Assassin's Creed Syndicate Review (Xbox One)

Assassin's Creed Syndicate offers a combination of grace, brutality and beauty that will resonate with both fans of the series and with those who engage with it for the first time, with XIX century London being the undisputed star of the entire show.

The new movement system, the tweaks to combat, and the attempt to create a more interesting set of problems for gamers to solve make the title a step up when compared to Unity, but there are some issues with the graphics and the gameplay that keep the title from being one of the greatest in the franchise.

Moving across London, taking out enemy gang members, liberating children from indenture, dealing with bosses remain great ways for a fan to spend an evening or more.

Assassin's Creed Syndicate is created primarily by the team at Ubisoft Quebec, although other studios have been involved, and the French company has also handled publishing duties for it.

Story

Assassin's Creed Syndicate takes the franchise forward in history to 1868 and to London, the capital of the British Empire.

This is the greatest nation that the world has ever seen, and just as it is conquering the world and dominating the seas, the bigger revolution takes place in the mainland and the cities, where industry is gaining ground, displacing people, changing customs, and gradually building a whole new universe filled with impressive opportunities and major perils.

Thrown in this cauldron are Jacob and Evie Frye, twins who have grown up under Assassin guidance in the countryside and are now coming to London.

The Templars are in charge of the city, and the narrative of Assassin's Creed Syndicate is centered on the way the underworld is rallied by the pair and how a host of historical figures then comes together to take down enemy leader Crawford Starrick and his seven henchmen, each in control of one borough of London.

Assassin's Creed Syndicate take down

The narrative is solid enough to keep gamers engaged, even if the modern world moments of Assassin's Creed Syndicate continue to be uninteresting in comparison with those taking place in the XIX century.

The interactions between Jacob and Evie and those between the twins and other characters are well scripted and occasionally funny, and the series has regained some of the swagger that characterized the Ezio installments.

Gameplay

Assassin's Creed Syndicate continues to be an open-world experience that mixes combat, exploration and detailed cutscenes, but the title is more focused than ever on giving players options and on making it easy to interact with the world however they see fit.

The parkour elements of the franchise are easily activated, and gamers only have to hold down a trigger to make their character move up walls, across rooftops, from the face of a building to another or to the highest points in the city.

Early on, players also get access to a new rope launcher, which makes it even easier to quickly get out of trouble and can also be used as a zipline to connect buildings that are too far apart to accommodate a jump, even the enhanced version that Assassins use.

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London is easy to cross on foot, but Syndicate introduces carriages for gamers to ride in or commandeer, and they are very fun to use, even if they break the laws of physics in multiple ways.

Despite being drawn by horses, they can gain impressive speeds, they can execute a lateral motion to take out enemy vehicles, and they are also tough enough to take down the poles at the edge of the roads.

The chases that involve carriages and the fights that take place on their roofs are exciting, a chance for gamers to show off their moves and to experience something that no previous installment could deliver.

Trains are also featured heavily in the new game, with one serving as a base of operations for the twins, and combat along the length of a moving steam-powered machine, especially using the new system that allows multiple enemies to engage at a time, can be both dangerous and fun.

Once the player gets to their objective, they will also have to engage in combat, with the amount of fighting they do determined by their strategy and the tools that they want to use.

“As with movement, the core idea is freedom, with missions offering plenty of avenues to move around undetected, but also allowing players to simply walk into a room and take out all enemies present.”

Both Jacob and Evie are very capable fighters, relying on two types of attacks and a quick counter to deal with their opponents, but the very fact that they can now attack as a group and use firearms liberally complicates things, although players can balance the situation with their own throwing knives and guns.

It is very easy to die when surrounded and caught with no quick escape way, but gamers can also plan their assaults and the gadgets they use to make sure that they control enemy groups and dismantle them on their own terms, with a quick getaway prepared if the situation goes wrong.

Assassin's Creed Syndicate also features bigger brawls that involve entire gangs, which are some of the best moments the title has to offer and serve as a prelude to some boss fights that could have used a little more grandiosity.

Jacob and Evie both have upgradeable skills, with small differences between the twins, and the gang that they control can also get improved abilities that create a sense of progression but fail to be central to the experience.

The missions in Assassin's Creed Syndicate are varied enough, ranging from classic assassination to kidnapping and many other unique ones, and Ubisoft has also spread a wide range of collectibles across the seven main locations, for those gamers who want to investigate each nook and cranny.

Assassin's Creed Syndicate no longer features a multiplayer mode, not even a cooperative one, because the team in charge at Ubisoft is more interested in focusing on the core elements of the series after the relatively cold reception that the feature received when Unity arrived last year.

Graphics and audio

Assassin's Creed Syndicate is a good-looking game, the kind of title that uses all the extra power delivered by the new generation of home consoles to create some impressive environments and to make sure that every character and building are covered in intricate textures.

The recreation of London is expansive and looks great when viewed from one of the haystacks of the church towers dotted around, with plenty of detail for the buildings and the major landmarks all present and accounted for.

Assassin's Creed Syndicate aims to make the world feel alive, with many people moving around and a lot of carriages crisscrossing the city, but that comes at the cost of some quality and variety, with most of the enemies using the exact same models, and with the faces of most of those involved lacking any real detail.

Jacob, Evie and the rest of the core cast also fail to impress in cutscenes, with faces that look like they are made of plastic and a limited range of expressions and mouth movements.

Because of technical limitations linked to the Xbox One, only the video is taken from the version of the game we have played, while the images are offered by Ubisoft.

When it comes to the sound department, the best thing about Assassin's Creed Syndicate is the way it manages to make the city feel alive, with a lot of environmental noises that shift in patterns as gamers move around the various neighborhoods.

The voice work for the characters is solid but feels a little too modern for the period that's depicted, especially when it comes to the way both Jacob and Evie interact with the rest of their gang on the streets of London.

The actual soundtrack of Assassin's Creed Syndicate is very classic in its approach, with plenty of cello and violin that evoke the historical moment and underline the variety and surprises the title can offer.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion