Assassin's Creed Unity Review (PS4)

The Assassin's Creed series has become a yearly staple of the gaming industry, thanks to Ubisoft's team effort across its many different global studios, all under the leadership of the Montrel team. This year, things are even more impressive, as the company is launching not one, but two different full-fledged Assassin's Creed titles, in the form of Unity, for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, and Rogue, for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

This review is all about Unity, which, according to Ubisoft, offers a fresh start for the series in terms of historical and present-day settings, while overhauling plenty of core mechanics, from combat to stealth or freerunning.

Does the new title manage to usher in a great journey or does it fail in its unification? Let's find out.

Story

The main Assassin's Creed Unity plot is based on a new present-day setting, in which Abstergo Industries, the corporation controlled by the Templar Knights, offers regular people a kind of video game console that's powered by the Animus and allows all sorts of players to relive great moments from history, of course while glorifying the deeds of past Templars.

Fortunately, your gameplay session is interrupted by some Assassins who present the actual events and allow the player to relive the French Revolution from the perspective of Arno Dorian, a French nobleman who, after some pretty tragic events, manages to join the Assassin brotherhood.

While Arno is presented as a sort of French version of Assassin's Creed 2 hero Ezio, a young, brash, yet charming protagonist, he doesn't really pull it off, at least in the beginning, but things get a bit better as you spend some more time with him.

His adventures are quite impressive as he gets to meet and interact with some of the most important historical figures of that era. Unfortunately, the conclusion isn't that great and you don't get any sort of feeling of accomplishment.

Play as Arno Dorian

Gameplay

Ubisoft bragged a lot about Assassin's Creed Unity overhauling most of the classic mechanics in the series, and it wasn't joking, as Unity feels, for better or worse, a different sort of experience than past installments.

First up, the actual movement, freerunning, and exploration systems have been refined and improved in terms of the smoothness of the animations. Unfortunately, it's still tough to wrangle Arno as he runs through the very busy streets of Paris, especially since there are way more pedestrians on them. You'll still grow frustrated with Arno and his predilection to sticking to various objects or climbing on things despite you not wanting that.

Climbing up and down buildings is much smoother, particularly when you want to get back to street level. You just hold a trigger and a button while pushing towards the street and Arno will seamlessly climb down as fast as possible without losing his health. However, if there's a hay stack in the vicinity, Arno jumps straight into it, without any warning, potentially ruining all your plans.

The second major mechanic that's been overhauled by Unity is the combat. It's a bit more streamlined, without falling into "wait for parry then automatically kill the attacker" style that categorized early Assassin's Creed games. You can parry most attacks but there are many, signalized in a better way, that can only be escaped by dodging and rolling away. You can take the initiative in terms of attacking enemies but don't get too insistent, as they can easily turn the tables on you.

As always, you can wield a sword or various other weapons, from pistols to muskets and the traditional hidden blade that has been upgraded to the phantom blade in this installment of the series. The phantom variation transforms into a mini crossbow, allowing players to silently kill enemies from a distance, or fire berserker darts that cause them to attack their allies, thereby causing a nifty distraction.

One supremely annoying factor with Unity is that the target lock on system can't be controlled in an appropriate manner by the player. As such, you'll sometimes want to flee combat but Arno remains locked onto an enemy for way too long.

Lastly in Unity's overhaul list is the stealth system, as players have a much bigger control on this by crouching and even using cover. While moving around in a crouched manner is relatively easy, going from cover to cover is downright frustrating. You can't really tell when Arno is in or outside cover and sometimes he'll stick to a surface despite you hitting the necessary button to get him out. Needless to say, this can lead to detection, and in some cases, the failing of a mission.

Enemies are extremely observant in Unity, and even if you're crouched and behind objects that seem to break line of sight, they'll detect you and move from suspicion to aggression mode, ruining your whole plan.

Of course, Ubisoft didn't stop with the improvement process at just these three aspects for Unity. It delivers a stellar open world in the form of Paris, which feels massive but still relatively intimate. It can be navigated quite easily, but the 1:1 scale of many buildings makes climbing them a pretty lengthy affair, like when it comes to the absolutely massive Notre Dame.

The streets are filled with hundreds of Parisians, and while it may seem small, the fact that you can enter and exit quite a few buildings by using windows and doors makes the whole world feel more alive and lifelike. Throw in the many random events that happen while you're exploring it and you can certainly feel like you're in the revolution.

The actual missions are pretty normal but there's now a much bigger emphasis on the actual assassinations, as each is treated with greater importance. At the beginning of every such mission, Arno studies the surroundings to identify possibilities that can be exploited to make things easier. One such mission saw him infiltrate the catacombs beneath a church, but because of his covering certain smoke stacks, enemies were unable to see him due to the smoke invading the tunnels.

The customization elements seen in previous games have been fleshed out in many ways, transforming into a system that can easily be at home in a role-playing game. Arno can equip different pieces of clothing with various properties, but as a rather annoying feature, the list of items includes DLC-only things, for example, which makes navigating it a pain. What's more, every item has a price in in-game currency and one in another currency that can be purchased using real-world cash via microtransactions.

As you complete missions you also gain skill points that can be spent on unlocking different abilities, from being able to silently kill two enemies at the same time to being able to pick locks (which is just a glorified quicktime event).

Some missions are more interesting than others, and quite a few force players into some strategy, by locking out some paths or doing other things. Things get very annoying with the final boss fight, which sees Arno try to avoid some cheap attacks, while exploiting vulnerabilities.

Overall, Unity feels pretty great to play but there are many areas where further polishing is needed to feel as smooth as previous entries in the series. There were quite a few moments when Arno fell through the ground of the level and even one instance where he got stuck in a ceiling. What's more, right at the end boss fight, the game outright crashed.

Sneak up on foes

Multiplayer

Of course, a major aspect of Unity is the cooperative mode that's built into the campaign. You can invite up to three other friends to join you while completing the marked co-op missions or just roam around Paris. These missions are pretty fun, but if you're not cooperating as intended, things can quickly go downhill. This can affect your rewards, as not doing things in a stealthy manner is punished.

The system is pretty fleshed out but you can find yourself enduring loading screens when the host goes offline and migration is needed. Lag wasn't that big of an issue during my co-op sessions, but expect some problems if you're playing with people that are far away from you. Combat can also get a bit hectic, especially with all four players.

Visuals and Sound

In terms of visuals, Unity is a mixed bag. While the buildings and textures certainly look way better than previous games, the character models and the lack of anti-aliasing on PS4 make things look less than impressive. What's more, expect quite a lot of framerate dips, as even though it's locked at under 30fps, things can still get a bit too hectic for the game's engine.

The soundtrack is really impressive, managing to keep players immersed in the experience. Voice acting is pretty good, although some of the accents don't always work as intended. There aren't any standout performances, although Arno tries his best to emulate Uncharted's Nathan Drake via quick remarks about what's happening around him.

Get caught in glitches

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion