The Assassin's Creed franchise is massive and every game that has been released since the beginning has its own unique selling points. But none of them are perfect. Every game has some issues, some are big and some are small. Similarly, some of the Assassin's Creed games have more issues than others. In this article, we are going through the worst part of every Assassin's Creed game.
 |
| Assassins Creed |
Assassin's Creed
Going back in time to where it all began, Assassin's Creed was released all the way back in 2007. So as per today's standards, it's not going to be perfect. The biggest drawback of the first title is the pace of the game itself which splits down into multiple areas. The combat was very slow and repetitive which made the entire game feel boring. Not only that but the parkour was also slow which made the missions feel dull and not that much interesting. One more thing which we cannot forget is the distance that you would need to travel between each City when there wasn't anything to do. Despite all these points, it was still good enough to kick off a massive franchise.
Assassin's Creed 2
This was the beginning of something different in the series and had a massive upgrade. The game introduced a lot of things not just within the Assassins' terms but also in different gameplay terms. Assassin Creed 2 was very impressive for a game released in 2009. Ubisoft also heard players' complaints about Assassin's Creed and tried to improve upon them by creating some amazing missions in Assassin's Creed II. The problem with AC2 is that you weren't able to replay them. One of the most important things for Open World Games is the ability to replay missions. The game would allow you to go into the main menu and look at your previous sequences. Thereafter you can see which missions you were able to complete before but you were not allowed to play them again. The only way for you to get access to these missions again was if you restarted the game from the very beginning and went all the way back. Most players when asked about ranking all the Assassin's Creed titles would put Assassin's Creed 2 as well as a few others as God-tier titles. But at the same time, they will always highlight that you weren't able to replay missions and this was a very annoying problem to have especially when some of these missions were just absolutely amazing, especially back in 2009.
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
AC Brotherhood was the beginning of the yearly release of Assassin's Creed games. Brotherhood was released just one year after ac2 in 2010. The worst part about Brotherhood was that it only included one city and there was way too much open space. It was a problem that most players would say about today's titles but remember this was back in 2010. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 just weren't good enough to run massive games so they did have to be limited. With Brotherhood they still tried to make a fairly reasonable size city but there weren't that many activities to do within that large space. It's crucial for an open-world game to feel alive and immersive as you go around and explore what the game is offering. Brotherhood did not have that feeling. This led to players just playing through the main story and leaving things there as the world has nothing significant to offer.
Assassin's Creed Revelations
This was the chapter that finally brought the Ezio story to the end whilst also tying it to the first Assassin's Creed. It was supposed to be the ultimate game but still, there was something that players did not like. There were these new types of side missions that they tried to bring into the game. It brought in the Tower Defense activities. These activities were hated by players and many consider them as just a waste of time which got in the way of what gamers really wanted to do, which was to play the main story as Ezio. It brought no positive impact to the game through gameplay narrative or anything else. The things that you associate with Assassin's Creed are stealth, parkour, and assassinations and this Tower Defense side mission had none of it. These side missions also pop into some of the main missions that players really did not want to complete them.
Assassin's Creed 3
It was the first title in a very long time whose main character was not Ezio. The complaint from the game is that you can't play as Connor for hours. Gamers need to go through the whole intro of Assassin's Creed 3 playing as his father Haytham. Now with Haytham, you don't just play a few missions. It goes on for three sequences which adds up to the extra hours of gameplay. If you would just go and do the main missions (not any of the side activities which are also available) within these sequences it adds up to around three to four hours if you did things incredibly quickly. All of this was happening when the main character that you want to be playing with is Connor. Connor also has some additional moves with parkour ability that Haytham simply does not have. It meant that once you do finally get to play as Connor you will also need to go through additional tutorials which can also last for several missions adding on a few extra hours of gameplay.
Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag
Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag is seen as one of the more popular titles of the franchise. It's definitely up there with Assassin's Creed 2 and Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. The ability to being able to sail on the Open Seas is great and even inspired several pirate games not just within Ubisoft but also in other game development teams. The game is overall amazing but the thing that stands out which isn't so amazing is that there is a certain type of mission that takes up approximately 20 to 30 percent of all missions within the game. These are tailer missions that actually started the meme that Ubisoft doesn't do anything with Assassin's Creed. They just keep on repeating the exact same mission over and over again. It was obviously noticeable within a game where you could sail the Open Seas for a lot of time and once you land just following someone around was really frustrating. There's certainly no problem with having this as one or two missions within a 20-hour gameplay session but when you have it for 20 to 30 percent of the whole entire story it's just not good enough.
Assassin's Creed Rogue
It is a bit of an awkward game and this is probably its biggest drawback. The game was never considered a substantial release within the franchise. At the time of the release, the next-gen consoles, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were also being pushed in the market. Assassin's Creed Rogue simply didn't have a high enough budget to be pushed to these next Generation consoles. The game was for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and because of that a lot of things suffered. There were no graphical advancements compared to what we got with Assassin's Creed Black Flag as it looked exactly the same. There were also a lot of assets and resources which were reused in a way of saving money and overall the world was very small to explore.
Assassin's Creed Unity
Assassin's Creed Unity was released in 2014 as the first major Assassin's Creed release for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. With this, there were a lot of promises because the technology was now there to actually help and push the game forward with storage as well as processing power. Ubisoft highlighted the New Black Box missions where you can have multiple entry points to assassinate your target. The new and improved parkour system which fans love to this day was also introduced but unfortunately, the release was not as smooth. Unity goes down in history as one of the worst releases for any Assassin's Creed title simply because of several problems. The game had a good number of bugs and glitches at the time of its initial release. There are a lot of articles, images, and memes highlighting the problems that exist right from the beginning.
Assassin's Creed Syndicate
Assassin's Creed Syndicate was the first title that was based in London and fans have been asking for this for a very long time and finally, it was happening. They were excited about all the parkour opportunities, all the targets that you can assassinate, and of course, the new way to travel. Traveling was really a thing with carriages. It was supposed to be the new way to travel which played an integral part in multiple main missions as well as side activities. The issue with carriages was that the handling was incredibly poor. If you were able to get on top and actually start controlling the carriage eventually you'll get to a point where you're traveling down the street and all of a sudden it would bug or glitch. Most players tried their best just to parkour around the city especially considering that was the smoothest way and most entertaining way. Gamers really tried to avoid using any of the carriages but there were some times when it just could not be done as they were used as part of main missions which you cannot avoid. There were also missions in which players weren't able to use carriages which made them stuck in the game. Ubisoft kept on pushing title updates to fix the issue but every single update that they pushed just didn't seem to do anything or at least it may have fixed one problem but created a new opportunity for a new one to arise. This kept on happening for months and with the poor performance of Unity as well as Assassin's Creed Syndicate Ubisoft decided to take a bit of a break.
Assassin's Creed Origins
After a few years, Ubisoft released Assassin's Creed Origins which promised to revolutionize the Assassin's Creed franchise. They were no longer interested in pushing narratives of 10 to 20 hours in length as they wanted something a lot bigger. This had fans split right at the beginning but gradually Ubisoft started to bring them over until the release. This time the release was not buggy and glitchy. There were a few Heroes that were expected with a new title. The big problem this time around was the grind associated with Assassin's Creed Origins along with its size. There were many instances in the past with the previous Assassin's Creed titles in which some missions were constantly repeated which made the whole game very dull and boring. With AC Origins, it was on a much larger scale along with the focus on XP which you need to grind to level up. The game also focussed on finding resources that you can use to improve your gear. So now you need to keep on going through those missions over and over and over again until eventually, you reach a substantial level. After this things were going to get a lot worse in years to come with Odyssey and Valhalla but this really was the start of Ubisoft going down this path. In previous titles, your armor and the weapons that you used were still important but it was more about the story associated with it and not actually you grinding to get to a certain point to be able to progress through the missions.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
With AC Odyssey they took the negatives of Assassin's Creed Origins and made them a thousand times worse. This was the complete transition from what fans used to know and love about Assassin's Creed to AC being a full RPG-like game. One of the most popular types of missions within Assassin's Creed games was always the stealth missions and stealth missions were virtually non-existent within Odyssey. This really makes the game feel out of place within the franchise and not appealing to a lot of the original audience. For most long-term fans if they were to put a list together of the best titles going all the way down to the worst, Odyssey is down at the bottom and I'll be honest with you I don't think Odyssey is a bad game. I just think it's a bad Assassin's Creed Game. It incorporates nothing from what made the original Assassin's Creed great.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla
Assassin's Creed Valhalla has a lot of content to play through. There were also additional expansions that arrived later down the line. The idea was that players were always left with something to do even if they were able to get 200 hours into the game. Even though that sounds like a good thing on paper, it really isn't. Assassin's Creed Valhalla was just way too big. The story alone takes over 60 hours to complete with the three major expansions each taking 10 hours to complete and then there's additional side content on top with pretty much everything. Out of the whole franchise, Valhalla has the lowest audience retention. The number of people that bought the game right at the beginning compared to the number of people that actually finished the final mission is a very low percentage. This is normal for a lot of games. This is one of the important reasons why Ubisoft is aiming to make them a lot smaller with future titles. You'll still have extra content on the side which you can go through and that will add up the gameplay time but the main story itself is going to be about 15 to 25 hours in length. The focus is to boost audience retention and then if they want to play more they'll go through side activities. But in the case of Valhalla, this was a massive problem.
