was the most fun game for me.
Due to my own contradicting thoughts and feelings on the games, and a currently unused Level 3 extended diploma in games development. I thought it would be a good idea to tell you all about what kind of Assassin’s Creed game I would play.
The game would be set between the 16th and the 18th century. Probably falling towards the later end. During this time, and as seen in previous games, firearms are just being developed and are in their flintlock stage, and bladed weapons are still about.
I won’t go into the story or character of the game. However, the player would be able to decide their gender, and some characteristics, like hair colour, skin colour, and eye colour. I would also have to do some market research into either keeping the main character un-named, thus breaking story immersion. or having two names, one for a male character and one for a female character.
The player would be given a skill tree, where progression through story or exploring the open world would grant them skill points. the player can then use this to decide what skills they want to unlock. However, the skills would not be essential to progressing any missions, that is upto the skill and smarts of a player.
The player can also decide what weapon they want to use. From hidden blades to battle axes. if a player wanted to be stealthy, they would have to use a smaller weapon. allowing them to quietly enter buildings or even walk into areas where players with noticable weapons would be denied.
A smaller weapon would mean less damage and less openings to attack, but would allow for stealthier kills, a larger weapon would allow for more openings and damage, but throw out all chances of a stealth kill. This would be where the Co-op system of the game would come into effect.
Setting up a mission without co-op, Assassinating a target in a well guarded building. A player who likes to play in a brutish style would either have to find different access points to the building so they can get in with their large weapon. from there, they can brawl their way to the target fighting enemies. A stealthy player would walk into the building, unassuming. after a pat down from the guards they’re gained entry to the building. they scour the room looking for the target, soon finding them alone. after a quick stab with a hidden blade, the player walks out of the building once again as the chaos starts to unfurl inside.
If a player wanted to do this mission in co-op. they could either both fight through waves of enemies. these ones in larger numbers and strength than in single player. or the two assassins could sneak in, dispatching the now guarded target of the assassination quietly. or if a combat heavy player and a stealthy assassin work together, the fighter would cause a ruckass, causing the guards around the target to leave their post to try and stop the fighter, giving the assassin an opening to strike.
Those conclude my thoughts on a game I would like to play. While a story is important to many games, the gameplay is what really counts. The game can be marketed towards a Co-op game, with single player support, rather than a single player game with co-op support.
Closing thoughts
Thank you for reading my ramblings on the Assassin’s Creed games. I had the sudden urge to play the games again and none of them installed on my computer. Let me know what your thoughts on Unity is if you’ve played it, or what you think of my own game idea.
Please feel free to follow my blog! It really lets me know if you’re enjoying these posts! I also have a twitter: https://twitter.com/RinCrowe I tweet whenever I post a new blog. I also have two more posts in the work. One reviewing one of my favourite films; Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse. and another one talking about my favourite Webseries/Anime; RWBY. If you want to hear my thoughts on either of those, it might give me energy to get on with writing them.
Thank you once again for following me on my writing journey!
Rin's Writings 