Assassin’s Creed Unity – A New Era of Changes -

As of this writing, the launch of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate on PS4 and Xbox One is hours away, and the wait is nearly over. Before you jump in and start exploring Victorian London’s rooftops and railways for yourself, however, there’s one game left to talk about: Assassin’s Creed Unity, the series’ first entry made exclusively for new-gen hardware. Join us for the final installment of our game-by-game series, in which we take a look back at what the French Revolution added to Assassin’s Creed.

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The second huge revolution of the 18th century was an appropriate backdrop for Assassin’s Creed Unity, given how much it changed about the franchise. Combat was completely transformed, with the instant-kill counterattacks and killstreaks of previous games replaced with carefully timed parries that opened your enemies up for counterattacks. Not only did this introduce a new flow to combat, but it also added a new kind of challenge. You could be quickly overwhelmed and killed by large numbers of enemies, giving you new reasons to run away from combat and to use stealth (which now included a button-activated sneak mode) rather than rushing in and killing everyone.

While the new dynamics took a little adjustment at first, some of the changes were instantly comfortable, like being able to pick up the trail of tailing or chase targets I’d lost track of. And free-running across Parisian buildings felt incredibly light and fluid compared to previous games. By holding different face buttons along with the right trigger, it was now possible to climb up, clamber down, or simply run straight across the tall buildings and statuary of the crowded Paris landscape. As much as it felt like a return to Ezio’s way of doing things, it offered a lot more control over exactly where Arno’s free-running took him, and it made perfect runs across multiple obstacles exhilarating.

Bringing co-op to Assassin’s Creed was more fun than I expected it to be, even if I had to continually communicate with (or at least stick close to) my allies to be really successful. As enjoyable as it was to be able to gang up on guards and see synchronized rooftop runs, however, being able to solo the co-op heists and rescue missions – which turned out to be a lot more difficult without at least a partner to help out – was an irresistible challenge.

Assassin’s Creed Unity’s new-gen changes were dramatic, but they were just the latest example of something Assassin’s Creed has always done. Each new chapter in the franchise has reshaped the gameplay in ways both subtle and obvious, and each has stood out as a unique adventure. The next unique adventure, Assassin’s Creed Unity, launches tomorrow on PS4 and Xbox One, and will be available for PC on November 19.