Assassin’s Creed Unity was a bit of a jumble during the hands-on time I had with the game over the weekend. As a huge fan of the series, I hoped that Unity would be a leap forward over last year’s spectacular Black Flag, but when I put the controller down, I was left quite worried as to how the final product would turn out. The game had performance issues, the gameplay was tweaked in ways that moved it away from the core series and the environment felt all too familiar to earlier games in the series.
The game is set in the midst of the French Revolution in the late 1700s. While this is a new era for the series to explore, running across rooftops and cathedrals gave me a strong sense of déjà vu, harkening me back to two previous Assassin’s Creed games that were set in Italy. It felt like if you had told me that I was playing Assassin’s Creed 2 with better graphics, I would’ve believed you without question. Black Flag showed that a different setting and environment is just what the series needed as a breath of life, but it feels like Ubisoft is regressing right back to its comfort zone.
The same rooftops with the same stacked boxes to climb on littered the city and nothing was able to distinguish Unity as its own game.
With that said, being able to go inside buildings and huge halls certainly felt new, previous games have had indoor sections, but not nearly to the same extent as Unity.
The gameplay obviously had to be tweaked in order to accommodate this new element; and that’s where a cover system comes into play. Being able to hide behind any object is a great idea that accommodates the small spaces, but it changes the way Assassin’s Creed is normally played. Running across rooftops and assassinating unwitting guards has been an AC staple for literally 7 years now, and it’s instantly familiar, but taking cover and dashing between statues felt out of place and a bit jarring for me, as the series has always been about having many options and routes to take in a large area.
One element that did impress me was the improved parkour mechanic. Instead of holding one button to climb, you press one button to run, and another to direct the main character Arno up or down buildings. This changes the series in a good way, as manoeuvring down from a building was always a tedious task. Just hold run and down, and Arno will immediately leap towards the nearest hand-hold under him, and make his way down from there. The best part about this is watching the new animations, which have been completely redone. Watching Arno leap down the side of a building was the highlight of the session, and I can’t imagine I’ll tire of it quickly.
While the segment I played didn’t do much to impress me, I have hopes that I’ll enjoy Unity when I get to boot it up on November 13th.
HERE’S A PROPER TEASER
