I count myself as a fan of the Assassin’s Creed franchise, but even I get a little confused about which game has what kind of stuff in it. Now there’s a chart that clears up any confusion.
Image: Ubisoft (MobyGames)
Sometimes, in the heat of discussion, I forget exactly what you could do in each entry of the Assassin’s Creed games. I think you could use a boat in the third game, but I’m not exactly sure. Could you ride a horse in the Constantinople-focused Assassin’s Creed: Revelations?
Image: Big_Diesel_Gaming
I love everything about this chart, and it really helps me put some words to the reasons that I enjoy the Assassin’s Creed series. While the assassinating and historical exploration are always a part of the games, they are always changing and refocusing what the core player experience is supposed to be.
Sometimes you just don’t need to whistle in the games, but sometimes it’s a critical mechanic that fundamentally alters the stealth interactions that the designers are putting together.
This chart is basically a map of priorities over time, and it neatly demonstrates parts of the experience that drop in or fall out. There is always an Animus, for example, because that’s critical to the way that Assassin’s Creed grounds its historical exploration. Similarly, there’s always a core tension between free will and order, the two pillars of political ideology that have driven so many people to great and evil things over the course of the games.
We can also use the chart to see some changes in the way that gameplay has altered in the games. The earlier games’ focus on “social stealth”, or standing in a group of people to blend in with a crowd, has given way to a form of stealth that is more in line with the crouching, hiding and sneaking that is more in line with most other open world games with stealth elements.
I’ll admit to being a fan of a big ole chart in general, but this really is a great chart for helping think about a big franchise and how it has changed over the years.
Comments
6 responses to “Finally, A Chart Explaining What Is In Each Assassin’s Creed Game”
There needs to be “Desmond – Yes or No” and a “Boring Protagonist – Yes or No” column.
There also needs to be two more columns. One that says “Shithouse” and one that says “Good”
Assassin’s Creed is one of those franchises that I have no idea how or why it has such a huge following and popularity. I just don’t understand and honestly, I probably never will.
Admittingly, I have played and enjoyed some of their games. The games I safely enjoyed were II, Brotherhood and IV. The rest… blergh.
I tried to play the first one, as well as III and Unity. My God, those were bad.
I’m not suggesting the original was the best one, but taken as a blueprint for the games going forward, it’s my favourite. Which is why I was repeatedly disappointed that I found the sequels didn’t stick to the script.
The flow of the first game: Head assassin gives you the name of the target and a bit of information. You ride to the relevant city to speak with your local contact to receive more information and begin your plan of attack. A number of ‘set-up’ missions become available and you choose which ones you want to do (which are meant to impact and change the actual assassination, but unfortunately the devs couldn’t execute on.). And then the assassination and perhaps escape. Repeat.
The sequels: go to the quest marker (no real consistency where the quests start, compared to head assassin/local contact having defined ‘bases’ they operate from). No real consistency to the ‘arc’ of the assassination (worst example I can remember was in one of the Ezio games were you go to kill 2 targets, one escapes and pursuing him is the reason you visit a new city. Upon arriving at the new city the first quest introduces the local contact who takes you to the target and you kill him in the same mission. Where’s the preparation/exploration?)
Based on the first game I thought the sequels might go in the direction of Hitman and instead they went super linear.
Amen. I loved the first game. The sense of atmosphere and agency was completely stomped out in the sequels which were slicker but also held your hand more and were more about a convoluted plot with famous historical figures incongruously mixed in with a bizarre city building mini-game!
With each successive installment they got less and less focused instead just adding shitloads of tasks to do trying to please everyone but actually pleasing no-one
I’ve been trying to play Revelations and it was so far so good (I got it, and just about every other AC game, free on GWG) until I got up to the part where you apparently craft bombs WTF? Crafting is not fun and is so far removed from what you were doing in the first game it may as well be a different series.
Then they got into the sailing and hunting, then deep sea diving, then co-op for no reason whilst also ditching one of the most fun multiplayer games invented in recent years.
Assassin’s Creed stopped being a game series long ago and has instead become the annual Ubisoft lucky-dip where they just throw a bunch of cheap ideas into a bag and call it a day!
Admittingly, I wasn’t a fan of the first Assassin’s Creed. I hated Altair as a protagonist, I didn’t enjoy the futuristic/modern day aspects and I found the game play quite repetitive in both combat and story progression.
In saying that, I will give credit and respect where it’s due, in that the original Assassin’s Creed was a technical marvel.
Some games had some form of “free running” and climbing mechanics (Prince of Persia, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune etc.) but they were always so linear. You could only climb up a particular path or wall that would either lead you to A – progressing the story, or B – finding some kind of bonus. That’s it.
Assassin’s Creed gave us “free climbing”, the ability to climb almost anywhere, non-linear. For its time, it was an amazing technical achievement. While I disliked the original game, I do have fond memories of the climbing, such as facing off against a Templar, having him chase me through the streets and eventually, we climbed to the top of the grand cathedral were we fought to the death.
I don’t see a lot of games out there that can create something as exciting as that.