Syndicate is arriving soon. I'm definitely excited and there is no way it will be as buggy as Unity was at launch right....? Also I hope the characters and world are more interesting. Unity bored the hell out of me in that regard, though I still enjoyed the gameplay.
Syndicate's director previously made Brotherhood's da Vinci missions, AC3's Homestead missions, and the King Washington DLC. I have mixed feelings about those selections, but there's at least some plot to be had in all three. As for whether it's as buggy as Unity… we'll see. They've claimed to have devoted more resources to QA and went feature complete sooner in the process to spend more time testing.
I'll get it for the holidays, and hopefully any bugs will be worked out by then. I had almost no issues with Unity, after waiting to play it until February and multiple updates. Heck, if I get into Fallout and its as big as they say, I may not play anything else until the spring.
The game releases tomorrow. It's getting very good reviews thus far. Also there haven't been any performance issues mentioned in the reviews either, which is a great sign. I'm ready for some more Assassin's Creed.
All good signs. I've read that the series is going more back to its roots too, which for me is a good thing, after spending two games in the wilderness, and then having less to explore and discover in Paris.
For me, AC3 (American Revolution) and Black Flag (Pirate Sailing) are top favorites of all time and can play them over and over
http://darkzero.co.uk/how-big-is-ac-syndicate-on-ps4/ Apparently, Syndicate is about 38 gigs on the PS4. I'm not to the point where I'm running out of space on mine, but I guess I'm going to delete Unity, since I'm unlikely to play it again.
I'm strangely not excited for this game. Maybe because I'm disappointed that it's 20 years too early for Jack the Ripper and Arthur Conan Doyle. And because Ubi bowed to SJWs. And because the PC version is intentionally delayed another month after the console release AGAIN.
As I await Syndicate to arrive from Amazon, I read this week rumors that the AC series is going to take 2016 off. http://www.gamesradar.com/assassin-creed-due-break-not-because-its-gone-sour/ Rumors are also that it will be set in Egypt, which I think would allow for a lot of cool dungeon exploring - something I loved in the earlier games that's been missing lately.
The series does need to take time off, but more importantly, it needs to do something with that time. It can't just be delaying the 2016 game into 2017 and not changing anything about it.
Change certainly seems to be the inference. I didn't play Unity for several months after its release, and I didn't have the problems that many other people encountered. Before I played the Witcher 3, I actually felt that Unity had some of the best character models and graphics that I'd ever seen. I'm eager to play Syndicate as well, but I do agree that in the last few years, the series has lost something, and needs to be freshened up. They tried to send it sideways when they took it out of the city, and the results were sub par, IMO. I also don't like that they've minimized the "modern day" aspect of the series since killing off Desmond. The gameplay in those sections was sometimes clunky, but the story aspect was wonderful, and I loved the mythology that they created. Learning more and more about it was always cool, especially since the game rewarded you with information if you spent the time to dig deeply and read everything that you could.
Patrice Desilets, Jade Raymond, and Corey May all left Ubisoft. They took the modern day impetus and writing with them. So now we have no common thread linking the games together, and the time periods are becoming increasingly poorly written. The purpose of taking a year off had better be to coordinate a modern day story with playable characters, a plot arc, and a resolution.
I didn't know that. So did they all leave together, and basically it wrecked/emptied the writing staff? And Ubisoft has had how many years to replace them and failed? A bit depressing. Hopefully they can find and hire a few good new writers.
Desilets quit after AC2, when AC3 was in the planning stages. The reasons why are murky. He formed a new studio and was going to have his game 1666 published by THQ, but when THQ declared bankruptcy, Ubisoft won the rights to Desilets' game. Desilets failed to meet a milestone and the game was canceled. He then quit Ubisoft again. Raymond left a year ago and was hired by EA. May left after AC3, but contributed to Syndicate.
I have to say that the challenge/difficulty of Syndicate is very good. Right now, I'm at level 4, and taking on level 3 & 4 missions. The challenge feels appropriate, and I've been killed a few times along with often just getting through barely alive plenty.
So I've been replaying Black Flag and is it just me or is the free running and combat more fluid in this game than Unity and Syndicate? I know AC isn't known for deep combat systems, but the combat in Unity and Syndicate feels more intricate than the previous titles. I still enjoy it though. Free running feels faster too and less 'weighted down'.
They're getting an extra year for this. Expectations will probably be high since they're breaking their annual release date. Hopefully we see new things.
I know that others felt differently, but Black Flag was just a big letdown for me. Sure, sailing a ship around was fun at first, but it got really, really repetitive pretty quickly for me. I also didn't like the main character very much, and missed the kinds of things that were left out more than I liked the ones that were added in. In retrospect, I guess if the team that makes the game lost some important people around that time, it makes perfect sense that they tried to do something different. Just wasn't for me. As to the free running and combat, I'm no expert in the "under the hood" aspects of gaming, but it would make sense that with fewer things going on around you (NPCs, buildings, ect), that there would be less of a reason for the game to be bogged down, so things could get more complex in that regard.
Bought and started downloading the Jack the Ripper DLC, without properly thinking through how large it was. 16.8 gigs on the PS4. Spent an hour and a half downloading the first gig, lol. With my connection, I should have the whole thing done in a few weeks, doing an hour or so a day before 7am when my severe bandwidth limits kick in
I'm really, really enjoying all of the side missions that are packed into the game. Rescuing the kids from the factories, robbing boats, killing templars, ect. There's really a lot to do, and if you want to spend time on it (and I do), it gives you a chance to hone your skills fighting enemies and finding your way around London, while gaining money and XP before moving on to the main story missions. Absolutely my favorite AC game since Revelations.
The rope launcher is a nice touch to the game as well, considering the setting is far less dense than every AC setting before it.
Absolutely! Getting up on the rooftops, and then getting from point A to point B when you need to go 500+ units to the next target is so much easier now, and fun as well. Also easier to get out of a jam when you're low on health and enemies are shooting at you. So many times in previous games, I'd be trying to climb away, and I'd get shot and fall off.
If you like the AC series and coffee table/table top books, I highly recommend Assassin's Creed: The Complete Visual History. Its an extremely well made book, and is taking me back with memories throughout the series. I enjoy this kind of thing, and have bought several from the Dragon Age series and others, and this is one of the best I've gotten. It retails for $60, but I wasn't willing to pay that when I thumbed through it in Barnes and Noble, so I found it for $35 on Amazon and put it in my wishlist. When it was available for under $17, I pounced. As of right now, it looks like there are new ones selling for about the same price. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1608876004?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00
Official note from the AC team at Ubisoft. There will be no new AC game in 2016. http://blog.ubi.com/a-message-from-the-assassins-creed-team/
http://www.vg247.com/2016/02/15/ubisoft-lost-control-of-assassins-creed/ A very, very critical editorial of the series. I don't agree with everything, or even most, of what the author says, but its a very detailed and well thought out piece. One by someone who seems to demand perfection and plays so many games that he's gotten numb to it all though, I think. I do agree with most of this paragraph, though. At its core, AC is a game within a game, and that part has almost be totally lost. As good as Syndicate is, they've almost completely removed the modern day aspect, which drove me nuts.
I'm doubting that the modern day ever comes back. No one at Ubi seems willing to develop it, and now that Patrice Desilets is long gone, the creative force behind the story disappeared too. They just don't care.
I sincerely hope that it does. The game is just wrong without it. I can barely drag myself through listening to the voice files that we get as a connection to the modern era now.
http://gamerant.com/assassins-creed-stopping-annual-releases-131/ The franchise may not go back to annual releases now, after taking 2016 off. Up in the air.
I took a couple of weeks away after completing all of the post-story missions, and jumped into the Jack the Ripper DLC last night. For anyone who was thinking of getting it, definately wait to play until you're done with the main story. There are some story spoilers, but its also very challenging and you'll want to be at a high level and have unlocked most if not all of the abilities before you start. The weapons and outfits from the main game don't transfer, but the other items do, as do the skills you can unlock that effect how other things work within the city.
I'm not really ashamed to say I still haven't played Syndicate. From what I hear, it has little to no modern day content… as usual.
Spoiler As close to nothing as possible. And absolutely none of it is playable, all first person perspective cut scenes. You also have to dig and look to find the data written by Sean within the game about people/placces/ect. Its no longer a notification every time that you can click and read right away.
Some marketing materials have been leaked for Assassin's Creed: The Ezio Collection, which appears to be an HD upscaling or retexturing of AC2, ACB, and ACR in one package, running at 1080p/60fps. Amazon Italy is listing the collection with a November 17 release date. If the graphical upgrade looks great, then I'll grab the PC version. Hopefully it runs DX12. My guess is that Ubisoft is using this as an engine upgrade test before announcing the new AC game next year.
I was actually wondering what if anything they were going to talk about this year with no game coming out. I thought maybe just the movie. Curious to hear something about the next main game too though.
The next game will probably be talked about when Ubi's next fiscal year starts on April 1, 2017. Alternatively, when the game is leaked to Kotaku or somewhere in January/February 2017.
[video=youtube;lZPQ2ijCgVw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZPQ2ijCgVw[/video] No PC version… not good.
