Stop it. just because this game and this video is about that, doesn’t mean the entire series as a whole isnt great. Don’t go too far because of this vid bro
@@keekersneakers3259 He's not wrong though. Ubisoft has done more wrong than right with Assassin's Creed and it all started with them firing the creator because he wanted to end it.
@@KingkuntaGG yeah in co-op, a mode where you're lucky to find even one player to join you and forced to play solo (which is almost unplayable in that state) has little to relate to the main story. Why the fuck would they make the French revolution a side quest in a game that's about the French revolution.
@@KingkuntaGG It was literally advertised to be part of the French revolution even the fucking E3 trailer. And even if the setting wasn't the French Revolution why the fuck is nearly every assassin's Creed where the historical set pieces completely entangle with what you're doing. AC1 you're in the crusades taking out major influencers and even get involved in heading into the battlefield, AC2 you have front row seats to the Pazzi Conspiracy and it is absolutely important to Ezios Revenge quest, Brotherhood Rodrigo Borgia's failed escape, Revelation the battle for the throne of Sultan which also plays a piece in Ezios appeasement to Suleiman to find all they keys to Altair's library, ACIII completely involved in the entire American revolution the battle for bunkerhill, riding with Paul Revere, Battle for Chesapeake etc. all play a part with the main plot to get key to the temple, ACIV do I really I have to explain the personal journey during the Golden Age of Piracy it has to Edward's eventual joining to the Brotherhood. If you take the French Revolution out of Unity you'd miss absolutely nothing. It has little to do with what's going on and has no stake in the plot compared to previous and future historical set pieces in the series including Odyssey and Valhalla.
20:40 I can't count the number of times in Unity I was fighting a hoard of 15 guys and absolutely slaying them until 6 of them decided to whip out the glock and end my life before I could even reach them.
Not many people know this (I don't think I've ever seen anyone else mention it, at least on TH-cam) but you can semi reliably dodge gun shots by zig zag manual jumping on flat ground; this is also useful for passing through crowds faster as you won't get the jog speed penalty (although passing through crowds in general is a very reliable way to avoid getting hit because someone from the crowd will get shot instead). I think you know but in case you need a reminder, manual jump is left stick input and high profile + tap freerun up button.
tbh, i honsetly dont get it, if you are fighting 15 fkin guys and most of them have guns of course couple of em gonna pull it out and fk u then and there, as long as you keeo the melee combat below 1v4 it bever becomes an issue. how is this a criticism of the combat , what do ppl want? do they want to deflect the bullet like sekiro(damm i fkin love sekiro) but that would break the semi realism... just dont 1v20 simple. maybe, they should let you grab and "human shield" enemies that are low on hp, ehich would encourage you to whittle down couple guy tonlow hp and keep them around wuthout outright k^lling them so that u can use these fatigue dudes and shield when need arise if u fight 1v15 and stuff i guess maybe,
@@btchiaintkidding7837 I guess I should have clarified my point. I used an extreme example but what I was trying to get across is that very often during fights enemies will back up to shoot you, and when you disengage other dudes to stop the ones shooting at you the others will draw their guns and the cycle continues.
@@GrismarPicklemelt the quickshot feature is technically made to solve this exact scenario, the problem is most people won't be able to divide attention to the ones backing away in the heat of combat, hence the camera won't be targeting said further enemy. All enemies shoot from pistol range to make sure you can always shoot them back (snipers die in one hit regardless of the player damage level too), you see someone backing away and immediately focus the camera onto him and quickshot; it's a skill you can master. Quick dropping smoke or stun bombs makes this easier because remember, you're an Assassin, use all your arsenal to your advantage (tools are dirt cheap for a reason). There is nothing inherently wrong with the combat system _in theory_ (i.e. when we ignore bugs and glitches), discouraging prolonged combat is good and encouraging tool use to add another layer of mastery, while raising the skill ceiling to boot, is great.
@@shira_yone quickshot never seemed to work correctly from what I saw, but maybe I was just using it wrong. It's been quite a while so I'm not 100% sure.
@@gaellorenzo3006lol the rolling can still cause you to be hit 9 times out of 10 you’ll roll and just get slapped by another guy anyway it’s a garbage feature compared to the human shields be honest.
@@currieisyummie3420 It doesn't take away from the fact that the problem persists. Previous games' problem was the same. You need to be in combat against someone in order to use human shields, and somehow, you need to be in combat in order to dodge. I still thinking dodging is better, since you can do that action even if the one shooting you is the only one in combat with you.
I think the best way to describe this game, both for good and ill, is "It has its moments". It has its moments where the Parkour works and looks amazing, but it also has its moments where it is incredibly clunky to control and watch. It has its moments where the combat looks like a choreographed spectacle, but it also has its moments where it just stops functioning. It has its moments where the stealth is the best in the series, but it also has its moments where it has literally the worst. It has its moments where the story and acting flow wonderfully, but it also has its moments where it is almost as bad as Valhalla if not worse. It has its moments. But its good moments are often not enough to outweigh its bad moments.
Somebody else commented that “wasted potential” applies to the series as a whole, and while that may be true, i feel like it applies wayyyyy more to Unity than any other entry in the franchise.
The story feels like Ubisoft gave its writers a set of things they wanted it to include, ordered them to finish in one week, and made the game out of the first draft with no editorial reviews at all.
The workplace conditions of ubisoft and broken state of the game’s entire online service is proof that this is dead on 😭 it feels like they had the health and damage properly balanced, then ubisoft came in and went “nerf the characters stats and we’ll sell 5-minute passes to play with the intended balancing”
Thts the problem with 10 difrebt companies working on 1 big game .they make content then when things would need to be changed or altered to make it better is to much work now so they dont do it.thts what unity is
I think the difficulty with the French Revolution, similar to the American Revolution, is that so many events are well documented. AC3 was basically a tour of the entire war for independence to the point people mocked Connor for somehow being at every notable event. Lots of the best parts of the Revolution are in this game but they needed more focus and cohesion with the other aspects of the story. The narrative of the French Revolution would have made much more sense if it felt like the Assassins and Templars were actually meddling in the Revolution instead of feeling incidental, and the star crossed lovers of Arno and Elise could have worked so well but all of these stories needed to be tied much closer together.
The thing is they do touch on this in the coop missions. I played through them solo and while they could be tedious, it actually felt like you were doing your part to influence the revolution, and everything that came after. One mission involves you saving a politician and busting the Austrian spy cell in Paris in 1792, another has you break into the Jacobin Hall and cutting off the leadership of the party while they try escape into the catacombs, something that feels very genuine to the Assassin cause. The problem lies in how in each mission Arno feels like a faceless husk, because to anybody you're playing with that's what you're meant to be. Really Ubi needed to integrate them more into Arno's story instead of it feeling like a side-campaign, the especially the coop missions in 1794 since they'd be great for re-integrating him into the brotherhood after his exile
I think that while the game was ahead of its time in terms of graphics, the story was mediocre at best, not engaging. The mechanical/gameplay changes were a step in the right direction, but it all felt so clunky and janky. Parkour was sometimes unresponsive and the animations unnatural, as if Arno was defying gravity with his long horizontal jumps. Stealth was something that Syndicate improved, adding whistling and a better cover system. I guess combat wasn't the worst, but I wasn't a fan. The unavoidable gun shots were annoying.
The architecture in the game is a lot bigger and complicated than in other games so they had to make jumps like this, and 3/4 of the story was cut because Ubisoft needed to release the game in 2014, and Devs spent 5 years on the game as it is, most of it was creating the city itself and animations, etc. At the time on a brink of generations developers aimed too high for a new gen of consoles but overestimated them. Still the game is great and has very repayable missions and requires skill to play. Recently a mod came out called ACU Fixes,it fixed a lot of annoying things in gameplay
The story could've been great. Revolutionary France and you're the son of an assassin who gets fostered by a Templar grandmaster. But they just couldn't hack it lol
As someone who love and enjoys Unity, saying the story is mediocre is a massive understatement; it's just bad. Unlike the gameplay mechanics which are indeed just as rushed and broken yet full with unmet potential, you can actually work around the system to have a sliver of fun out of them; on the other hand you just have to deal with the shite story as it was. They were already setting up Arno as this detective kind of character (even got his discount sherlock side missions). I can only imagine if the story is actually an engaging detective story where Arno follows the trail of Germain's conspiracy using his wits, finding clues and leads throughout his investigations with the help of his fellow assassins and/or historical figures (just like Altair and Ezio were); but no he just got magic memory read when he kills people that conveniently lead towards the next target. What a joke. Legit back when the game first released I was already not as mad as most people, but the story gave me conniptions right away. It was especially disappointing considering the last main game that at a glance seemed like the least Assassin centered story (AC4) at the time, was actually among the best in character development and philosophy from the series. What Ubisoft should've rip-off from The Witcher games shouldn't have been the open world RPG-lite gameplay, it should've been the detective-esque story structure.
The story isn't that bad, and parkour depends on your skill to understand how it works. You're mediocre at learning how the parkour works, then no wonder you can't play it neither 😂
@@nightmarepegasus4141 Lmao, it's been perfectly explained in the video that no matter how well you understand the parkour, sometimes the game will just not do whatever you want it to do. You're telling that to a player who prefers the AC1-Revelations parkour system over any other, I know perfectly how to control the characters in these games and they always respond how I want them to. It's not the case in Unity. And it doesn't change the fact that some of the animations are simply unnatural.
You've quickly become one of my favorite channels, Jay. I like how you go in-depth with your points on and give a new perspective on them in a video essay format. Your channel will reach greater heights. Keep up the good work!
ik i'm maybe being negative but this game is perfect for casuals who think they want "old ac back" yet never want to engage in the systems and will never detect or understand the jankyness unless it literally hit them in the face, in my opinion
AC Unity, for its story, is like a trilogy but your just getting the cliffnotes all compacted into one game. And yet even then, you feel like the cliffnotes are leaving out many details.
It's interesting looking at AC nowadays as someone who stopped after AC3. People talking about the newest games to compare them to "older" games like Unity or Black Flag. I'll never buy any AC game ever again but it's kinda wild to see how my man Ezio's legacy turned into fighting dragons.
@@kod8933A bit old, but I would say that Origins and Odyssey, while they're just AC game by name, are far more engaging open world titles with well made action and stealth. They aren't excellent, but you may have a better time playing those than, say, AC3 or Unity.
Calling your video a good take is an understatement-it hit the nail on the head of why this game is so beautiful yet utterly unplayable. While I didn't experience any bugs on my first playthrough, the story just felt so under done. There were the makings of a good story, but like every other part of this game it needed more time. If they had made Rogue the annual release that year, and gave Unity another year in the oven we'd be looking back at that game now as the game that reinvigorated the series for the next gen. I can't help thinking the series would be more genuinely "Assassin's Creed" had this game been given the time and resources it needed to stand tall. Now every AC game feels like a Witcher knockoff because they over corrected Unity's flaws and chased trends.
Extremely good video Jay. I couldn't stay for all of your points but for the ones I did just so well said. Keep up with the content, can't wait for the next one.
You forgot the "jumping cloth physics" in-between camera cuts!. Also, the fact that there's no safe profile to start a new game off. You literally can't start a new game without somehow deleting your previous profile or just replay individual missions through the progression tracker.
Great video Jay. Just found your channel, sure you're going to be big. I will say, I don't necessarily think Unity is incredible, but I do have a greater affection for it now than when it launched. But that affection is largly directly due to disappointment with the newer games. Unity isn't perfect by any means, but it feels the prototype amd proof of concept of how they could have furthered the original identity of AC. They may not have been successful, but they were trying to make improvements to stealth and parkour, densify the city architecture and crowds, and put an even greater and emphasis on assassinations. I think Unity could have been the beginning of recitalizing AC, adressing fan concerns of the franchise going stale without needing to completely reinvent it turn it into a whole new genre of game. I'm one of those who is really disappointed in the direction the series went after Syndicate, and I can't help but look back at Unity as a huge missed lesson. Ubisoft just thought we were tired of their formula when Unity got bad reviews. But personally, I just wanted them to refine the formula. Oh, and release a functioning piece of software.
Every time Ubisoft receives criticism for a game, they completely abandon the ideas behind it and instead of improving, they simplify them with very little effort. Unity could have been the bones to a perfect Assassins Creed game with flashy parkour and assassinations.
@@VenomousWolverine yeah, they really do. It's like they don't realize what they have. Criticism doesn't mean everything about it is terrible. Usually we're saying we like what's there but see how it could be even better. Wish they'd stuck it out after Unity.
The issue was, people were very _very_ mad about Unity (and it even directly affected their bottom line as the next game, Syndicate, bombed). It's not just the bugs and Unity's inherently broken state, everyone just didn't see any of Unity's potential nor see what it brought to the table; most people liked how AC4 branched out and became a _"life as a [insert iconic historical group] simulator"_ kind of game and chastised Unity for sticking to the same old Assassin centered story and gameplay. Most, just like you, only realized Unity's massive potential in hindsight; especially after the new games dropped the ball so intensely. Honestly I wouldn't even blame Ubisoft as much, there is zero chance for them to stick it out with Unity and improving it's foundation while risking yet another backlash accusing lack of innovation; *post release* the players were mostly at fault on why they abandoned the series' roots, though Ubi is obviously at fault for releasing the game in it's unfinished state which got people angry in the first place.
@@shira_yone I agree but look at Syndicate. They added rope launcher to decrease parkour, combat was made dull simple by mashing one button and rest of the game was just the same thing. Ubisoft did not improve anything that Unity was not able to achieve. They just said let's dull it down and add simple stuff. Unity's combat was basic but in a way effective because stealth was prioritised. The cover system was not good but we did not see any improvement in Syndicate. I don't think Ubisoft can now even create a game which can rival some of the top games released every year. They just release generic RPGs where one is a shooter, the other is a now a fantasy land.
@@VenomousWolverine I heard plenty of people (especially sane ones that doesn't care too much about parkour) ends up preferring Syndicate over Unity so they must've improved (in comparison to Unity) plenty of other small aspects that adds up.
I genuinely believe that the combat in old AC games is MISUNDERSTOOD. A lot of people look at the AC combat as Dark Souls players who fixate on difficulty. But here's the thing: ASSASSIN'S CREED COMBAT WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE HARD! It was meant to be COOL! You play as a skilled assassin, so it makes perfect sense that you're able to dispatch of multiple enemies in short time. That's the part of the fantasy of being an assassin! AC combat should never be compared to Dark Souls or other similar games. It should be compared to Batman, Spider-Man or Shadow of Mordor. AC combat is all about style, not difficulty. Anyone can pick up the controller and win a fight by standing still and countering. But that's not how the games were meant to be played! A skilled player who knows all the systems can use a lot of different moves, gadgets and tricks to make the combat more stylish and more interesting. So when people say that "old AC combat is bad" I always want to say "It's not! You just lack imagination". Think about how many different things you can do in Revelations that you can't do in Unity. You can fight with hidden blades, you can fight with your fists, you have a sword and a dagger, you throw knives, shoot a crossbow or use a hidden gun. You can counter with a hookblade to steal money mid-combat or to performa a badass execution. You can disarm opponents and use their swords, axes or spears. You can chain kill enemies with brutal animations. You can throw sand in people's eyes to stun them. You can perform double finishers where Ezio impales one guy on the sword and shoots another one with his gun, you can throw 3 knives at the same time to kill multiple targets, you can throw a big axe or a two-handed sword, you can throw a spear to impale someone, you can spin a spear to kill everyone around you. You can throw a spike bomb on the ground to stun enemies. You can frighten NPCs by detonating a bomb filled with blood. You can throw an explosive bomb that works like a lethal grenade or another one that works like a non-lethal stun grenade. And ACIII has its own set of amazing moves that give combat more depth. You can literally choke an enemy with a snare. You can hang people on trees. You can drag your victim with a rope dart into a bush. You can put an explosive mine on an enemy mid-combat. You can counter with your pistol or shoot 2 people at the same time. You can air assassinate with any weapon including swords, axes, tomahawks, hidden blades, bare hands and even muskets. You can assassinate while running without losing much momentum. There's an animation for double assassination when your 2nd target is behind your 1st one. You can yank people mid-combat with a rope. You can disarm a musketeer and immediately shoot someone with the mustket (but not if it has already been fired). You can take a human shield to protect yourself from a volley of musket bullets. I'm sick and tired of people saying that "old AC comabt had no depth". It's ridiculous. AC Unity combat has no depth! Seriously. What can you do in this game? You press attack, parry or dodge and that's it. There are no interesting gadgets, no flashy finishers, no double kills, no chain kills, no fist combat, no hidden blade combat, no disarming, no nothing. Unity is by far the least interesting combat system in the series. Even RPG games like AC Origins have better combat than this.
AC Unity was the final nail in the coffin for me. I was a long time fan starting with AC 1. But after playing Unity, I knew that the AC that I loved was gone. Both narratively and mechanically.
games really are unlike any other artform or medium, like im watching arno dynamically mix animations to parry each enemy attack and its beautiful and the artistry and technical knowhow on display are insane, and yet if if doesnt feel good its bad simple as that
The way so many people called this a "hidden gem" made me expect a lot going into this on my first playthrough, but man, was I in for a flaming train ride. Honestly, I enjoyed a lot about this, but I think this game has actually become overrated in online circles. Additionally, great video Jay, agree with practically all your points!
Sometimes I got softlocked jumping in Notre Dame and flying forever in place not being able to land. Once I broke my arm apparently and all animations got wonky. I also remember the cartoony "5 guards in a row fall for the same hiding spot" encounters. Missed out on the platinum, because I did not feel like doing the multiplayer sync kills and stuff. Overall I had fun with it, but would never touch it again since it launched.
I think AC Unity is the closest the series ever got to the IDEA of an Assassin's Creed game that started with AC1, but on practice, it falls so shortly, it's honestly disheartening to see. The parkour system is the perfect parkour system for this idea, but it doesn't work properly most of the time. The stealth system the perfect stealth system for this idea, but i doesn't work properly most of the time. The combat, the story. The only thing I think is done greatly is the world, Paris, it is dense, it is realistic and is a perfect place for an Assassin's Creed experience. It pains me so much that Ubisoft, instead of keeping on with these systems and improving them, to eventually turn them in the best Assassin's Creed experience ever, first completely butchered them with AC Syndicate, and then abandoned them with Origins.
every time i get the itch to download Unity again i watch a video essay on it and think of something better to feed my SSD AC as a franchise, as a formula is so unique in the industry that even though the individual pieces always fall short, the games feel like more than the sum of their lackluster parts. I *want* to love the games, I *need* something like them to be objectively good, but it's frustrating that Ubisoft just seems incapable. I wonder if they should try something like Bethesda and Fallout NV, where they hand the tools and IP to a different, enthusiastic studio for a game.
Excellent video! I'm playing Syndicate lately and, despite removing manual jump, the game feels far more responsive and consistent than Unity in its moment to moment gameplay. Unity overly focused on fidelity over gameplay which runs contrary to their ambitions of crafting sandbox assassination missions where planning and precise execution should matter. Syndicate got hate for being formulaic, but for a game with significantly shorter development time than Unity, it salvaged the hell out of its wreckage into something that is safely enjoyable.
Syndicate was made by the same group that made brotherhood. They always used to make the most enjoyable games, and Jacob was quickly one of my favourite protagonists, even if evie was boring. Sad to see that those creative minds have left the franchise after Syndicate, and sadder yet to see new people who made odyssey and previously had lower down roles in syndicate development, claiming creative credit for the game. It confused many online.
Syndicate gets a lot of flack for being less ambitious than Unity, but it is a much more functional game. Reduction of input lag alone makes a huge difference in how the game feels. There is also just less to get stuck on because the world is less complex, which has its pros and cons obviously. Personally, I think Syndicate is as good as it could have been in many ways given just how much they had to try and mask instead of fix. Large crowds like in Unity were just too much for the tech, so they were removed. Parkour was really janky so they added the launcher and simplified the world design. Combat was revamped to be much easier but also much less frustrating. Stealth just works better, plain and simple. These are bandaids, not real solutions, and yet they succeed in making the game so much more functional than Unity. Add fantastic side content and a clearer Templar plot to the mix and you're left with a game that I enjoy a lot. I get that the simplification upsets a lot people who wanted to see Unity built upon, but going over everything I did in this video, I'm amazed the game works as well as it does.
My biggest problem with all the parkour systems after brotherhood (which had a wall jump added to the second one) that they look nice and thats it. Everything is automated and what happens when everything is automated? they got rid of the parkour riddles. You just climb because its cool. Thats it. You dont think anymore you just press a button and the protagonist does everything else. the climbing become so boring it got almost irrelevant in assasins creed syndicate when they implemented the grappling hook.
I'll be 100% honest, Unity is my second favorite AC game, behind Syndicate. I love Arno, and I love exploring Paris and the Café Théâtre. I've also poured many hours into trying to better my skills with the combat and parkour, because of how awesome it looks when it works correctly. That being said, after watching this video through to the end, I think some of your criticisms are absolutely valid. Despite playing Unity for the first time in late 2019-early 2020 on PC after it had been patched, I did find myself getting frustrated with some of the unpolished mechanics, such as the sticky cover system and Arno not obeying button commands. The poor balancing in some of the Co-op Missions can also be a pain, as certain tasks are borderline impossible to complete if you're playing solo - which wouldn't be too bad, if certain weapons and armor pieces weren't locked behind them (this in particular drives me up a wall). Not to mention, the Arno-Elise romance will always frustrate me as well, because it started out so beautifully, only for it morph into a one-sided relationship that made Arno appear like he was developing an increasingly unhealthy obsession with a woman who may or may not still care about him, and even at one point LITERALLY discarded him because he didn't fit in her 'revenge agenda', due to his caring more about her ACTUAL LIFE and wanting to protect her over taking out Germain. But in spite of its clear problems, I can't bring myself to hate this game, because I've genuinely enjoyed a lot of it and still do. I did enjoy watching your video as well; it's always nice to hear varied opinions, whether one agrees with them or not. Good work with editing and scripting this, and thanks for sharing!
I think most of the praise unity gets this days is due to short video plataforms, the game is simply gorgeous, and the animations are incredible, so seeing it on shorts or tik tok for 30 secs, being optimized by someone who practiced a lot, makes it look a lot better than it really is.
Unity had amazing potential but itclearly needed an extra year of development. The game can be quite enjoyable and does some impressive things - it has huge crowds, ceautiful buildings and pretty flashy parkour. Unfortunately, it also cut a lot of great features from the previous games or went in the wrong direction. Overall it feels unfinished and broken. The parkour has cool animations, but it's clunky, imprecise and floaty. The combat is harder than before, but it's repetitive, uninteresting and it lacks the flair of previous games. The stealth is functional but barebones and unimaginative. Unity has so many fundamental issues that go well beyond bad performance or bugs: The controls are clunky and imprecise; stealth kills and finishers often don't connect with enemies in believable ways; you can't use the hidden blade in combat; there are very few gadgets and they don't have any interesting combat moves (like the hidden pistol, rope dart or even snares had in previous games); you can't carry bodies (why? All games since ACII had that feature); you can't have multiple weapons like the sword and a dagger (you are limited to one main weapon at a time); the cherry bombs are still broken and enemies can't hear them; you can't whistle to attract enemies; there are no combos or finishers with a pistol; regular soldiers don't carry muskets like they did in ACIII; the story is short and uninteresting; Arno becomes boring and loses all his charisma after he becomes the assassin; the romance between Arno and Elise doesn't work; the main villain is weak and forgettable; the piece of Eden makes no sense; the game wasted an opportunity to feature Connor; historical characters are pretty boring (apart from maybe one scene with Napoleon); the side content is weak; there are way too many pointless collectibles; the customization is mid and most cosmetic items are ugly af; the co-op isn't properly integrated into the story and it feels detached from the rest of the game. We could go on for hours. Unity is simply a wasted opportunity. It had some great ideas and it does some things well but overall it's an unfinished and unpolished mess of a game.
I honestly think the story could have been saved if Elise was the main character, not Arno. Narratively, it makes far more sense for her to join the assassin's after the templars betrayed her by killing her father. Her staying with the Templars in the first place was non-sensical to me considering what they did. Arno could still be obsessed with her and try to help her but it would be him that dies at the end. Her revenge having cost her the only person she had left in her life. I know Ubisoft is way too cowardly now to give a main game solo female protag, let alone back then, but it sucks that we got stuck with Arno and his story when really, Elise and her role in the narrative is far more interesting.
They were able to do a female Assassin protagonist before with Liberation. Unfortunately, apart from the disguise and whip traversal mechanics, it was a mid game at best, hampered by its portable game trappings (it was first released on the PS Vita and only had graphical improvements in its re-releases). But seriously, Élise should've been the main character. It would perfectly complement Rogue as she would be the polar opposite of Shay in terms of switching sides. Or, if they delayed the game by a year, put her as a secondary playable character and factor Shay (hell, even Connor and the Marquis de Lafayette) into the story to further the connection to past entries in the franchise. We could go on and on, but we can all agree that Unity's story can be summed up in two words: wasted potential.
@@jmal Yeah I know about Liberation but it's a side game so I don't count it. I actually think it's partially why we don't have any solo main game female protags though. Ubisoft did a half assed job with Liberation and when it didn't sell well, blamed it on people not wanted to play as Aveline. They're not the smartest execs up there. But yes, agreed, Wasted Potential should be Unity's actual name, Assassin's Creed: Wasted Potential.
My problem with AC Unity, is that it is so boring. Arno is completely unlikeable. Ironically his overall story is similar to Ezio, but their actions and how they come across is so different.
They would have had such a good opportunity to explore the different orders by having Arno actually unknowingly develop relationships with the templars, including Elise, before his adopted father gets assassinated and he gets involved with the Assassins the same way he does in the game. One thing AC2 did so well is that it made you invested in killing the targets, no other Assassins Creed game has managed to do that for me to such an extent. The only ones that come close are AC3 and Black Flag.
@@burgerbran I remember him being petty, not really understanding why he’s killing Templars, playing into Germains coup, not listening to his mentors. He’s generally unlikable in the way he speaks to be people. It isn’t until right the very end, he goes onto have a redemption arc. It’s like, the game should have started at the end.
@@zandernewson9933Arno is a character built around being headstrong and impulsive, never questioning his rationale, and jumping into his shoddy plans with no hesitation. He played into Germain’s coup by killing key opponents of him because he never sought the council of his other assassin’s, instead acting without their consent, and leaving them in the dark until he’s already screwed the pooch; he also acts without full knowledge of the situation because he takes information at the surface level, again playing into Germain’s coup, and causing him to make a lot of mistakes. His redemption arc at the end of the game sees him realizing the copious amounts of mistakes he’s making in the form of Elise’s borderline suicidal pursuit of vengeance. Arno decides that the vengeance that he was so recklessly seeking was not more important than Elise. This causes Elise to get upset at him letting their chance at Germain go, and the assassin’s finally get sick of him and kick him out. Then Elise ropes him back into the hunt for Germain, and Arno wraps up the loose ends his sloppy work left untied before going into the final confrontation. Arno ends the game finally realizing how wrong he was, and comes to understand the true meaning of the creed. Arno isn’t meant to be likable-at least not in the sense of him being competent, and his arc was him getting over his arrogance, and becoming a wiser man. Kind of like Edward in a way. Now, did they accomplish what they were setting out to do? Maybe, that’s up for you to decide for yourself, but I think Arno was an okay protagonist.
I didn't dislike him, or find him unlikeable; I just didn't find him likeable, he has little character, or character development; like most Assassins Creed protagonists, I'm just kinda apathetic; they don't make me care, it's like killing off other characters to progress his: their lives mean nothing, so their deaths mean nothing to me too, same with his.
Your description of the game as MMO like does a great job of describing why I bounced off the game. I have never been able to enjoy MMOs and Unity's side quests definitely instill the same sense of intense boredom.
I had been a huge french revolution geek as a teenager. So I always dreamed about gettint an assassins creed in this time period. The possibilities in terms of story, conflicts, personal motivations for characters, the war between assassins and templars, clash of philosophies seemed endless. For example you could revert the typical start of an ac game, where it isnt the templars who are the ones in power, but the assassins, who are leading the revolution from the shadows, while they are themselves divided in different camps, who dont see eye to eye on where they want the revolution to lead. And while the brotherhood is busy with themselves all the overwhelming events and voilence of the revolution, they fail to see the templars moving in the dark until its too late. They were thought to have died with the old society, but they went through a transformation themselves and infiltrated the revolutionaries. That would have been a great premise imo and even back then I expected something similar at least. But all I got as a story was ... that
You can use the riot crowd event to you advantage, although only once. When infiltrating Palais de Luxembourg in 'Hoarders', you can kill the front gate guards and the crowd will rush in.
I think you sum it up well. It's hard for people to resolve conflicting ideas about a single thing, so some folk look at this game and see only the failure, others see only the promise. To really understand the game, you have to see both. I think this review captures both nicely. When I look over the AC series, at all the games, and at each individual aspect and feature of each game, a pattern emerges. Everything appears amazing, but falls apart on closer inspection. With few exceptions, all the protagonists are charming and likeable. Yet few actually serve as meaningful protagonists, with anything like a substantial story. Arno's story is based on his love for Elise, and his tragedy would be palpable, if there was much to their relationship beyond the excellent acting and direction of the performers, and, of course, the gorgeous character modeling and quality performance capture. But beneath all those surface aspects is a love story with no depth, not consistency, no real thematic weight. And beyond that, as the series goes on, the entire framing story has become like a dead, rotten limb they refuse to just cut off, instead dragging it from sequel to sequel and flailing it limply as if to say "See, this still works. It's fine." The frame of AC is actually three frames, the present-day vs the past, the philosophical battle between Templars and Assassins, and the legacy of the Isu. But these three frames simply don't line up into a single narrative meaning. Each entry in the series promises this clunky plot will move forward, but instead, it becomes more and more convoluted as it spins it wheels. Unity itself is a series of scenes in search of a story, and the series as a whole is a series of ideas in search of a narrative. The writers seem to think just trotting out the ideas in game after game is enough. Not in my estimation. With each new game, I find myself increasingly at a loss to see the relevance of the present-day frame story, or the purpose of each mention of the Isu to the story at hand. None of it adds up. And as with the stories, the game play is always similarly underdeveloped. Individual bits will be crafted to perfection. The combat in the recent RPG titles manages to have a touch of depth and variety. But once it combines with the story progression, it falls victim to the classic RPG problem. You start underpowered, and by the mid-game, you're so absurdly OP it hardly counts as a game at all, let alone a challenging one. But to me, the series' core problem is best seen in its stealth. Stealth is the core identity of the AC games. But stealth requires polish, and polish is the where these games truly fail. Anyone who's ever done anything artistic for a living knows that the first 80% of the work takes 20% of the time, and the last 20% takes 80% of the time. This is where Ubisoft in general, and the AC team in particular, make their fatal mistake. They don't take the time to polish what they've made. They've streamlined their process toward bloat rather than perfection. And so even with games like Valhalla, which isn't riddled with bugs like Unity, nothing is particularly well done. It's not so much a game as a bunch of game components and systems chucked into an engine any old how, in the hopes that fun will emerge on its own. The greatest failure of AC: Unity, to my mind, isn't that the game was bad, but that the wrong lesson was learned. Instead of realizing they needed to make a better game, they decided they should just make one that's totally different. Don't get me wrong, I think the RPG format was a good direction for the series, a natural evolution. But while they didn't end up as badly broken as Unity, they made the same mistake, prioritizing "more" over "better." They took an extra year to develop AC: Origins, but instead of spending that time polishing and perfecting, they spent it bloating. They made larger games, but they're still undercooked. There's a famous Mark Twain quote, “I apologize for such a long letter - I didn't have time to write a short one.” That sums up everything wrong with AC games. Three frame stories where there should be one. Ten chapters when there should be four. A dozen half-baked game mechanics, all conflicting one another, because they didn't want to take the time to make sure five would interact seamlessly. A game series that tries to be all things to everyone, that never quite pleases anyone.
I have never met a more flocking fanbase than Assassin's Creed. A few people say a thing and then everybody bleats the same thing repeatedly as if it's their new gospel. I couldn't believe how much Unity is put on a pedestal. Have they never played it? It's....not amazing.
an interesting thing i thought of this game of how anti revolutionary unity is, ac3 was good at showing both sides of the conflict showing that either side was willing to use and take whatever furthers their individual vendettas, whilst unity is just revolution bad, it’s weird because in the marketing it was shown that you would be fighting for the revolution, killing the kings guards and fighting against tyranny, just for the game to be anti revolutionary boot licking fest. it almost seems that none of the teams we’re communicating at all.
I did have a section on the bizarre politics of this game but I ended up cutting it for time since it is it's own can of worms entirely. AC3 had similar marketing issues where they presented the story as a fight for freedom against British oppressors to secure an American audience, but had a much greyer stakes at play in the actual game. I do not believe AC3 does a good job of presenting the American revolution, but they do at least try to paint the limits of the freedom the colonies were fighting for. Unity's marketing shows Arno storming the Bastille himself, condemning a noble to be torn apart by peasants, chopping down guards to stop Elise's execution, and rallying the masses to stand against the upper class. None of this means anything in the context of the actual game, and the only time he really makes a point about the revolution is in a throwaway line where he expresses that he is glad that the people are fighting for liberty and equality. There is a video on TH-cam titled "The Cowardly Politics of Assassin's Creed: Unity, and History as a Symbol (Full Spoilers)." I can't recommend it because I haven't watched it, but I have been wanting to make time for it. For Ubisoft to be so weary of being political in a game about the French Revolution is shameful in my opinion.
@@sosaysjayanother example of ubisoft not understanding politics whatsoever, but i have learned to not care, because it’s a video game. they make karl marx in syndicate to be a liberal who was anti revolution (democracy is the only road to socialism i thought was the funniest divergence from marxist theory ) , they thought Caesar was overthrown because he wanted to hoard all the land, even though he supported land reforms and distribution of land between the peasantry of the country, the writers were so lazy for origins that they just flipped the ideology of the senate chamber and Caesar. the reason i believe they are so anti revolutionary in unity is because this one of the the first revolutions that had left wing backings, ie the communes. i can understand a more gray take with the american revolution since there were still slaves and the genocide of natives, but the anti french revolution is clear that ubisoft the company comes before the writing team.
@@sosaysjay i just finished the video you recommended watching and yeah, the politics of unity are inherently upholding the systems that keep status quo and making left movements to look tyrannical (i can only wonder what their spin off 2.5d game about the first marxist revolution), but what are we to expect from a multibillion dollar corporation.
@@tenebrisanima9604 1. marxists (such as myself) don’t believe in liberal democracy in terms of achieving a socialist state. 2. if you read the codex they make fun of marxists and starbucks millennials
The lack of any acknowledgement of Arno’s real father and the events of rogue drive me nuts! I know it’s because of the development timeline etc but still. He was old enough where he would’ve remembered his bio dads death and I’d imagine want to know who killed him. Arno’s voice actor is the best aspect of this game for me personally, and the murder mysteries. Like why would he not try and kill Shay?? Or at least learn who he is?
@@YEY0806 yes also that! I’m sure it’s some generic “died in childbirth” because 1700s, but even like the Frye twins know and mention their mother and that she died from childbirth.
@gracie15928 Oh yeah, I forgot that, too. Still it says something that even a hated game like Odyssey actually has the parents be involved and significant for the story rather than just be forgotten revenge fuel
One of my least favorite things about the game is that, if you accidentally fast travel to the carriage that takes you to the DLC, you can't fast travel back to Paris until you've done the first mission of the DLC.
Arno and Elise being wasted was my biggest frustration. He, and they as a couple, have such a strong start. But then the story insists on separating them, and wasting time on far less compelling things. I get the feeling Series X BC is the best way to play Unity, though. I had a very smooth experience with very little technical issues or bugs. And whilst it cannot fix all of Unity's issues, playing in French really seals the deal on its setting and atmosphere (just like ACII/Brotherhood in Italian). It at least makes its great moments feel all the better.
I'm replaying Unity right now as I finally have a PC powerful enough that the game looks how I imagined it would back in 2014 lol. Funnily enough, the one phrase I keep yelling while playing it is "wasted potential". So many good ideas were either implemented extremely poorly, or were dropped immediately in the games after Unity and never revisited. The parkour is so, so close to being right and they never used a system even remotely like it ever again.
I would say Syndicate is a much more improved version of Unity. While parkour is simpler, everything, from traversal, stealth and combat, works as intended. The mission design and side content, in particular the Black Box missions, are pure stealth joy. It's no Masterpiece by any stretch, and I would rather play Origins or Odyssey, but it is a polished version on Unity in some extent.
Im pretty sure most of the discussion revolves around the sentiment that it's a hidden gem because of how harshly it was bashed was extreme and many people have found it to be more enjoyable than the original discussion would suggest. More-over, most of us recognise the game has issues and isn't perfect, however, it is a strong foundation of what AC could be. If Unity wasnt such a technical mess it's possible we would have seen that foundation and potential actually met, rather than the homongenised version of big open world AC we have now. Unity is a rather unique game which celebrated what made AC unique, not what was the trending game of the time and many of us wished AC would have continued that route. Many of the comments and criticisims you have for the game all originate from the same issue. The game was rushed and is full of technical issues. The parkour is odd and rough because of the complexity of the map and the rushed nature of the game means they didnt have the time to iron out the poor prediction of your naviagtion. The combat is a great foundation to bridge complexity with simple style. No one is asking for the exact system in Unity with the poor hit registartion, inconsistent timing, guns etc. They're asking for the difficulty, the depth in the dodge, smaller counter timing, counters that dont' kill, heavy and light attacks, perfect parry's, etc. I think Ghost of Tsushima is a perfect example of what people wanted and clearly Sucker Punch saw this potential as well, almost completely taking the system themselves. It's the same with the stealth, it has great ideas, the interiors, crouching and tools you have, along with the more brutal detection system are all great, but it's really held back by the technical isses, with dodgy detection through walls or from extreme distances, cover systrem that didnt work, etc. People want the large crowds of unity but they want it to be technically fixed, not taken verbatim. All of these issues are a result of a lack of time, not poor design. The ideas were there and thats what people wanted to be expanded, most of the discussion is around the missed and lost potential that caused the series to do a harsh left turn into the open world design we have now, while acknowleding how much of a mess that Unity is. I completely agree with you that we deserved better than Unity and this is brilliant video to help combat the loud voices praising the game without talking about its issues.
What a thorough and monumantal breakdown of a game that people are now holding so high up in their minds. We really do deserve better as the fans of the games, and I can only hope that Ubisoft will learn from their mistakes. Even if we don't I'll have another wonderfully written and voiced analysis to re-watch)
I don't think its unfair to hold unity in such high standards. It's not perfect, sure. But for what it did bring It remains my favourite ac game. The black box missions are amazing, the stealth gameplay is the best the franchise has seen (I fucking love the assassination animations). Though janky at times, I find the parkour to be very satisfying, especially combined with the amazing setting. And the co op, though sometimes buggy it created an unrivaled ac experience IMO, especially with friends.
@@yomi2624 it's fair to expect the series you love to improve and get better. Paraphrasing another youtuber Whitelight, this series has never met it's full potential and we as fans just deal with what we actually got, mediocre games at best that bafflingly as of now got it's "peak" in 2009. Anyway nice to meet you fellow Unity enjoyer.
I always wonder whenever I see someone praising how good the parkour was in Unity if they actually played the game, or just saw some cool video? Yes, you can do some cool stuff in the game. Just like DudePerfect can do crazy things in real life. Both after many retries.
You know, I can excuse most of the problems with this game. I really can. But the story is what kills it for me. How could it manage to have so many good ideas and drop the ball with every single one of them? It's honestly baffling to me. One of the coolest and least explored settings (the French revolution) and they do fuck all with it, serving as a backdrop that barely even sets the mood. Heck, they managed to screw up even the romance plotline which was, in a lot of ways, new to the franchise. And Élise was such a strong character that I honestly wish she was the protagonist. Not to mention it doesn't really go anywhere, it's only set-up with no pay-off? Every time Arno chose love instead of duty, something terrible happened. Now, in the very end, when it's Élise's turn, she doesn't and something terrible also happens. I guess damned if you do, damned if you don't? Like, what's the message here? Duty over love? Love over duty? You're fucked either way? Like there's a couple of ways of fixing it, and it's just a matter of switching Arno's and Élise's position in the fight against Germain. - have *Arno* have to make the same decision he's been making the whole game one last time, but this time he learned from his mistakes and choses duty over love, he loses Élise, but saves the world or whatever. This is just pay-off for finally choosing responsibility, earning him the monologue in the end realizing that sometimes, you can't always have what you want and sacrifices are necessary in the name of a larger cause and even Élise understood that. Which would go perfectly with the backdrop as people were literally dying for a larger cause. - have Arno chose Élise, like he always has and always will and then they could take Germain down together thanks to the power of love or something (I'm not a writer, figure it out lol) and it could conclude in a sweet moment where they have to figure out what to do next now that Arno has been expelled and the Order is in shambles. So now that they have love, they can both chose duty and set out to continue the work that De La Serre and Mirabeu started. An assassin and a templar working together for the greater good and hey, we don't kill Élise for the sake of killing her. Everything else is *whatever*, give it a couple more games to refine it or a few patches and I'm sure it would've been great. But the story... man, what a miss. Like I really wish they would retcon Unity just for the sake of using the french revolution again.
@@trumpflavourednugget9325 Had they let Darby do his thing, we'd have narrative and thematic gems like _Black Flag._ How is it that a game about an interpretation of the titular Creed from an outsider's perspective _hides in plain sight_ as a fun pirate fantasy game?
At this stage, I'd much prefer they let other studios try to make Assassins Creed. Sucker punch, Naughty Dog, Insomniac or Fromsoft Ware perhaps; it's unlikely, but I'd prefer that to Ubisoft.
I played this game on my pc in 2023 for the first time after I put down playing Origin since it was so boring. i think if i went out of my way and started looking for different elements you mentioned in the video, i probably wouldn't have much fun with it, but my god, this game was so much fun and maybe even my favorite assassin's creed ever. This might not have been the perfect assassin’s creed but you can’t deny it, it was a right step towards the right direction and that's much more true when you count the new games too.
Just saw this article posted today, about ACUFixes, an AC Unity mod for PC. It’s supposed to add removable hoods, add window jump in buttons and help with sticky cover and shit. I haven’t tried, but there isn’t a SINGLE video on TH-cam of it from what I can see. Article posted by Gamingbible, just so y’all know. If anyone on PC (who has time) can grab the mod and check it out, it might be just what we need (or a slight improvement at least).
@@shira_yoneA post on the Assassin's Creed subreddit (r/assassinscreed) has the link plus GIF previews of all the fixes. I'd link it here, but it'll probably be removed for spam.
I think the idea of AC Unity is much better than the actual game that is AC Unity. It's still one of the most gorgeous games I've ever played but so broken mechanically. In a better timeline Ubisoft would have either given the game the time and money it really needed or realized that the issue was not the ideas, but implementation, and expanded the series in this direction.
when we said "something new" we meant technical side being literally AC revelations because that's where the franchise peaked with new stories and new conspiracies around historical events not what ubisoft did with the franchise and definetly no fantasy, flaming unicorns, vikings, complete abandonement of assassins in assassins creed game
I just want to say that I found this video fascinating despite the fact I gave up on AC after 3. I don't even like this series anymore but your videos and passion for the franchise is always great to watch. Keep up the good work!
After recently binginging Ac 1 all the way to unity I feel like the creators really started to drift away from the core themes of the games after Revelations. Especially after the final scene when Ezio explains to Sophia the philosophy of the Creed and telling Altair's remains to rest it felt like a good bye to many core aspects, like the closing of story, but they need to finish Desmond's story so they had to make AC 3 which focused more on the historical setting and the relationship between Connor and haythem. AC 4 felt more like a heroes journey that happend to take place in the AC universe then downhill from there to the point AC is no longer what it once was
Never seen your channel and I haven't consumed AC contenct since AC 2 and brotherhood multiplayer* and somehow your video got me recomended IN THE SAME DAY that I've reinstalled Unity. And I must say that you hit the nail on every single grievances I had with the serie, that start around that time and ended with syndicate, when I stopped playing the series that I loved. And without even opening the game again, uninstalled. As you said. I wanted to revisit some constructed memory that I had that was actually from trailers, not from the game itself. In a weird way, I loved the trailer, the promise. *And man how I loved the multiplayer. I wasnt that young (19), so I don't know if I'd like it today. But I loved stealthy killing people while watching clowns running around roofs.
I like the combat and I am dissapointed that AC entirely abandoned it for Syndicate rather than fixing it. It had a really good foundation and the animations were great in my opinion.
I consider this game as generally really fun to play with a strong start but a lackluster and anticlimactic finale and a constant moving of the goalposts with what the actual goal of the main character even is with a pretty meandering plot in the middle. I think even Syndicate, with its pretty bog standard plot still had a more cohesive main antagonist and better sense of progression, wheras in Unity it all kind of goes on for a while and then just abruptly stops. I honestly can't even remember if Arno ever catches the one who actually killed his adoptive guardian, but he definitely doesn't catch the man who killed his father because that would mean confronting Connor and the plot actually suffers by basing a lot of the plot around it but never actually going anywhere.
Back when Unity was announced and everyone was hyped, I had stepped back from the serie since AC3. For me the end of Desmond was the end of AC. I saw the evolution from afar, but didn't care much. The bugs of Unity and failure of Syndicate only confirmed me the franchise was only going down. While Origin seemed like a great renaissance for the saga, Odyssey and Valhalla were to me final nails in the coffin by keeping only the AC name and becoming shallow "historical" open worlds. Last year, with the announcement of Mirage and its promise to go back to the roots, I wanted to give another try to one of the series of games that marked my adolescence. I picked up where I had left and played Black Flag. The lack of weapon variety and dense parkour environments were my main criticism. I understand why it's often people's favorite AC game. As I got back into AC, I watched plenty of retrospective videos on the games. I saw how people, looking back at Unity thought it was actually an hidden gem or that "the patches made the game playable and it's a great one". I saw the fancy parkour animations, and the cool infiltrations made flawlessly. I was thirsty to play that assassin's fantasy, the parkour in a big city which I didn't have since Revelation. But I wanted to play them in order. So I got through Rogue. Back in 2014, I was intrigued by the idea of playing a templar and having to defend yourself from assassins. I knew the game was sometimes not even considered a mainline game, but the recent retrospective convinced me it was underrated. The copy of Black Flag wasn't too much. It was a bit refined and the base formula works. Maybe, it's also because I had learned to forget completionism. The story was horrible and missed so much opportunities to add nuances to the templars vs assassins conflict, but it did not. The funny thing is that AC games are mostly designed in Montréal or Québec and that one time they made a game in the St-Lawrence Gulf, during the French and Indians War, in New-France aka Québec, they made the game by another studio and a lot of details were off. Still kinda fun. By then, I was starved for dense city parkour and I had great expectations for Unity and while it probably wasn't as bad as it was for people in 2014, the game was a bit bugged, but generally acceptable. The parkour doesn't always work perfectly as expected, but looks cool in general and feels great when it works as intended. I must admit the story was mostly bad and didn't make much sense. With my previous two AC, I had learned to do side missions, but to not chase after every collectables. In Unity, most side content is ridiculously empty. The Paris stories are a joke. I had more connection with the citizen I saved in random events than with those of the Paris stories. Nostradamus were fine, but sometimes a bit too obscure (maybe it was the translation (I played in French for the immersion)). I think the murder investigations were a good addition. I hated how my map was filled with collectables. The customization of your suit was fun (beside that the stealthiest suits were the least assassin-looking ones). The rift segments were so unnecessary and the (lack of) present day story was unnerving as a long-time fan who gave a lot of importance to the link between the games. In the end, people were not chanting the glory of Unity, they were mourning what the game was supposed to be, what the franchise could've become, what was promised to us all these years ago. I haven't finished the dlc yet, but after that I seriously considering to skip Syndicate because I need the fresh air Origin might bring. And it's sad, because I've heard Syndicate, despite its flaws, is actually decent, has great moments and fixes a lot of Unity's problems, but now, I get why it flopped in context of being released right after Unity.
I absolutely hated the stealth in this game. At a certain point i just decided to approach every encounter with a sword instead of wasting time planning out some elaborate infiltration only for an enemy at the other end of the room to immediately spot me and chase after me even when i stealthily took out the first guard. They don't even have to be facing you half the time they will still be alerted. They went over board on making the chiefs awareness realistic.
Yes, Yes, Yes,. Ive been looking for a video like this. Ive tried to play Unity so many times, but never maneged to get more than a couple hours in before i get really bored or/and really frustated, so i play AC1 instead.
I believe the revolution storyline should’ve been handled. Similarly to assassin’s creed three because targets that you had were both important to the brotherhood that was left at the time and the revolution itself in fact you got to kill John Pitcairn, and Lee started the Boston massacre.
Congratulations for the critical analysis of the game, a really good essay, so I would like to point that everything you said is a microcosm of the entire series, AC 1 was more a prototype them a game, is basically a mudded river with heuge chunks of rough diamond, AC 2 in deed is a proof of concept and the rest of Ezio's trilogy expanded and improved what already was there, because of this still so beloved by many, but none of it's concepts was evolved since revelations and some was dropped, the colonial Trilogy was a mess in scope, focus, features and development time, this games starts to show how the production mode and it's cycle in Ubisoft is completely unsustainable, the comination of this miss management is AC unity, where in concept is the peak of the series, the defenitive Assassin's Creed experience, but fallfelt in execution and show how the series is a wasted pontial, never were capable of presenting and executing it's ideas coexively, consistent, deeper and polished. After that , syndicate easily is a parody or a waterdown version of what come before, probably the worst game in the series, so to keep the production cycle Ubisoft brings the RPG trilogy that throw out the window the water with the baby, keeping all the worst aspects that came before and lost everything it was unique to the series in the process.
This video so perfectly sums up my feelings for this game, thank you for helping me finally process my trauma. Now I finally understand why it felt so limiting going back to a city after Black Flag's open world, not because it's a problem that it's smaller, but because it has no memorable side content just the main story and a bunch of soulles generic mmo style side missions. If only people realized this back then maybe we wouldn't have these massive open world rpgs now. People complain now that you're not a real assassin anymore in Valhalla, but you're not really one in Unity either, they both have a hidden blade and they both work for their own selfish reasons sometimes collaborating with the Brotherhood. The bugs really distracted people from how bad the story really was, it honestly makes no sense why they didn't induct Arno into the Templar order even though the Grand Master raised him, it worked with Haytham. Since they never mentoin Shay in Unity I don't consider him (or his game) cannon, in my head cannon it was Monsieur de la Serre that killed Arno's father, why else would he have been there on the same day as an assassin, it's also highly suspicous that his daughter was the one that distracted Arno and she appeared right away after his father left.
This video came out at such a good time for me. I've been replaying each AC game (not in order) with my gf leading up to Mirage. We just finished Unity and we were very underwhelmed. When I first played this game about 2 years ago, I played in such sporadic bursts I hardly remembered the plot each time I booted up but had fun enough exploring Paris that I left with a 6-7/10 impression. Upon replaying it this is definitely near the bottom of my AC tier list. The story is so underwhelming and the broken mechanics really ruin the experience. I'd replay just about any AC game again (aside from Valhalla which is last on our play through list ugh), but I have no need to come back to Unity again. I really want to love Unity. You can become blinded by the shear potential this game has. You can almost feel it. But it falls short of that potential unfortunately.
I disagree with some of your opinions about Valhalla and the other RPG games, but you are one of the few people who talk any sense about this series, and especially this game.
Loved this video. I was always fascinated by AC as a kid but didn't have money for consoles so I could only play the Ezio games or the Kenway games for a short time at friend's houses. When I finally had money for a console, I bought a PS4 with Syndicate as a bundle and had a lot of fun with it. I check the community online and apparently, Syndicate sucked and Unity was the underrated "flawed" masterpiece, as many youtubers put it. And I started to believe them - the game I loved actually sucked and Unity was the good one. I hadn't played it yet but I did watch all the marketing and gameplay showcases before it came out and at the time, I thought it was fantastic. So, I finally managed to get Unity on a sale for 15 bucks and oh man, never have I ever felt so betrayed by a community before. I wanted my 15 bucks back. I couldn't believe they hated Syndicate for... this. I went back to Rogue and Syndicate. The only positives I can give Unity are it's graphics/art style, the beautiful city of Paris, the parkour and the customization. Everything else in this game is bad. Dead Kings was alright - Arno stops being a dumbass and actually learns how to live without Elise. My enjoyment slightly got better after putting the game in french and some replays but even then, I remembered and I spent a whole afternoon reinstalling it, booting it up, walking two steps and the game teleported to another streert, so I smply uninstalled it again. Never played a game so broken till launch day Cyberpunk 2077 came out.
Others may have said this already, but it's a tad disappointing that you didn't cover Dead Kings here. Wouldn't have mind hearing more of your thoughts on the game as I really enjoy hearing what most, sane, people think about Unity. It's such a beautiful mess of a game to discuss.
Ive played Unity since launch, i have put 10,000 hours in it or more. I completely agree with everything you say, in fact on recent playthroughs when i start to have trouble i just cheat in money to get the better gear because i don't want to deal with that bullshit again. ACU is still my second favorite and i know enough parkour to get around the flaws you talk about and i still go and just spend 2 hours free-running. If anyone has the time and dedication to do that it is an amazing game but if you don't, it is going to be really bad.
What’s wild is, I agree with pretty much everything you said, but Unity is my fav AC. The story is poop, but the gameplay, when it works, is what I always wanted from the series. Stealth is encouraged as combat gets overwhelming fast, and man is it fun. I love the two tool at a time wheel-less system. Nothing cooler than taking out a group of four guards with a combo of smoke and phantom blade. The parkour is very contextual, which I’m not a huge fan of, but the animation chains you can get and the complexity of Paris keep me coming back for more. The black box missions are super enjoyable despite the flaws. I know it’s not perfect, not even close, but no other AC has made me feel like Unity does while playing. If they ever (doubtful these days) made a game like this again but delivered on the story and polished the systems… bro. I’d never leave the TV.
The thing that made him putting the envelope under the door instead of waiting only secured him going to prison. If he would have waited, Mr de la Serre would still have died but Arno wouldn’t have become an Assassin
I enjoyed watching your critique a lot, I know people have different views on the game, people who hates the game calls out against those who likes it because of the flashy visuals, and on the other side they call out those who say they hate it because its a buggy mess, and while both are true, we're entitled to our opinions and we shouldn't be shouting at eachother because they have a different perspective on things. IMO I like the game a lot, I know its buggy, inconsistant gameplay and story, and the mistreatment of employees when working on the game, but this was my first, and I seen every other assassins creed story and gameplay, and this is what I willingly chose to play and I never felt so immersed in this world, playing it made me feel like an assassin, I learned how I played by getting myself killed, and pushing through the game when it chooses not to work, not to mention this was the first game that I have fully completed. Although I kkow its flawed, and I want a lot of people feel the same way as I do, and it would've been great if they remastered or remake it, because its this that I want to see it truely succeed.
Man, I'm with you for a AC unity remastered, this game deserves a second chance, maybe is the title that most need a revised and improved version in the entier series. I'm a long time AC fan and I love this game from the bottom of my heart, despite it's flaws, in the AC franchise Unity still is the king in gameplay and replayability, I have more than 500 hours in this game, you can't find the assassin's fantasy like this any where else, I tried really hard but I can't found, there is better games then this one, Seven, Deshonored, Hitman or Aragami 2, but neither of them delivered the unique assassin's fantasy like Unity, When I play unity a can tasty the wasted potential in my mouth with all the frustration possible and see how close they get to greatness, but can't put down the controller, still is the most near we come to the perfect assassin's fantasy.
I kept hearing about how amazing the parkour was in this game. I just played it for the first time this year and my BIGGEST issue was the parkour. I felt like I was Wrestling with Arno instead of controlling him. I would die constantly because i was being chased and I couldn’t control where he went or even how fast he went. So many times he works randomly decided to do a light jog while being chased and shot at for NO REASON
Great video, I've enjoyed it from the beginning to the end. This game has a very strange story around it, when many people started saying that it is underrated, it suddently became overrated instead. It wasn't just a gem spoiled by glitches and rushed developement, some of the issues where there from the very start. Which is a shame, because this game as you said had soooo much potential, from the setting, the design, the plot points... But instead it's just a disappointment. And Syndicate was the same. Bot games wanted to return to the old urban setting formula, but missed what made the early games so good
I think the reason why I (and many others) still love it, despite myself hating and gets massively disappointed from other games that had just as much unfulfilled potential (by the gods NFS 2015 is such a wasted potential), is that Unity also offered unique gameplay that you really can't find anywhere else. The parkour speaks for itself, when all planet in the solar system lined up, it is a sight to behold (after your 947238214605th attempts); high level stealth gameplay is just straight up something you can only play in Unity and there's nothing else like it.
I think you are the only one to say that we deserved much better than unity, and i too agree on to it. I understand unity's parkour by watching jcers and leo k, also worth mentioning whitelight's video on parkour of ac But people want ac to be like unity and i am here hoping that we deserve what syndicate should have been. If mirage is return to old ac games without the level of parkour provided on those games, I wonder how long we do catch up to unity which already had its fair share of problems regarding story and parkour. I remember being surprised when i played ac 1 that i could climb buildings. I used to run on street lol. Still my fav ac game. So i started to experiment different things out of it, although nothing worth mentioning but still i felt I had control over the way i jump around. In unity i felt they focused more on graphics and less on story, on top i didn't really liked parkour at all, i was confused at first. And the one thing i was damned at was soo sluggish fighting. Man they moved like slow motion. The most annoying was how inconsistent the game was when i tried to use double assassination. IT DOESNT WORKS . Half the time i spend on manually setting my dart to the target and sometimes it goes throw them. I played unity around covid and people calling it masterpiece while me who just finished rouge and blackflag and didn't liking those games lol. (personally I wanted a return to soul of the game uptill ezio trilogy) But seeing now, even syndicate is more assassin than mr. Viking. But after playing rpg games, i replayed unity after clips i watched. Man it actually felt like an assassin creed fantasy, i basically forgot about parkour at all, i loved how game used its stealth. Still unity has its problems, but with a perfect story and polishing, i think it was closest to what we wanted. Idk how long it will take to catch upto unity and many more to catch upto to what its successor should have been. Its a shame that we usually love games after their sequels, tells alot about this gaming era. Meaning we leave all the criticism we had with it and just want it to return because we have seen somthing way worse. Instead of expecting, we are hoping.
HELLA GOOD VIDEO THO EVERYTHING ELSE IS SPOT ON👌🏽1:12:13 honestly I like this part of the narrative, it gives the player some narrative agency. He paid his dues now he’s a full fledged assassin and due to the truce nobody is really threatening the assassins for once, because for so many assassins creed games the ASSASSINS themselves can be viewed as a problem in the story that needs fixing. Whether that be infighting, corruption, turncoats, and/or rebuilding due to the templars and bad leadership. And the Colonial Creed were the worst with this, but damn near every game before the rpg titles had this.
When i started getting shot from off screen enemies and died as everyone attacked me at the same time, I knew something was up. The game is tailor-made to be artificially more difficult to drive people to the insane microtransactions - the fact that you have to unlock sitting on a bench through leveling is an affront to the series as a whole. Nevermind the companion app nonsense. This is the only mainline AC game I ever sold because I was so disgusted with it. It's also the last AC game i got on release day.
To be honest, I don't really expect AC games to follow so close to history for its story. History is good for a setting, but you should be allowed to tell a good story within it. AC1 takes place in the Third Crusade, and we don't really see any historic events the whole time except the Battle of Arsuf towards the end of the game. AC2 is just generic Renaissance setting, and other than things like the Doge dying in 1485 and other small details like that, we don't see many events tie in with the story. Especially if we exclude the Bonfire of the Vanities DLC. I could go on but really most of the games just use events for flavour, just to sorta remind you that you're in a progressing time period, not a stagnant one, and I'd argue Unity does that well. Bastille at the start, Reign of Terror towards the end, all good. The two games I'd say that aren't like this are AC3 and AC4. Both of those games follow history rather strictly at the expense of their own stories. AC3 has Connor so weirdly connected to the American Revolution that it's almost immersion breaking, that this single man liberated America almost entirely by himself. Edward is more understandable, he is friends with pirates and those friends dropped like flies in the real world, so they would be important parts of his story, though, the mission where Edward heads all the way to Carolina just to see Blackbeard's death before returning is a bit shoehorned. Unity however returns to form and lets the setting just be the setting. Time passes and you know the revolution isn't stagnant, but ultimately the story isn't about the Revolution, just like AC1 isn't about the crusade and AC2 isn't about the Renaissance. The setting is just a flavour, not the meal itself. That being said, to return to what I said at the start of this, yeah, you should be allowed to tell a good story within it. What a shame that Unity's story is shit lmao.
I think the issue is how Unity really tried to connect French Revolution with it's marketing and you would thing plot would be build around it. While AC3 Connor role is kind of a meme, at very least was tied to his character journey and had themes tied to that, while Unity borderline avoids them as fire or just undersells them. Even og AC while being not about Crusades, it didn't try to sell on that in PR and does tie them to larger theme of control Eden represents.
The biggest problem with AC is despite their games draw from history and politics they tend to avoid those subjects to avoid controversy. Thus - AC Syndicate handicapped by a certain blindness due to not wanting to actually handle the issues that were most pressing in its time, perhaps due to corporate interests. You can see how Marx was included yet relegated to an unimportant side character, even though his role in world history is massive - AC3 actually did a good job in this respect, but maybe people who don't read history miss the nuance. Anyways, a Native American main character and a skepticism towards the American independence project was a welcome addition, not to mention a black mentor and side characters, good steps there - AC Unity does not deal very much with the revolution at all, and without knowing any history, you would have no idea what happened
“Wasted Potential” sums up the entire Assassins creed IP perfectly
Stop it. just because this game and this video is about that, doesn’t mean the entire series as a whole isnt great. Don’t go too far because of this vid bro
There are many AC gems. Missteps here and there don’t invalidate the greatness that’s come out of the IP.
@@keekersneakers3259 He's not wrong though. Ubisoft has done more wrong than right with Assassin's Creed and it all started with them firing the creator because he wanted to end it.
@@keekersneakers3259 there's great ac games but none close to perfect.
@@toxpov3612no game is perfect. But the Ezio trilogy is close to perfect
I'll never forgive Unity for focusing on a boring love story instead of the FRENCH REVOLUTION THE GAME IS SET IN
Imagine playing a historical fictional game where you don't interact with the literal historical setting 😂
Late af but those missions are there. Almost all the co-op and side missions relate to the revolution.
@@KingkuntaGGthey’re casuals you’re expecting to much from them.
@@KingkuntaGG yeah in co-op, a mode where you're lucky to find even one player to join you and forced to play solo (which is almost unplayable in that state) has little to relate to the main story. Why the fuck would they make the French revolution a side quest in a game that's about the French revolution.
@@KingkuntaGG It was literally advertised to be part of the French revolution even the fucking E3 trailer. And even if the setting wasn't the French Revolution why the fuck is nearly every assassin's Creed where the historical set pieces completely entangle with what you're doing. AC1 you're in the crusades taking out major influencers and even get involved in heading into the battlefield, AC2 you have front row seats to the Pazzi Conspiracy and it is absolutely important to Ezios Revenge quest, Brotherhood Rodrigo Borgia's failed escape, Revelation the battle for the throne of Sultan which also plays a piece in Ezios appeasement to Suleiman to find all they keys to Altair's library, ACIII completely involved in the entire American revolution the battle for bunkerhill, riding with Paul Revere, Battle for Chesapeake etc. all play a part with the main plot to get key to the temple, ACIV do I really I have to explain the personal journey during the Golden Age of Piracy it has to Edward's eventual joining to the Brotherhood. If you take the French Revolution out of Unity you'd miss absolutely nothing. It has little to do with what's going on and has no stake in the plot compared to previous and future historical set pieces in the series including Odyssey and Valhalla.
20:40 I can't count the number of times in Unity I was fighting a hoard of 15 guys and absolutely slaying them until 6 of them decided to whip out the glock and end my life before I could even reach them.
Not many people know this (I don't think I've ever seen anyone else mention it, at least on TH-cam) but you can semi reliably dodge gun shots by zig zag manual jumping on flat ground; this is also useful for passing through crowds faster as you won't get the jog speed penalty (although passing through crowds in general is a very reliable way to avoid getting hit because someone from the crowd will get shot instead).
I think you know but in case you need a reminder, manual jump is left stick input and high profile + tap freerun up button.
tbh, i honsetly dont get it,
if you are fighting 15 fkin guys and most of them have guns of course couple of em gonna pull it out and fk u then and there, as long as you keeo the melee combat below 1v4 it bever becomes an issue. how is this a criticism of the combat , what do ppl want? do they want to deflect the bullet like sekiro(damm i fkin love sekiro) but that would break the semi realism...
just dont 1v20 simple.
maybe, they should let you grab and "human shield" enemies that are low on hp, ehich would encourage you to whittle down couple guy tonlow hp and keep them around wuthout outright k^lling them so that u can use these fatigue dudes and shield when need arise if u fight 1v15 and stuff i guess
maybe,
@@btchiaintkidding7837 I guess I should have clarified my point. I used an extreme example but what I was trying to get across is that very often during fights enemies will back up to shoot you, and when you disengage other dudes to stop the ones shooting at you the others will draw their guns and the cycle continues.
@@GrismarPicklemelt the quickshot feature is technically made to solve this exact scenario, the problem is most people won't be able to divide attention to the ones backing away in the heat of combat, hence the camera won't be targeting said further enemy. All enemies shoot from pistol range to make sure you can always shoot them back (snipers die in one hit regardless of the player damage level too), you see someone backing away and immediately focus the camera onto him and quickshot; it's a skill you can master.
Quick dropping smoke or stun bombs makes this easier because remember, you're an Assassin, use all your arsenal to your advantage (tools are dirt cheap for a reason). There is nothing inherently wrong with the combat system _in theory_ (i.e. when we ignore bugs and glitches), discouraging prolonged combat is good and encouraging tool use to add another layer of mastery, while raising the skill ceiling to boot, is great.
@@shira_yone quickshot never seemed to work correctly from what I saw, but maybe I was just using it wrong. It's been quite a while so I'm not 100% sure.
Worst part of not being able to counter guns is that previous titles had a solution for that in human shields.
you can roll to dodge gunfire, play the game
@@gaellorenzo3006lol the rolling can still cause you to be hit 9 times out of 10 you’ll roll and just get slapped by another guy anyway it’s a garbage feature compared to the human shields be honest.
@@currieisyummie3420 It doesn't take away from the fact that the problem persists. Previous games' problem was the same. You need to be in combat against someone in order to use human shields, and somehow, you need to be in combat in order to dodge. I still thinking dodging is better, since you can do that action even if the one shooting you is the only one in combat with you.
@@gaellorenzo3006it literally doesn’t work and you can be shot whilst in the dodge animation
@@currieisyummie3420 you just suck lmao
I think the best way to describe this game, both for good and ill, is "It has its moments".
It has its moments where the Parkour works and looks amazing, but it also has its moments where it is incredibly clunky to control and watch. It has its moments where the combat looks like a choreographed spectacle, but it also has its moments where it just stops functioning. It has its moments where the stealth is the best in the series, but it also has its moments where it has literally the worst. It has its moments where the story and acting flow wonderfully, but it also has its moments where it is almost as bad as Valhalla if not worse.
It has its moments. But its good moments are often not enough to outweigh its bad moments.
Definiu perfeitamente
Wonderfully nailed!
👏
A lot like the French Revolution itself it seems
Somebody else commented that “wasted potential” applies to the series as a whole, and while that may be true, i feel like it applies wayyyyy more to Unity than any other entry in the franchise.
The story feels like Ubisoft gave its writers a set of things they wanted it to include, ordered them to finish in one week, and made the game out of the first draft with no editorial reviews at all.
The workplace conditions of ubisoft and broken state of the game’s entire online service is proof that this is dead on 😭 it feels like they had the health and damage properly balanced, then ubisoft came in and went “nerf the characters stats and we’ll sell 5-minute passes to play with the intended balancing”
Thts the problem with 10 difrebt companies working on 1 big game .they make content then when things would need to be changed or altered to make it better is to much work now so they dont do it.thts what unity is
I think the difficulty with the French Revolution, similar to the American Revolution, is that so many events are well documented. AC3 was basically a tour of the entire war for independence to the point people mocked Connor for somehow being at every notable event. Lots of the best parts of the Revolution are in this game but they needed more focus and cohesion with the other aspects of the story.
The narrative of the French Revolution would have made much more sense if it felt like the Assassins and Templars were actually meddling in the Revolution instead of feeling incidental, and the star crossed lovers of Arno and Elise could have worked so well but all of these stories needed to be tied much closer together.
The thing is they do touch on this in the coop missions. I played through them solo and while they could be tedious, it actually felt like you were doing your part to influence the revolution, and everything that came after. One mission involves you saving a politician and busting the Austrian spy cell in Paris in 1792, another has you break into the Jacobin Hall and cutting off the leadership of the party while they try escape into the catacombs, something that feels very genuine to the Assassin cause.
The problem lies in how in each mission Arno feels like a faceless husk, because to anybody you're playing with that's what you're meant to be. Really Ubi needed to integrate them more into Arno's story instead of it feeling like a side-campaign, the especially the coop missions in 1794 since they'd be great for re-integrating him into the brotherhood after his exile
I think that while the game was ahead of its time in terms of graphics, the story was mediocre at best, not engaging. The mechanical/gameplay changes were a step in the right direction, but it all felt so clunky and janky. Parkour was sometimes unresponsive and the animations unnatural, as if Arno was defying gravity with his long horizontal jumps. Stealth was something that Syndicate improved, adding whistling and a better cover system. I guess combat wasn't the worst, but I wasn't a fan. The unavoidable gun shots were annoying.
The architecture in the game is a lot bigger and complicated than in other games so they had to make jumps like this, and 3/4 of the story was cut because Ubisoft needed to release the game in 2014, and Devs spent 5 years on the game as it is, most of it was creating the city itself and animations, etc. At the time on a brink of generations developers aimed too high for a new gen of consoles but overestimated them. Still the game is great and has very repayable missions and requires skill to play. Recently a mod came out called ACU Fixes,it fixed a lot of annoying things in gameplay
The story could've been great. Revolutionary France and you're the son of an assassin who gets fostered by a Templar grandmaster. But they just couldn't hack it lol
As someone who love and enjoys Unity, saying the story is mediocre is a massive understatement; it's just bad. Unlike the gameplay mechanics which are indeed just as rushed and broken yet full with unmet potential, you can actually work around the system to have a sliver of fun out of them; on the other hand you just have to deal with the shite story as it was.
They were already setting up Arno as this detective kind of character (even got his discount sherlock side missions). I can only imagine if the story is actually an engaging detective story where Arno follows the trail of Germain's conspiracy using his wits, finding clues and leads throughout his investigations with the help of his fellow assassins and/or historical figures (just like Altair and Ezio were); but no he just got magic memory read when he kills people that conveniently lead towards the next target. What a joke.
Legit back when the game first released I was already not as mad as most people, but the story gave me conniptions right away. It was especially disappointing considering the last main game that at a glance seemed like the least Assassin centered story (AC4) at the time, was actually among the best in character development and philosophy from the series. What Ubisoft should've rip-off from The Witcher games shouldn't have been the open world RPG-lite gameplay, it should've been the detective-esque story structure.
The story isn't that bad, and parkour depends on your skill to understand how it works. You're mediocre at learning how the parkour works, then no wonder you can't play it neither 😂
@@nightmarepegasus4141 Lmao, it's been perfectly explained in the video that no matter how well you understand the parkour, sometimes the game will just not do whatever you want it to do. You're telling that to a player who prefers the AC1-Revelations parkour system over any other, I know perfectly how to control the characters in these games and they always respond how I want them to. It's not the case in Unity. And it doesn't change the fact that some of the animations are simply unnatural.
You've quickly become one of my favorite channels, Jay. I like how you go in-depth with your points on and give a new perspective on them in a video essay format. Your channel will reach greater heights. Keep up the good work!
I appreciate that, thank you
ik i'm maybe being negative but this game is perfect for casuals who think they want "old ac back" yet never want to engage in the systems and will never detect or understand the jankyness unless it literally hit them in the face, in my opinion
Really every AC is for casuals, so in that sense Unity fits in
I think people miss it cause it looks really good
AC Unity, for its story, is like a trilogy but your just getting the cliffnotes all compacted into one game. And yet even then, you feel like the cliffnotes are leaving out many details.
I love the fantasy this game presents but it is really bad objectively. Like Whitelight said, the IDEA of Unity > Unity.
It's interesting looking at AC nowadays as someone who stopped after AC3. People talking about the newest games to compare them to "older" games like Unity or Black Flag. I'll never buy any AC game ever again but it's kinda wild to see how my man Ezio's legacy turned into fighting dragons.
How the fuck are you gonna suffer through 3 and then skip the "better in every way" pirate 4?
@@frenchynoob don't find pirates interesting
@@kod8933A bit old, but I would say that Origins and Odyssey, while they're just AC game by name, are far more engaging open world titles with well made action and stealth. They aren't excellent, but you may have a better time playing those than, say, AC3 or Unity.
Calling your video a good take is an understatement-it hit the nail on the head of why this game is so beautiful yet utterly unplayable. While I didn't experience any bugs on my first playthrough, the story just felt so under done. There were the makings of a good story, but like every other part of this game it needed more time. If they had made Rogue the annual release that year, and gave Unity another year in the oven we'd be looking back at that game now as the game that reinvigorated the series for the next gen. I can't help thinking the series would be more genuinely "Assassin's Creed" had this game been given the time and resources it needed to stand tall. Now every AC game feels like a Witcher knockoff because they over corrected Unity's flaws and chased trends.
Extremely good video Jay. I couldn't stay for all of your points but for the ones I did just so well said. Keep up with the content, can't wait for the next one.
I appreciate that. This was a big project, but it is my hope that I can keep future videos shorter to be more respectful of time.
You forgot the "jumping cloth physics" in-between camera cuts!. Also, the fact that there's no safe profile to start a new game off. You literally can't start a new game without somehow deleting your previous profile or just replay individual missions through the progression tracker.
DUDE, I was waiting in the combat part for you saying something about the guns. Got so relieved when you started talking about them ❤️ love the vid.
Great video Jay. Just found your channel, sure you're going to be big.
I will say, I don't necessarily think Unity is incredible, but I do have a greater affection for it now than when it launched.
But that affection is largly directly due to disappointment with the newer games.
Unity isn't perfect by any means, but it feels the prototype amd proof of concept of how they could have furthered the original identity of AC.
They may not have been successful, but they were trying to make improvements to stealth and parkour, densify the city architecture and crowds, and put an even greater and emphasis on assassinations.
I think Unity could have been the beginning of recitalizing AC, adressing fan concerns of the franchise going stale without needing to completely reinvent it turn it into a whole new genre of game.
I'm one of those who is really disappointed in the direction the series went after Syndicate, and I can't help but look back at Unity as a huge missed lesson. Ubisoft just thought we were tired of their formula when Unity got bad reviews. But personally, I just wanted them to refine the formula. Oh, and release a functioning piece of software.
Every time Ubisoft receives criticism for a game, they completely abandon the ideas behind it and instead of improving, they simplify them with very little effort. Unity could have been the bones to a perfect Assassins Creed game with flashy parkour and assassinations.
@@VenomousWolverine yeah, they really do. It's like they don't realize what they have. Criticism doesn't mean everything about it is terrible. Usually we're saying we like what's there but see how it could be even better.
Wish they'd stuck it out after Unity.
The issue was, people were very _very_ mad about Unity (and it even directly affected their bottom line as the next game, Syndicate, bombed). It's not just the bugs and Unity's inherently broken state, everyone just didn't see any of Unity's potential nor see what it brought to the table; most people liked how AC4 branched out and became a _"life as a [insert iconic historical group] simulator"_ kind of game and chastised Unity for sticking to the same old Assassin centered story and gameplay.
Most, just like you, only realized Unity's massive potential in hindsight; especially after the new games dropped the ball so intensely. Honestly I wouldn't even blame Ubisoft as much, there is zero chance for them to stick it out with Unity and improving it's foundation while risking yet another backlash accusing lack of innovation; *post release* the players were mostly at fault on why they abandoned the series' roots, though Ubi is obviously at fault for releasing the game in it's unfinished state which got people angry in the first place.
@@shira_yone I agree but look at Syndicate. They added rope launcher to decrease parkour, combat was made dull simple by mashing one button and rest of the game was just the same thing. Ubisoft did not improve anything that Unity was not able to achieve. They just said let's dull it down and add simple stuff. Unity's combat was basic but in a way effective because stealth was prioritised. The cover system was not good but we did not see any improvement in Syndicate.
I don't think Ubisoft can now even create a game which can rival some of the top games released every year. They just release generic RPGs where one is a shooter, the other is a now a fantasy land.
@@VenomousWolverine I heard plenty of people (especially sane ones that doesn't care too much about parkour) ends up preferring Syndicate over Unity so they must've improved (in comparison to Unity) plenty of other small aspects that adds up.
I genuinely believe that the combat in old AC games is MISUNDERSTOOD. A lot of people look at the AC combat as Dark Souls players who fixate on difficulty. But here's the thing: ASSASSIN'S CREED COMBAT WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE HARD! It was meant to be COOL! You play as a skilled assassin, so it makes perfect sense that you're able to dispatch of multiple enemies in short time. That's the part of the fantasy of being an assassin! AC combat should never be compared to Dark Souls or other similar games. It should be compared to Batman, Spider-Man or Shadow of Mordor. AC combat is all about style, not difficulty. Anyone can pick up the controller and win a fight by standing still and countering. But that's not how the games were meant to be played! A skilled player who knows all the systems can use a lot of different moves, gadgets and tricks to make the combat more stylish and more interesting. So when people say that "old AC combat is bad" I always want to say "It's not! You just lack imagination".
Think about how many different things you can do in Revelations that you can't do in Unity. You can fight with hidden blades, you can fight with your fists, you have a sword and a dagger, you throw knives, shoot a crossbow or use a hidden gun. You can counter with a hookblade to steal money mid-combat or to performa a badass execution. You can disarm opponents and use their swords, axes or spears. You can chain kill enemies with brutal animations. You can throw sand in people's eyes to stun them. You can perform double finishers where Ezio impales one guy on the sword and shoots another one with his gun, you can throw 3 knives at the same time to kill multiple targets, you can throw a big axe or a two-handed sword, you can throw a spear to impale someone, you can spin a spear to kill everyone around you. You can throw a spike bomb on the ground to stun enemies. You can frighten NPCs by detonating a bomb filled with blood. You can throw an explosive bomb that works like a lethal grenade or another one that works like a non-lethal stun grenade.
And ACIII has its own set of amazing moves that give combat more depth. You can literally choke an enemy with a snare. You can hang people on trees. You can drag your victim with a rope dart into a bush. You can put an explosive mine on an enemy mid-combat. You can counter with your pistol or shoot 2 people at the same time. You can air assassinate with any weapon including swords, axes, tomahawks, hidden blades, bare hands and even muskets. You can assassinate while running without losing much momentum. There's an animation for double assassination when your 2nd target is behind your 1st one. You can yank people mid-combat with a rope. You can disarm a musketeer and immediately shoot someone with the mustket (but not if it has already been fired). You can take a human shield to protect yourself from a volley of musket bullets.
I'm sick and tired of people saying that "old AC comabt had no depth". It's ridiculous. AC Unity combat has no depth! Seriously. What can you do in this game? You press attack, parry or dodge and that's it. There are no interesting gadgets, no flashy finishers, no double kills, no chain kills, no fist combat, no hidden blade combat, no disarming, no nothing. Unity is by far the least interesting combat system in the series. Even RPG games like AC Origins have better combat than this.
AC Unity was the final nail in the coffin for me. I was a long time fan starting with AC 1. But after playing Unity, I knew that the AC that I loved was gone. Both narratively and mechanically.
games really are unlike any other artform or medium, like im watching arno dynamically mix animations to parry each enemy attack and its beautiful and the artistry and technical knowhow on display are insane, and yet if if doesnt feel good its bad simple as that
Gotta get my snacks ready for this video. I love the long ones.
The way so many people called this a "hidden gem" made me expect a lot going into this on my first playthrough, but man, was I in for a flaming train ride. Honestly, I enjoyed a lot about this, but I think this game has actually become overrated in online circles. Additionally, great video Jay, agree with practically all your points!
Sometimes I got softlocked jumping in Notre Dame and flying forever in place not being able to land. Once I broke my arm apparently and all animations got wonky. I also remember the cartoony "5 guards in a row fall for the same hiding spot" encounters. Missed out on the platinum, because I did not feel like doing the multiplayer sync kills and stuff. Overall I had fun with it, but would never touch it again since it launched.
Bro this video was fucking NEEDED
I’m so sick of people telling me Unity is fixed and is the peak of Ac, this game brainwashed so many people
I think AC Unity is the closest the series ever got to the IDEA of an Assassin's Creed game that started with AC1, but on practice, it falls so shortly, it's honestly disheartening to see.
The parkour system is the perfect parkour system for this idea, but it doesn't work properly most of the time.
The stealth system the perfect stealth system for this idea, but i doesn't work properly most of the time.
The combat, the story. The only thing I think is done greatly is the world, Paris, it is dense, it is realistic and is a perfect place for an Assassin's Creed experience.
It pains me so much that Ubisoft, instead of keeping on with these systems and improving them, to eventually turn them in the best Assassin's Creed experience ever, first completely butchered them with AC Syndicate, and then abandoned them with Origins.
every time i get the itch to download Unity again i watch a video essay on it and think of something better to feed my SSD
AC as a franchise, as a formula is so unique in the industry that even though the individual pieces always fall short, the games feel like more than the sum of their lackluster parts. I *want* to love the games, I *need* something like them to be objectively good, but it's frustrating that Ubisoft just seems incapable. I wonder if they should try something like Bethesda and Fallout NV, where they hand the tools and IP to a different, enthusiastic studio for a game.
Excellent video! I'm playing Syndicate lately and, despite removing manual jump, the game feels far more responsive and consistent than Unity in its moment to moment gameplay. Unity overly focused on fidelity over gameplay which runs contrary to their ambitions of crafting sandbox assassination missions where planning and precise execution should matter. Syndicate got hate for being formulaic, but for a game with significantly shorter development time than Unity, it salvaged the hell out of its wreckage into something that is safely enjoyable.
Syndicate was made by the same group that made brotherhood. They always used to make the most enjoyable games, and Jacob was quickly one of my favourite protagonists, even if evie was boring. Sad to see that those creative minds have left the franchise after Syndicate, and sadder yet to see new people who made odyssey and previously had lower down roles in syndicate development, claiming creative credit for the game. It confused many online.
Syndicate gets a lot of flack for being less ambitious than Unity, but it is a much more functional game. Reduction of input lag alone makes a huge difference in how the game feels. There is also just less to get stuck on because the world is less complex, which has its pros and cons obviously. Personally, I think Syndicate is as good as it could have been in many ways given just how much they had to try and mask instead of fix. Large crowds like in Unity were just too much for the tech, so they were removed. Parkour was really janky so they added the launcher and simplified the world design. Combat was revamped to be much easier but also much less frustrating. Stealth just works better, plain and simple.
These are bandaids, not real solutions, and yet they succeed in making the game so much more functional than Unity. Add fantastic side content and a clearer Templar plot to the mix and you're left with a game that I enjoy a lot. I get that the simplification upsets a lot people who wanted to see Unity built upon, but going over everything I did in this video, I'm amazed the game works as well as it does.
@@sosaysjay well made points there. I do agree to be fair.
This game really needs a current-gen remake imo
I think they should remake the entire franchise from the first game onwards. The lore and identity is so beyond fucked there's no salvaging it.
I always want another assassin creed game set in French Revolution, such a waste of perfect setting for Assassin Creed
Another great, and necessary, video.
Unity will always be a game I really like but it's hard to truly love, for all the reasons you lay out here.
My biggest problem with all the parkour systems after brotherhood (which had a wall jump added to the second one) that they look nice and thats it. Everything is automated and what happens when everything is automated? they got rid of the parkour riddles. You just climb because its cool. Thats it. You dont think anymore you just press a button and the protagonist does everything else.
the climbing become so boring it got almost irrelevant in assasins creed syndicate when they implemented the grappling hook.
I'll be 100% honest, Unity is my second favorite AC game, behind Syndicate. I love Arno, and I love exploring Paris and the Café Théâtre. I've also poured many hours into trying to better my skills with the combat and parkour, because of how awesome it looks when it works correctly.
That being said, after watching this video through to the end, I think some of your criticisms are absolutely valid. Despite playing Unity for the first time in late 2019-early 2020 on PC after it had been patched, I did find myself getting frustrated with some of the unpolished mechanics, such as the sticky cover system and Arno not obeying button commands. The poor balancing in some of the Co-op Missions can also be a pain, as certain tasks are borderline impossible to complete if you're playing solo - which wouldn't be too bad, if certain weapons and armor pieces weren't locked behind them (this in particular drives me up a wall). Not to mention, the Arno-Elise romance will always frustrate me as well, because it started out so beautifully, only for it morph into a one-sided relationship that made Arno appear like he was developing an increasingly unhealthy obsession with a woman who may or may not still care about him, and even at one point LITERALLY discarded him because he didn't fit in her 'revenge agenda', due to his caring more about her ACTUAL LIFE and wanting to protect her over taking out Germain.
But in spite of its clear problems, I can't bring myself to hate this game, because I've genuinely enjoyed a lot of it and still do. I did enjoy watching your video as well; it's always nice to hear varied opinions, whether one agrees with them or not. Good work with editing and scripting this, and thanks for sharing!
I think most of the praise unity gets this days is due to short video plataforms, the game is simply gorgeous, and the animations are incredible, so seeing it on shorts or tik tok for 30 secs, being optimized by someone who practiced a lot, makes it look a lot better than it really is.
I dunno, I think the main influence was fans needing a stick to beat the A/RPG era with - and the ACII stick got broke due to overuse...
Unity had amazing potential but itclearly needed an extra year of development. The game can be quite enjoyable and does some impressive things - it has huge crowds, ceautiful buildings and pretty flashy parkour. Unfortunately, it also cut a lot of great features from the previous games or went in the wrong direction. Overall it feels unfinished and broken. The parkour has cool animations, but it's clunky, imprecise and floaty. The combat is harder than before, but it's repetitive, uninteresting and it lacks the flair of previous games. The stealth is functional but barebones and unimaginative.
Unity has so many fundamental issues that go well beyond bad performance or bugs:
The controls are clunky and imprecise; stealth kills and finishers often don't connect with enemies in believable ways; you can't use the hidden blade in combat; there are very few gadgets and they don't have any interesting combat moves (like the hidden pistol, rope dart or even snares had in previous games); you can't carry bodies (why? All games since ACII had that feature); you can't have multiple weapons like the sword and a dagger (you are limited to one main weapon at a time); the cherry bombs are still broken and enemies can't hear them; you can't whistle to attract enemies; there are no combos or finishers with a pistol; regular soldiers don't carry muskets like they did in ACIII; the story is short and uninteresting; Arno becomes boring and loses all his charisma after he becomes the assassin; the romance between Arno and Elise doesn't work; the main villain is weak and forgettable; the piece of Eden makes no sense; the game wasted an opportunity to feature Connor; historical characters are pretty boring (apart from maybe one scene with Napoleon); the side content is weak; there are way too many pointless collectibles; the customization is mid and most cosmetic items are ugly af; the co-op isn't properly integrated into the story and it feels detached from the rest of the game.
We could go on for hours. Unity is simply a wasted opportunity. It had some great ideas and it does some things well but overall it's an unfinished and unpolished mess of a game.
I honestly think the story could have been saved if Elise was the main character, not Arno. Narratively, it makes far more sense for her to join the assassin's after the templars betrayed her by killing her father. Her staying with the Templars in the first place was non-sensical to me considering what they did. Arno could still be obsessed with her and try to help her but it would be him that dies at the end. Her revenge having cost her the only person she had left in her life.
I know Ubisoft is way too cowardly now to give a main game solo female protag, let alone back then, but it sucks that we got stuck with Arno and his story when really, Elise and her role in the narrative is far more interesting.
They were able to do a female Assassin protagonist before with Liberation. Unfortunately, apart from the disguise and whip traversal mechanics, it was a mid game at best, hampered by its portable game trappings (it was first released on the PS Vita and only had graphical improvements in its re-releases).
But seriously, Élise should've been the main character. It would perfectly complement Rogue as she would be the polar opposite of Shay in terms of switching sides. Or, if they delayed the game by a year, put her as a secondary playable character and factor Shay (hell, even Connor and the Marquis de Lafayette) into the story to further the connection to past entries in the franchise.
We could go on and on, but we can all agree that Unity's story can be summed up in two words: wasted potential.
@@jmal Yeah I know about Liberation but it's a side game so I don't count it. I actually think it's partially why we don't have any solo main game female protags though. Ubisoft did a half assed job with Liberation and when it didn't sell well, blamed it on people not wanted to play as Aveline.
They're not the smartest execs up there.
But yes, agreed, Wasted Potential should be Unity's actual name, Assassin's Creed: Wasted Potential.
I loved the Shannon Sharpe clip "I got that tahng on me, I got that stick, that tool, I'm packin'" LOOOOL
My problem with AC Unity, is that it is so boring. Arno is completely unlikeable. Ironically his overall story is similar to Ezio, but their actions and how they come across is so different.
what's so unlikeable about him? i thought he was a good character tbh, but it's been a while since i played unity so idk
They would have had such a good opportunity to explore the different orders by having Arno actually unknowingly develop relationships with the templars, including Elise, before his adopted father gets assassinated and he gets involved with the Assassins the same way he does in the game. One thing AC2 did so well is that it made you invested in killing the targets, no other Assassins Creed game has managed to do that for me to such an extent. The only ones that come close are AC3 and Black Flag.
@@burgerbran I remember him being petty, not really understanding why he’s killing Templars, playing into Germains coup, not listening to his mentors. He’s generally unlikable in the way he speaks to be people. It isn’t until right the very end, he goes onto have a redemption arc. It’s like, the game should have started at the end.
@@zandernewson9933Arno is a character built around being headstrong and impulsive, never questioning his rationale, and jumping into his shoddy plans with no hesitation. He played into Germain’s coup by killing key opponents of him because he never sought the council of his other assassin’s, instead acting without their consent, and leaving them in the dark until he’s already screwed the pooch; he also acts without full knowledge of the situation because he takes information at the surface level, again playing into Germain’s coup, and causing him to make a lot of mistakes.
His redemption arc at the end of the game sees him realizing the copious amounts of mistakes he’s making in the form of Elise’s borderline suicidal pursuit of vengeance. Arno decides that the vengeance that he was so recklessly seeking was not more important than Elise. This causes Elise to get upset at him letting their chance at Germain go, and the assassin’s finally get sick of him and kick him out. Then Elise ropes him back into the hunt for Germain, and Arno wraps up the loose ends his sloppy work left untied before going into the final confrontation.
Arno ends the game finally realizing how wrong he was, and comes to understand the true meaning of the creed. Arno isn’t meant to be likable-at least not in the sense of him being competent, and his arc was him getting over his arrogance, and becoming a wiser man. Kind of like Edward in a way. Now, did they accomplish what they were setting out to do? Maybe, that’s up for you to decide for yourself, but I think Arno was an okay protagonist.
I didn't dislike him, or find him unlikeable; I just didn't find him likeable, he has little character, or character development; like most Assassins Creed protagonists, I'm just kinda apathetic; they don't make me care, it's like killing off other characters to progress his: their lives mean nothing, so their deaths mean nothing to me too, same with his.
Your description of the game as MMO like does a great job of describing why I bounced off the game. I have never been able to enjoy MMOs and Unity's side quests definitely instill the same sense of intense boredom.
I had been a huge french revolution geek as a teenager. So I always dreamed about gettint an assassins creed in this time period. The possibilities in terms of story, conflicts, personal motivations for characters, the war between assassins and templars, clash of philosophies seemed endless. For example you could revert the typical start of an ac game, where it isnt the templars who are the ones in power, but the assassins, who are leading the revolution from the shadows, while they are themselves divided in different camps, who dont see eye to eye on where they want the revolution to lead. And while the brotherhood is busy with themselves all the overwhelming events and voilence of the revolution, they fail to see the templars moving in the dark until its too late. They were thought to have died with the old society, but they went through a transformation themselves and infiltrated the revolutionaries. That would have been a great premise imo and even back then I expected something similar at least. But all I got as a story was ... that
You can use the riot crowd event to you advantage, although only once. When infiltrating Palais de Luxembourg in 'Hoarders', you can kill the front gate guards and the crowd will rush in.
I think you sum it up well. It's hard for people to resolve conflicting ideas about a single thing, so some folk look at this game and see only the failure, others see only the promise. To really understand the game, you have to see both. I think this review captures both nicely.
When I look over the AC series, at all the games, and at each individual aspect and feature of each game, a pattern emerges. Everything appears amazing, but falls apart on closer inspection. With few exceptions, all the protagonists are charming and likeable. Yet few actually serve as meaningful protagonists, with anything like a substantial story. Arno's story is based on his love for Elise, and his tragedy would be palpable, if there was much to their relationship beyond the excellent acting and direction of the performers, and, of course, the gorgeous character modeling and quality performance capture. But beneath all those surface aspects is a love story with no depth, not consistency, no real thematic weight.
And beyond that, as the series goes on, the entire framing story has become like a dead, rotten limb they refuse to just cut off, instead dragging it from sequel to sequel and flailing it limply as if to say "See, this still works. It's fine." The frame of AC is actually three frames, the present-day vs the past, the philosophical battle between Templars and Assassins, and the legacy of the Isu. But these three frames simply don't line up into a single narrative meaning. Each entry in the series promises this clunky plot will move forward, but instead, it becomes more and more convoluted as it spins it wheels. Unity itself is a series of scenes in search of a story, and the series as a whole is a series of ideas in search of a narrative. The writers seem to think just trotting out the ideas in game after game is enough. Not in my estimation. With each new game, I find myself increasingly at a loss to see the relevance of the present-day frame story, or the purpose of each mention of the Isu to the story at hand. None of it adds up.
And as with the stories, the game play is always similarly underdeveloped. Individual bits will be crafted to perfection. The combat in the recent RPG titles manages to have a touch of depth and variety. But once it combines with the story progression, it falls victim to the classic RPG problem. You start underpowered, and by the mid-game, you're so absurdly OP it hardly counts as a game at all, let alone a challenging one.
But to me, the series' core problem is best seen in its stealth. Stealth is the core identity of the AC games. But stealth requires polish, and polish is the where these games truly fail. Anyone who's ever done anything artistic for a living knows that the first 80% of the work takes 20% of the time, and the last 20% takes 80% of the time. This is where Ubisoft in general, and the AC team in particular, make their fatal mistake. They don't take the time to polish what they've made. They've streamlined their process toward bloat rather than perfection. And so even with games like Valhalla, which isn't riddled with bugs like Unity, nothing is particularly well done. It's not so much a game as a bunch of game components and systems chucked into an engine any old how, in the hopes that fun will emerge on its own.
The greatest failure of AC: Unity, to my mind, isn't that the game was bad, but that the wrong lesson was learned. Instead of realizing they needed to make a better game, they decided they should just make one that's totally different. Don't get me wrong, I think the RPG format was a good direction for the series, a natural evolution. But while they didn't end up as badly broken as Unity, they made the same mistake, prioritizing "more" over "better." They took an extra year to develop AC: Origins, but instead of spending that time polishing and perfecting, they spent it bloating. They made larger games, but they're still undercooked.
There's a famous Mark Twain quote, “I apologize for such a long letter - I didn't have time to write a short one.” That sums up everything wrong with AC games. Three frame stories where there should be one. Ten chapters when there should be four. A dozen half-baked game mechanics, all conflicting one another, because they didn't want to take the time to make sure five would interact seamlessly. A game series that tries to be all things to everyone, that never quite pleases anyone.
I have never met a more flocking fanbase than Assassin's Creed. A few people say a thing and then everybody bleats the same thing repeatedly as if it's their new gospel.
I couldn't believe how much Unity is put on a pedestal. Have they never played it? It's....not amazing.
People who praise Unity mindlessly should watch this video. It had the potential, but it just could not reach it.
“splinter cell blacklist came out the year before unity” *matt damon saving private ryan aging gif*
an interesting thing i thought of this game of how anti revolutionary unity is, ac3 was good at showing both sides of the conflict showing that either side was willing to use and take whatever furthers their individual vendettas, whilst unity is just revolution bad, it’s weird because in the marketing it was shown that you would be fighting for the revolution, killing the kings guards and fighting against tyranny, just for the game to be anti revolutionary boot licking fest. it almost seems that none of the teams we’re communicating at all.
I did have a section on the bizarre politics of this game but I ended up cutting it for time since it is it's own can of worms entirely. AC3 had similar marketing issues where they presented the story as a fight for freedom against British oppressors to secure an American audience, but had a much greyer stakes at play in the actual game. I do not believe AC3 does a good job of presenting the American revolution, but they do at least try to paint the limits of the freedom the colonies were fighting for.
Unity's marketing shows Arno storming the Bastille himself, condemning a noble to be torn apart by peasants, chopping down guards to stop Elise's execution, and rallying the masses to stand against the upper class. None of this means anything in the context of the actual game, and the only time he really makes a point about the revolution is in a throwaway line where he expresses that he is glad that the people are fighting for liberty and equality.
There is a video on TH-cam titled "The Cowardly Politics of Assassin's Creed: Unity, and History as a Symbol (Full Spoilers)." I can't recommend it because I haven't watched it, but I have been wanting to make time for it.
For Ubisoft to be so weary of being political in a game about the French Revolution is shameful in my opinion.
@@sosaysjayanother example of ubisoft not understanding politics whatsoever, but i have learned to not care, because it’s a video game. they make karl marx in syndicate to be a liberal who was anti revolution (democracy is the only road to socialism i thought was the funniest divergence from marxist theory ) , they thought Caesar was overthrown because he wanted to hoard all the land, even though he supported land reforms and distribution of land between the peasantry of the country, the writers were so lazy for origins that they just flipped the ideology of the senate chamber and Caesar. the reason i believe they are so anti revolutionary in unity is because this one of the the first revolutions that had left wing backings, ie the communes. i can understand a more gray take with the american revolution since there were still slaves and the genocide of natives, but the anti french revolution is clear that ubisoft the company comes before the writing team.
@@sosaysjay i just finished the video you recommended watching and yeah, the politics of unity are inherently upholding the systems that keep status quo and making left movements to look tyrannical (i can only wonder what their spin off 2.5d game about the first marxist revolution), but what are we to expect from a multibillion dollar corporation.
@@greatgreenteaMate, democracy IS the only road to socialism, so Marx was potrayed in a good way in Syndicate
@@tenebrisanima9604 1. marxists (such as myself) don’t believe in liberal democracy in terms of achieving a socialist state. 2. if you read the codex they make fun of marxists and starbucks millennials
The lack of any acknowledgement of Arno’s real father and the events of rogue drive me nuts! I know it’s because of the development timeline etc but still. He was old enough where he would’ve remembered his bio dads death and I’d imagine want to know who killed him. Arno’s voice actor is the best aspect of this game for me personally, and the murder mysteries.
Like why would he not try and kill Shay?? Or at least learn who he is?
Honestly, the biggest mystery is who and what Arno's mother is? There's like no mention at all
@@YEY0806 yes also that! I’m sure it’s some generic “died in childbirth” because 1700s, but even like the Frye twins know and mention their mother and that she died from childbirth.
@gracie15928 Honestly, I can only think of Conner and Ezio's mothers ever actually being in the story, and only Connors mom had a role.
@@YEY0806 yes, and Kassandra/Alexios. I like the stories better when they have parental involvement on some level, personally.
@gracie15928 Oh yeah, I forgot that, too. Still it says something that even a hated game like Odyssey actually has the parents be involved and significant for the story rather than just be forgotten revenge fuel
One of my least favorite things about the game is that, if you accidentally fast travel to the carriage that takes you to the DLC, you can't fast travel back to Paris until you've done the first mission of the DLC.
Arno and Elise being wasted was my biggest frustration. He, and they as a couple, have such a strong start. But then the story insists on separating them, and wasting time on far less compelling things.
I get the feeling Series X BC is the best way to play Unity, though. I had a very smooth experience with very little technical issues or bugs.
And whilst it cannot fix all of Unity's issues, playing in French really seals the deal on its setting and atmosphere (just like ACII/Brotherhood in Italian). It at least makes its great moments feel all the better.
I'm replaying Unity right now as I finally have a PC powerful enough that the game looks how I imagined it would back in 2014 lol. Funnily enough, the one phrase I keep yelling while playing it is "wasted potential". So many good ideas were either implemented extremely poorly, or were dropped immediately in the games after Unity and never revisited.
The parkour is so, so close to being right and they never used a system even remotely like it ever again.
I would say Syndicate is a much more improved version of Unity. While parkour is simpler, everything, from traversal, stealth and combat, works as intended. The mission design and side content, in particular the Black Box missions, are pure stealth joy.
It's no Masterpiece by any stretch, and I would rather play Origins or Odyssey, but it is a polished version on Unity in some extent.
Im pretty sure most of the discussion revolves around the sentiment that it's a hidden gem because of how harshly it was bashed was extreme and many people have found it to be more enjoyable than the original discussion would suggest. More-over, most of us recognise the game has issues and isn't perfect, however, it is a strong foundation of what AC could be. If Unity wasnt such a technical mess it's possible we would have seen that foundation and potential actually met, rather than the homongenised version of big open world AC we have now. Unity is a rather unique game which celebrated what made AC unique, not what was the trending game of the time and many of us wished AC would have continued that route.
Many of the comments and criticisims you have for the game all originate from the same issue. The game was rushed and is full of technical issues. The parkour is odd and rough because of the complexity of the map and the rushed nature of the game means they didnt have the time to iron out the poor prediction of your naviagtion. The combat is a great foundation to bridge complexity with simple style. No one is asking for the exact system in Unity with the poor hit registartion, inconsistent timing, guns etc. They're asking for the difficulty, the depth in the dodge, smaller counter timing, counters that dont' kill, heavy and light attacks, perfect parry's, etc. I think Ghost of Tsushima is a perfect example of what people wanted and clearly Sucker Punch saw this potential as well, almost completely taking the system themselves. It's the same with the stealth, it has great ideas, the interiors, crouching and tools you have, along with the more brutal detection system are all great, but it's really held back by the technical isses, with dodgy detection through walls or from extreme distances, cover systrem that didnt work, etc. People want the large crowds of unity but they want it to be technically fixed, not taken verbatim.
All of these issues are a result of a lack of time, not poor design. The ideas were there and thats what people wanted to be expanded, most of the discussion is around the missed and lost potential that caused the series to do a harsh left turn into the open world design we have now, while acknowleding how much of a mess that Unity is. I completely agree with you that we deserved better than Unity and this is brilliant video to help combat the loud voices praising the game without talking about its issues.
I would 100% watch longform essays from you on every AC game
What a thorough and monumantal breakdown of a game that people are now holding so high up in their minds. We really do deserve better as the fans of the games, and I can only hope that Ubisoft will learn from their mistakes. Even if we don't I'll have another wonderfully written and voiced analysis to re-watch)
That is kind of you, I am glad you enjoyed the video.
I don't think its unfair to hold unity in such high standards. It's not perfect, sure. But for what it did bring It remains my favourite ac game. The black box missions are amazing, the stealth gameplay is the best the franchise has seen (I fucking love the assassination animations). Though janky at times, I find the parkour to be very satisfying, especially combined with the amazing setting. And the co op, though sometimes buggy it created an unrivaled ac experience IMO, especially with friends.
@@yomi2624 it's fair to expect the series you love to improve and get better. Paraphrasing another youtuber Whitelight, this series has never met it's full potential and we as fans just deal with what we actually got, mediocre games at best that bafflingly as of now got it's "peak" in 2009.
Anyway nice to meet you fellow Unity enjoyer.
I always wonder whenever I see someone praising how good the parkour was in Unity if they actually played the game, or just saw some cool video? Yes, you can do some cool stuff in the game. Just like DudePerfect can do crazy things in real life. Both after many retries.
It drives me crazy when people say the game is completely bug fixed now
You know, I can excuse most of the problems with this game. I really can. But the story is what kills it for me. How could it manage to have so many good ideas and drop the ball with every single one of them? It's honestly baffling to me. One of the coolest and least explored settings (the French revolution) and they do fuck all with it, serving as a backdrop that barely even sets the mood. Heck, they managed to screw up even the romance plotline which was, in a lot of ways, new to the franchise. And Élise was such a strong character that I honestly wish she was the protagonist. Not to mention it doesn't really go anywhere, it's only set-up with no pay-off? Every time Arno chose love instead of duty, something terrible happened. Now, in the very end, when it's Élise's turn, she doesn't and something terrible also happens. I guess damned if you do, damned if you don't? Like, what's the message here? Duty over love? Love over duty? You're fucked either way?
Like there's a couple of ways of fixing it, and it's just a matter of switching Arno's and Élise's position in the fight against Germain.
- have *Arno* have to make the same decision he's been making the whole game one last time, but this time he learned from his mistakes and choses duty over love, he loses Élise, but saves the world or whatever. This is just pay-off for finally choosing responsibility, earning him the monologue in the end realizing that sometimes, you can't always have what you want and sacrifices are necessary in the name of a larger cause and even Élise understood that. Which would go perfectly with the backdrop as people were literally dying for a larger cause.
- have Arno chose Élise, like he always has and always will and then they could take Germain down together thanks to the power of love or something (I'm not a writer, figure it out lol) and it could conclude in a sweet moment where they have to figure out what to do next now that Arno has been expelled and the Order is in shambles. So now that they have love, they can both chose duty and set out to continue the work that De La Serre and Mirabeu started. An assassin and a templar working together for the greater good and hey, we don't kill Élise for the sake of killing her.
Everything else is *whatever*, give it a couple more games to refine it or a few patches and I'm sure it would've been great. But the story... man, what a miss. Like I really wish they would retcon Unity just for the sake of using the french revolution again.
The execs heavily meddled with what Darby mcdevitt was trying to do with the story *sigh*
@@trumpflavourednugget9325 Had they let Darby do his thing, we'd have narrative and thematic gems like _Black Flag._ How is it that a game about an interpretation of the titular Creed from an outsider's perspective _hides in plain sight_ as a fun pirate fantasy game?
At this stage, I'd much prefer they let other studios try to make Assassins Creed. Sucker punch, Naughty Dog, Insomniac or Fromsoft Ware perhaps; it's unlikely, but I'd prefer that to Ubisoft.
@@Nah-wg6dw True
I played this game on my pc in 2023 for the first time after I put down playing Origin since it was so boring. i think if i went out of my way and started looking for different elements you mentioned in the video, i probably wouldn't have much fun with it, but my god, this game was so much fun and maybe even my favorite assassin's creed ever. This might not have been the perfect assassin’s creed but you can’t deny it, it was a right step towards the right direction and that's much more true when you count the new games too.
Really good video. Your effort deserve way more attention
Just saw this article posted today, about ACUFixes, an AC Unity mod for PC.
It’s supposed to add removable hoods, add window jump in buttons and help with sticky cover and shit.
I haven’t tried, but there isn’t a SINGLE video on TH-cam of it from what I can see.
Article posted by Gamingbible, just so y’all know.
If anyone on PC (who has time) can grab the mod and check it out, it might be just what we need (or a slight improvement at least).
I don't know how and why this isn't a thing sooner considering how much love the game seems to get nowadays. Do you know where to find the mod?
@@shira_yoneA post on the Assassin's Creed subreddit (r/assassinscreed) has the link plus GIF previews of all the fixes.
I'd link it here, but it'll probably be removed for spam.
@@jmal thanks for the info, really appreciate it!
I think the idea of AC Unity is much better than the actual game that is AC Unity. It's still one of the most gorgeous games I've ever played but so broken mechanically.
In a better timeline Ubisoft would have either given the game the time and money it really needed or realized that the issue was not the ideas, but implementation, and expanded the series in this direction.
thank you for this, too many people these days try to retcon reality as if ac unity s only problems were bugs and glitches
when we said "something new" we meant technical side being literally AC revelations because that's where the franchise peaked with new stories and new conspiracies around historical events
not what ubisoft did with the franchise
and definetly no fantasy, flaming unicorns, vikings, complete abandonement of assassins in assassins creed game
I just want to say that I found this video fascinating despite the fact I gave up on AC after 3. I don't even like this series anymore but your videos and passion for the franchise is always great to watch. Keep up the good work!
I hope more people can for 1 second let go of there beliefs and open there eyes. Good video from a better man.
After recently binginging Ac 1 all the way to unity I feel like the creators really started to drift away from the core themes of the games after Revelations. Especially after the final scene when Ezio explains to Sophia the philosophy of the Creed and telling Altair's remains to rest it felt like a good bye to many core aspects, like the closing of story, but they need to finish Desmond's story so they had to make AC 3 which focused more on the historical setting and the relationship between Connor and haythem. AC 4 felt more like a heroes journey that happend to take place in the AC universe then downhill from there to the point AC is no longer what it once was
Never seen your channel and I haven't consumed AC contenct since AC 2 and brotherhood multiplayer* and somehow your video got me recomended IN THE SAME DAY that I've reinstalled Unity. And I must say that you hit the nail on every single grievances I had with the serie, that start around that time and ended with syndicate, when I stopped playing the series that I loved. And without even opening the game again, uninstalled. As you said. I wanted to revisit some constructed memory that I had that was actually from trailers, not from the game itself. In a weird way, I loved the trailer, the promise.
*And man how I loved the multiplayer. I wasnt that young (19), so I don't know if I'd like it today. But I loved stealthy killing people while watching clowns running around roofs.
I like the combat and I am dissapointed that AC entirely abandoned it for Syndicate rather than fixing it. It had a really good foundation and the animations were great in my opinion.
I consider this game as generally really fun to play with a strong start but a lackluster and anticlimactic finale and a constant moving of the goalposts with what the actual goal of the main character even is with a pretty meandering plot in the middle. I think even Syndicate, with its pretty bog standard plot still had a more cohesive main antagonist and better sense of progression, wheras in Unity it all kind of goes on for a while and then just abruptly stops. I honestly can't even remember if Arno ever catches the one who actually killed his adoptive guardian, but he definitely doesn't catch the man who killed his father because that would mean confronting Connor and the plot actually suffers by basing a lot of the plot around it but never actually going anywhere.
Back when Unity was announced and everyone was hyped, I had stepped back from the serie since AC3. For me the end of Desmond was the end of AC. I saw the evolution from afar, but didn't care much. The bugs of Unity and failure of Syndicate only confirmed me the franchise was only going down. While Origin seemed like a great renaissance for the saga, Odyssey and Valhalla were to me final nails in the coffin by keeping only the AC name and becoming shallow "historical" open worlds.
Last year, with the announcement of Mirage and its promise to go back to the roots, I wanted to give another try to one of the series of games that marked my adolescence. I picked up where I had left and played Black Flag. The lack of weapon variety and dense parkour environments were my main criticism. I understand why it's often people's favorite AC game.
As I got back into AC, I watched plenty of retrospective videos on the games. I saw how people, looking back at Unity thought it was actually an hidden gem or that "the patches made the game playable and it's a great one". I saw the fancy parkour animations, and the cool infiltrations made flawlessly. I was thirsty to play that assassin's fantasy, the parkour in a big city which I didn't have since Revelation.
But I wanted to play them in order. So I got through Rogue. Back in 2014, I was intrigued by the idea of playing a templar and having to defend yourself from assassins. I knew the game was sometimes not even considered a mainline game, but the recent retrospective convinced me it was underrated. The copy of Black Flag wasn't too much. It was a bit refined and the base formula works. Maybe, it's also because I had learned to forget completionism. The story was horrible and missed so much opportunities to add nuances to the templars vs assassins conflict, but it did not. The funny thing is that AC games are mostly designed in Montréal or Québec and that one time they made a game in the St-Lawrence Gulf, during the French and Indians War, in New-France aka Québec, they made the game by another studio and a lot of details were off. Still kinda fun.
By then, I was starved for dense city parkour and I had great expectations for Unity and while it probably wasn't as bad as it was for people in 2014, the game was a bit bugged, but generally acceptable. The parkour doesn't always work perfectly as expected, but looks cool in general and feels great when it works as intended. I must admit the story was mostly bad and didn't make much sense. With my previous two AC, I had learned to do side missions, but to not chase after every collectables. In Unity, most side content is ridiculously empty. The Paris stories are a joke. I had more connection with the citizen I saved in random events than with those of the Paris stories. Nostradamus were fine, but sometimes a bit too obscure (maybe it was the translation (I played in French for the immersion)). I think the murder investigations were a good addition. I hated how my map was filled with collectables. The customization of your suit was fun (beside that the stealthiest suits were the least assassin-looking ones). The rift segments were so unnecessary and the (lack of) present day story was unnerving as a long-time fan who gave a lot of importance to the link between the games.
In the end, people were not chanting the glory of Unity, they were mourning what the game was supposed to be, what the franchise could've become, what was promised to us all these years ago.
I haven't finished the dlc yet, but after that I seriously considering to skip Syndicate because I need the fresh air Origin might bring. And it's sad, because I've heard Syndicate, despite its flaws, is actually decent, has great moments and fixes a lot of Unity's problems, but now, I get why it flopped in context of being released right after Unity.
I absolutely hated the stealth in this game. At a certain point i just decided to approach every encounter with a sword instead of wasting time planning out some elaborate infiltration only for an enemy at the other end of the room to immediately spot me and chase after me even when i stealthily took out the first guard. They don't even have to be facing you half the time they will still be alerted. They went over board on making the chiefs awareness realistic.
Yes, Yes, Yes,. Ive been looking for a video like this. Ive tried to play Unity so many times, but never maneged to get more than a couple hours in before i get really bored or/and really frustated, so i play AC1 instead.
I believe the revolution storyline should’ve been handled. Similarly to assassin’s creed three because targets that you had were both important to the brotherhood that was left at the time and the revolution itself in fact you got to kill John Pitcairn, and Lee started the Boston massacre.
Congratulations for the critical analysis of the game, a really good essay, so I would like to point that everything you said is a microcosm of the entire series, AC 1 was more a prototype them a game, is basically a mudded river with heuge chunks of rough diamond, AC 2 in deed is a proof of concept and the rest of Ezio's trilogy expanded and improved what already was there, because of this still so beloved by many, but none of it's concepts was evolved since revelations and some was dropped, the colonial Trilogy was a mess in scope, focus, features and development time, this games starts to show how the production mode and it's cycle in Ubisoft is completely unsustainable, the comination of this miss management is AC unity, where in concept is the peak of the series, the defenitive Assassin's Creed experience, but fallfelt in execution and show how the series is a wasted pontial, never were capable of presenting and executing it's ideas coexively, consistent, deeper and polished. After that , syndicate easily is a parody or a waterdown version of what come before, probably the worst game in the series, so to keep the production cycle Ubisoft brings the RPG trilogy that throw out the window the water with the baby, keeping all the worst aspects that came before and lost everything it was unique to the series in the process.
This video so perfectly sums up my feelings for this game, thank you for helping me finally process my trauma.
Now I finally understand why it felt so limiting going back to a city after Black Flag's open world, not because it's a problem that it's smaller, but because it has no memorable side content just the main story and a bunch of soulles generic mmo style side missions. If only people realized this back then maybe we wouldn't have these massive open world rpgs now.
People complain now that you're not a real assassin anymore in Valhalla, but you're not really one in Unity either, they both have a hidden blade and they both work for their own selfish reasons sometimes collaborating with the Brotherhood. The bugs really distracted people from how bad the story really was, it honestly makes no sense why they didn't induct Arno into the Templar order even though the Grand Master raised him, it worked with Haytham.
Since they never mentoin Shay in Unity I don't consider him (or his game) cannon, in my head cannon it was Monsieur de la Serre that killed Arno's father, why else would he have been there on the same day as an assassin, it's also highly suspicous that his daughter was the one that distracted Arno and she appeared right away after his father left.
This video came out at such a good time for me. I've been replaying each AC game (not in order) with my gf leading up to Mirage. We just finished Unity and we were very underwhelmed. When I first played this game about 2 years ago, I played in such sporadic bursts I hardly remembered the plot each time I booted up but had fun enough exploring Paris that I left with a 6-7/10 impression. Upon replaying it this is definitely near the bottom of my AC tier list. The story is so underwhelming and the broken mechanics really ruin the experience. I'd replay just about any AC game again (aside from Valhalla which is last on our play through list ugh), but I have no need to come back to Unity again. I really want to love Unity. You can become blinded by the shear potential this game has. You can almost feel it. But it falls short of that potential unfortunately.
I disagree with some of your opinions about Valhalla and the other RPG games, but you are one of the few people who talk any sense about this series, and especially this game.
The more times I replay unity and syndicate, the less I like unity and the more I appreciate syndicate.
Loved this video. I was always fascinated by AC as a kid but didn't have money for consoles so I could only play the Ezio games or the Kenway games for a short time at friend's houses. When I finally had money for a console, I bought a PS4 with Syndicate as a bundle and had a lot of fun with it. I check the community online and apparently, Syndicate sucked and Unity was the underrated "flawed" masterpiece, as many youtubers put it. And I started to believe them - the game I loved actually sucked and Unity was the good one. I hadn't played it yet but I did watch all the marketing and gameplay showcases before it came out and at the time, I thought it was fantastic. So, I finally managed to get Unity on a sale for 15 bucks and oh man, never have I ever felt so betrayed by a community before. I wanted my 15 bucks back. I couldn't believe they hated Syndicate for... this. I went back to Rogue and Syndicate.
The only positives I can give Unity are it's graphics/art style, the beautiful city of Paris, the parkour and the customization. Everything else in this game is bad. Dead Kings was alright - Arno stops being a dumbass and actually learns how to live without Elise.
My enjoyment slightly got better after putting the game in french and some replays but even then, I remembered and I spent a whole afternoon reinstalling it, booting it up, walking two steps and the game teleported to another streert, so I smply uninstalled it again. Never played a game so broken till launch day Cyberpunk 2077 came out.
I'm actually playing Unity now. It's not that bad.
Others may have said this already, but it's a tad disappointing that you didn't cover Dead Kings here. Wouldn't have mind hearing more of your thoughts on the game as I really enjoy hearing what most, sane, people think about Unity. It's such a beautiful mess of a game to discuss.
Ive played Unity since launch, i have put 10,000 hours in it or more. I completely agree with everything you say, in fact on recent playthroughs when i start to have trouble i just cheat in money to get the better gear because i don't want to deal with that bullshit again. ACU is still my second favorite and i know enough parkour to get around the flaws you talk about and i still go and just spend 2 hours free-running. If anyone has the time and dedication to do that it is an amazing game but if you don't, it is going to be really bad.
Am I the only one who thinks Arno's girlfriend looks like Chucky?
What’s wild is, I agree with pretty much everything you said, but Unity is my fav AC. The story is poop, but the gameplay, when it works, is what I always wanted from the series. Stealth is encouraged as combat gets overwhelming fast, and man is it fun. I love the two tool at a time wheel-less system. Nothing cooler than taking out a group of four guards with a combo of smoke and phantom blade. The parkour is very contextual, which I’m not a huge fan of, but the animation chains you can get and the complexity of Paris keep me coming back for more. The black box missions are super enjoyable despite the flaws. I know it’s not perfect, not even close, but no other AC has made me feel like Unity does while playing. If they ever (doubtful these days) made a game like this again but delivered on the story and polished the systems… bro. I’d never leave the TV.
45:23 ‘The main character of Raydooonagaedoo’
th-cam.com/video/ITSItZHH_hA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=fhma07Op5lQEw0ZO
If you can tell me that’s now how you pronounce his name at 2:48 I’d be happy to hear why.
I didn't understand how they might do assassin's creed infinity until I heard your comparison of unity to an mmo. Dear god...
The game has its flaws but man it still looks stunning to this day. And it's 10 years old at this point
You know what's better than AC Unity? Watching a documentary about the french revolution.
The thing that made him putting the envelope under the door instead of waiting only secured him going to prison. If he would have waited, Mr de la Serre would still have died but Arno wouldn’t have become an Assassin
I enjoyed watching your critique a lot, I know people have different views on the game, people who hates the game calls out against those who likes it because of the flashy visuals, and on the other side they call out those who say they hate it because its a buggy mess, and while both are true, we're entitled to our opinions and we shouldn't be shouting at eachother because they have a different perspective on things.
IMO I like the game a lot, I know its buggy, inconsistant gameplay and story, and the mistreatment of employees when working on the game, but this was my first, and I seen every other assassins creed story and gameplay, and this is what I willingly chose to play and I never felt so immersed in this world, playing it made me feel like an assassin, I learned how I played by getting myself killed, and pushing through the game when it chooses not to work, not to mention this was the first game that I have fully completed. Although I kkow its flawed, and I want a lot of people feel the same way as I do, and it would've been great if they remastered or remake it, because its this that I want to see it truely succeed.
Man, I'm with you for a AC unity remastered, this game deserves a second chance, maybe is the title that most need a revised and improved version in the entier series. I'm a long time AC fan and I love this game from the bottom of my heart, despite it's flaws, in the AC franchise Unity still is the king in gameplay and replayability, I have more than 500 hours in this game, you can't find the assassin's fantasy like this any where else, I tried really hard but I can't found, there is better games then this one, Seven, Deshonored, Hitman or Aragami 2, but neither of them delivered the unique assassin's fantasy like Unity, When I play unity a can tasty the wasted potential in my mouth with all the frustration possible and see how close they get to greatness, but can't put down the controller, still is the most near we come to the perfect assassin's fantasy.
I kept hearing about how amazing the parkour was in this game. I just played it for the first time this year and my BIGGEST issue was the parkour. I felt like I was Wrestling with Arno instead of controlling him. I would die constantly because i was being chased and I couldn’t control where he went or even how fast he went. So many times he works randomly decided to do a light jog while being chased and shot at for NO REASON
The lack of revolution was what did it for me. It would've gone perfectly with the assassins and Templar ideals. But nothing like that Is explored
Great video, I've enjoyed it from the beginning to the end. This game has a very strange story around it, when many people started saying that it is underrated, it suddently became overrated instead. It wasn't just a gem spoiled by glitches and rushed developement, some of the issues where there from the very start. Which is a shame, because this game as you said had soooo much potential, from the setting, the design, the plot points... But instead it's just a disappointment.
And Syndicate was the same. Bot games wanted to return to the old urban setting formula, but missed what made the early games so good
I think the reason why I (and many others) still love it, despite myself hating and gets massively disappointed from other games that had just as much unfulfilled potential (by the gods NFS 2015 is such a wasted potential), is that Unity also offered unique gameplay that you really can't find anywhere else. The parkour speaks for itself, when all planet in the solar system lined up, it is a sight to behold (after your 947238214605th attempts); high level stealth gameplay is just straight up something you can only play in Unity and there's nothing else like it.
@@shira_yone so true!
I think you are the only one to say that we deserved much better than unity, and i too agree on to it. I understand unity's parkour by watching jcers and leo k, also worth mentioning whitelight's video on parkour of ac
But people want ac to be like unity and i am here hoping that we deserve what syndicate should have been. If mirage is return to old ac games without the level of parkour provided on those games, I wonder how long we do catch up to unity which already had its fair share of problems regarding story and parkour. I remember being surprised when i played ac 1 that i could climb buildings. I used to run on street lol. Still my fav ac game. So i started to experiment different things out of it, although nothing worth mentioning but still i felt I had control over the way i jump around. In unity i felt they focused more on graphics and less on story, on top i didn't really liked parkour at all, i was confused at first. And the one thing i was damned at was soo sluggish fighting. Man they moved like slow motion. The most annoying was how inconsistent the game was when i tried to use double assassination. IT DOESNT WORKS . Half the time i spend on manually setting my dart to the target and sometimes it goes throw them. I played unity around covid and people calling it masterpiece while me who just finished rouge and blackflag and didn't liking those games lol. (personally I wanted a return to soul of the game uptill ezio trilogy)
But seeing now, even syndicate is more assassin than mr. Viking.
But after playing rpg games, i replayed unity after clips i watched. Man it actually felt like an assassin creed fantasy, i basically forgot about parkour at all, i loved how game used its stealth. Still unity has its problems, but with a perfect story and polishing, i think it was closest to what we wanted.
Idk how long it will take to catch upto unity and many more to catch upto to what its successor should have been. Its a shame that we usually love games after their sequels, tells alot about this gaming era. Meaning we leave all the criticism we had with it and just want it to return because we have seen somthing way worse. Instead of expecting, we are hoping.
Oh thank God I love a good movie on a Tuesday
HELLA GOOD VIDEO THO EVERYTHING ELSE IS SPOT ON👌🏽1:12:13 honestly I like this part of the narrative, it gives the player some narrative agency. He paid his dues now he’s a full fledged assassin and due to the truce nobody is really threatening the assassins for once, because for so many assassins creed games the ASSASSINS themselves can be viewed as a problem in the story that needs fixing. Whether that be infighting, corruption, turncoats, and/or rebuilding due to the templars and bad leadership. And the Colonial Creed were the worst with this, but damn near every game before the rpg titles had this.
When i started getting shot from off screen enemies and died as everyone attacked me at the same time, I knew something was up. The game is tailor-made to be artificially more difficult to drive people to the insane microtransactions - the fact that you have to unlock sitting on a bench through leveling is an affront to the series as a whole. Nevermind the companion app nonsense. This is the only mainline AC game I ever sold because I was so disgusted with it. It's also the last AC game i got on release day.
To be honest, I don't really expect AC games to follow so close to history for its story.
History is good for a setting, but you should be allowed to tell a good story within it.
AC1 takes place in the Third Crusade, and we don't really see any historic events the whole time except the Battle of Arsuf towards the end of the game.
AC2 is just generic Renaissance setting, and other than things like the Doge dying in 1485 and other small details like that, we don't see many events tie in with the story. Especially if we exclude the Bonfire of the Vanities DLC.
I could go on but really most of the games just use events for flavour, just to sorta remind you that you're in a progressing time period, not a stagnant one, and I'd argue Unity does that well. Bastille at the start, Reign of Terror towards the end, all good.
The two games I'd say that aren't like this are AC3 and AC4. Both of those games follow history rather strictly at the expense of their own stories. AC3 has Connor so weirdly connected to the American Revolution that it's almost immersion breaking, that this single man liberated America almost entirely by himself. Edward is more understandable, he is friends with pirates and those friends dropped like flies in the real world, so they would be important parts of his story, though, the mission where Edward heads all the way to Carolina just to see Blackbeard's death before returning is a bit shoehorned.
Unity however returns to form and lets the setting just be the setting. Time passes and you know the revolution isn't stagnant, but ultimately the story isn't about the Revolution, just like AC1 isn't about the crusade and AC2 isn't about the Renaissance. The setting is just a flavour, not the meal itself.
That being said, to return to what I said at the start of this, yeah, you should be allowed to tell a good story within it. What a shame that Unity's story is shit lmao.
I think the issue is how Unity really tried to connect French Revolution with it's marketing and you would thing plot would be build around it. While AC3 Connor role is kind of a meme, at very least was tied to his character journey and had themes tied to that, while Unity borderline avoids them as fire or just undersells them. Even og AC while being not about Crusades, it didn't try to sell on that in PR and does tie them to larger theme of control Eden represents.
The biggest problem with AC is despite their games draw from history and politics they tend to avoid those subjects to avoid controversy. Thus
- AC Syndicate handicapped by a certain blindness due to not wanting to actually handle the issues that were most pressing in its time, perhaps due to corporate interests. You can see how Marx was included yet relegated to an unimportant side character, even though his role in world history is massive
- AC3 actually did a good job in this respect, but maybe people who don't read history miss the nuance. Anyways, a Native American main character and a skepticism towards the American independence project was a welcome addition, not to mention a black mentor and side characters, good steps there
- AC Unity does not deal very much with the revolution at all, and without knowing any history, you would have no idea what happened
The only content creator who doesn't focus on pleasing bangwagon chasing ac fans and gives genuine opinion