When we first meet the pair, they're working small time assassinations in the English countryside, eager to take their talents into the capital. As such, it is up to twin protagonists Jacob and Evie Frye to rescue the city, even though the assassins guild would seemingly rather they didn't. A playground, of course, infested with templars, who have turned the city into a haven of corruption, gang warfare, and abuses of the working class. That is maybe an odd description for the often gloomy, coal-stained architecture of London, circa 1868, but Ubisoft Quebec (and the roughly seven other teams who all had a part in creating Syndicate) did a tremendous job turning the city into a viable playground. And where it does tinker with the formula, it makes small, but meaningful improvements that turn Victorian London into one of the most exciting and exquisite worlds this series has ever put together. In Syndicate, Assassin's Creed is reconstructed into something resembling its former glory-not a particularly new or inventive game, but a sturdily built, enjoyably written, generally well-paced refabrication of what this franchise was once best at delivering. Yes, it's running an overly familiar playbook, but those plays are among the very best this series has ever offered. It's the same stab-happy open world design plopped into another noteworthy point in history-in this case, Victorian era London-with only a new pair of switchable protagonists and horse drawn carriages to set itself apart.īut here's the thing: Syndicate is good. On paper, Syndicate doesn't appear to offer up much beyond what every other Assassin's Creed game does. This is what makes Assassin's Creed Syndicate such a peculiar thing. Assassin's Creed Syndicate takes the story to Victorian London, and introduces sibling assassins Jacob and Evie Frye. If it's not Assassin's Creed directly turning players off with spotty entries, it's the overwhelming sensation that most publishers of games like these are working from the same basic playbook, riffing on the same towers, vantage points, and collectibles while swapping out assets and perspectives where appropriate. Quality concerns are certainly at the root of that argument-with last year's Assassin's Creed Unity offering a crash course in just about everything that can go wrong in one of these games-though the homogeneity of the open world action genre has played its part as well. That's not surprising when you consider that we are now nine (10, if you count Liberation) games into this series, only eight years after its debut. The refrain you most often hear when talking about Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed series is that it's due for a break.
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