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It is important to understand that Rogue only got 8 months of development time whereas Unity got about 2 years. A lot of features that were planned for this game were put on the back burner to focus on the main parts of the game. It is obvious that Rogue uses a lot of black flags assets but like Aqua mentions in the video, there was so much more that was meant to be done with the game (length, content, lore etc.) if you do any research on this game you’ll find out exactly what was withheld from the players
There's also the problem that Rogue wasn't developed by Ubisoft Montreal (the studio that usually does all the mainline games) but instead Ubisoft Sofia, which was much smaller and had only ever made Assassin's Creed Liberation. That's probably why the story suffers so much too is because the usual writers like Corey May and Darby McDevitt weren't involved.
Rogue gets the same treatment as Sleeping dogs, many consider both games underrated so much that it becomes no longer underrated and pretty much overrated
believe or not, it kinda is inside the fanbase. It's the same thing with Unity. A mediocre game is called underrated for some time. It gets so much praise that itself becomes way too much overrated.
The story of rogue mainly explains that assassins limit themselves to either stop the templars or locate the isu artifacts, nothing more. Even if an innocent is dying by the hands of non-templar, assassins will ignore them because they care about templars and artifacts more than anything.(except AC freedom cry) You can see this first in AC revelations, where one of the assassin turned Templar vali cel tradat wanted assassins to intervene when Ottomans killed innocent romanians who had no role in Vlad the impaler's conquest. He joined the assassins thinking that they would help the innocents but in return, assassins didn't even care about that. The same happened in rogue, During his travels with Liam, Shay asks him that they are supporting french army who is conducting slavery in Port-au-Prince, for which Liam says they don't involve themselves in politics. As for the poison use, they wanted to have an upper hand on templars so much that they were ready to even kill innocents just like Ezio in Cappadocia(even though after this he quit the assassins). Also, during shay's early life as an assassin, Liam, Hope, kasegowase, Chevalier and achilles followed the creed blindly without even asking the questions. Even when Shay asks questions about his kills, Liam says that "but nothing. Just do it" which is weird because in the first AC, altaïr asks Al mualim questions about his kills and he gladly answers which gives him clarity about his affiliation with assassins. But in the colonial era, they were arrogant and too loud, so the questions which were supposed to be answered by assassins were answered by the templars in both words and actions, this is why Shay became Templar. Also, one of the main reasons is achilles's selfishness after his family's death. He became so selfish that he didn't want to hear any reasonable arguments at all. Shay didn't want to steal the precursor box and manuscript, he wanted to destroy it because he believed no one should have that power, neither assassins nor Templars. But achilles was not ready to hear any reason at all. He directly ordered assassins to kill him. If he would've listened to him or explained that they didn't know what was in the temple, Shay might have stayed as an assassin.
My thing is that the first confrontation with Achilles and Shay, after Lisbon, is BOTH handle it poorly. Sure, Achilles isn’t listening or explaining, but Shay barges in, spitting accusations at him - and remember that this is after a month or two of travel time, and Achilles may not even know about the earthquake itself, so it’s easy for him to just view Shay as a madman, ranting and raving at him. And Shay doesn’t try again, just decides to break in and steal the box, betraying the Assassins, which honestly does justify the weapons coming out, that he stole from them, which could easily mean they suspect him of doing what ends up happening and running to the Templars - this IS after Black Flag and Duncan Walpole. Basically, this is “Poor Communication Kills,” The Game.
To be fair, this is also after what looks like years of treating Shay like the newbie who gets all the dirty jobs dumped on him and whose opinion doesn't matter in the slightest so he should just shut up and obey the brotherhood more. Such freedom, wow. ...but yeah Shay really did a horrible job of communicating the problem, but it was kind of just the spark that landed on the pile of powder kegs. The plot beats were way too rushed and he probably should've at least tried again, but I don't want to be too harsh on him when his coworkers have had a history of showing no respect to his loyalty and telling him to shut up every time he opens his mouth. They were almost cartoonishly horrible and the templars in the game are overwhelmingly in the white rather than grey, which is my biggest problem with this story.
The only reason Shay "betrayed" the Assassin because Achilles got physical on him first. lmao As if anything, it's on Achilles for being a poor leader that all these events even happened.
Achilles knew what Shay was talking about because towards the end of the game when Liam and Achilles are getting ready to take the artifact Achilles stops Liam and said Shay was right.
@@caesarslegion9872 That doesn't necessarily mean he knew the whole time. I always interpreted as a man reluctantly admitting he's wrong after given time to think
* watches an entire city of 50,000+ people, men women and children, collapse due to an earthquake you caused cus your mentor wanted you to get a box for him * "Omg Shay had been on a ship for TWO MONTHS and he just barges in! Shouldn't he be over it by now? Like take a chill pill dude, it's just one city!" I agree with you on the whole, but PTSD is a real b&tch and tbh most people would handle it like Shay did...or even more intensely!
Achilles honestly thought Shay messed up when he retrieved the artifact and thought either Shay caused the earthquake due to his mistake or that the earthquakes were coincidences. They've probably found other artifacts prior without any problem, so having 2 earthquakes back to back didn't demonstrate cause and effect to him. He was too wrapped up in his pride to think it was his own fault, and didn't let go until the end, at the last moment before he grabs the box. I think it is normal to reconsider something like that at the last minute. I think you're right about how they could have done better, but I don't think that portion was as unrealistic as people think. Regarding the gangs, I think that made sense. Assassin's in previous titles often support gangs of thieves and gangs of mercenaries, giving them targets, helping them, and paying them. In Syndicate they go even further and start a gang to fight other gangs. They could have done a better job with the assassin's but when I played it fresh off the earlier games, I thought it was a cool play on how assassins helping the criminals leads to bad things happening in the city.
I also think it's because Achilles family had died and wasn't in the right headspace to think about what he was doing and shay was still newer to the creed so the rest sided with Achilles and believed shay was in the wrong
I remember discussing this game with some of my coworkers a few years ago bringing up that it felt like they just CTRL+F "Assassin" and replaced it with "Templar", and vice versa, because suddenly the Assassins were mass producing poison and terrorizing people, and the Templars were doing all the things the Assassins did. One of my coworkers said he vividly remembers walking around randomly poisoning people in the Ezio games, so he found Rogue believable. But there are a number of problems with that. First, you can't do that in the Ezio games because you'll get desynchronized if you kill 3 NPCs, and Ezio didn't kill civilians. Second, you were poisoning Templar agents who were doing all those things like terrorizing people and seizing power. Third, Ezio wasn't mass-producing poison anywhere. It was actually explicitly stated he was using large doses of medicine purchased from doctors. The point I was trying to make, and the point that That Boy Aqua made, was that the game felt like a lazy attempt to make a Templar protagonist by just switching out "Templar" for "Assassin" instead of actually trying to show why the Assassin Brotherhood you were familiar with was wrong, and why the Templar Order you spent so many games fighting could be right. Instead they just made the Assassins be the Templars for one game.
If anything the best argument for the faults of the brotherhood and the templars being kind of right is probably AC3...Connor's fight for "freedom" pretty much cost him everything, including what he originally set out to protect, and the world just traded one kind of oppression for another after a round of bloody chaos, because all of Haytham's (admittedly pessimistic) condemnations of human society were mostly right on the mark. You even help the templar order take down a corrupt ex-member You don't see that much in the mainline games, people from both organizations actually agreeing on something being horrible.
I don't know what to think of that. I mean yes, the Assassins mass producing poison seems out of character, but its not like they planned on using it on civilians. They planned to use it in war and Assassins actively participating in wars is not new at all. Ezio mobilized mercenary forces to counter the Templars armies and he made use of unethical warfare tactics in his conflicts, like burning a harbor down with greek fire or destroying an underground cave settlement etc. In many ways, Rogue probably demonstrated what the liberated, assassin controlled societies can develop into once they succeeded. The criminal gangs are basically the mercenaries who where supported by Assassins and helped them to secure the areas from Templar influence. Though because of a lack of order, resources and control, these gangs get involved in criminal activity, because the Assassins never really learned how to actually maintain their influence differently. After all, the Assassins are known to strengthen thieve guilds and similar organizations, and those won't stop harassing and robbing people. In the contrary they are protected now and nobody is left to regulate or stop them efficiently, because the Assassins actually support and rely on their methods. That is fine when the ones in power seem to be evil and the current structures are morally bankrupt, but once these structures are overcome this new foundation is kinda deemed to affect the innocent again.
I like how we all conveniently forget the plot of Assassins creed 1 lol dude the games go out of their way to tell you, it doesn’t matter your creed or oaths, your duty or whatever. People are still people. Being an Assassin doesn’t chemically change your brain to being a peace loving pacifist and being a Templar doesn’t automatically turn you into a sociopathic, genocidal maniac. Assassins have to kill people on a daily basis. You don’t kill them because they wronged you personally or because of self defense. Assassins will have you killing unarmed Templars or pawns in their employment who have wives, husbands, brothers, sisters and children. Yes they’re not always unarmed but my point is it doesn’t matter. You literally murder people for a living on a regular basis all because of a feud that started even before humans were created. Basim/Loki is a perfect example. He’s a bad guy and extremely selfish and manipulative. In fact he’s the one who TAINTED the brotherhood in the first game.
The games tell you that this feud between Templars and Assassin comes from the Isu. From human sympathizers (who ultimately lay the foundation for Assassins) and ones that want to dominate and control (who lay the foundation for Templars) these two groups wanted the same thing. Peace and to survive. The “good” ones use chaos and the “bad” ones use order. If you pay attention to all the Isu stuff they say that too much of both is evil. Including the Assassins. They would destroy order and decide for everyone else that their “free will” is more important than security and order. There are some people perfectly fine with that sacrifice but nope the Assassins decide what’s good for you. The Templars are willing to stamp out free will for peace. Again deciding for the innocent people in the middle who are willing to sacrifice anything for their free will. Both are flawed. And both Assassins and Templars genuinely have both good and evil people in both. For example Woodes Roger’s is a Templar right? He genuinely wanted to pacify the West Indies for peace. And more importantly he wanted to take power away from the king. He never harmed innocents or went out of his way to hurt innocents. He was a decent person even as Edward nearly killed him he was happy to help Edward stop Robert’s from using the Observatory. He even says he’s honored to be able to work with Edward.
You have to take into account that Rogue only released for PS3 and Xbox 360 while Unity was on PS4 and Xbox One. I didn’t have a PS4 yet so Rogue was the only option for me at the time.
Rogue is my guilty pleasure, I love this game even though I am aware of its many problems. Possessing one of the most interesting premises of the entire saga, which is wasted with the simplification of the conflict between assassins and templars, which, as we both know, is extremely complex in moral terms because both sides consider themselves to be doing the right thing. Of course, I know the Templars are villains after all, but the Kenway Saga has always tried to understand both sides in a humane way like in AC3. However, here, assassins are demoted to mere idealistic and arrogant villains. The game deliberately makes characters like Achilles extremely dumb just to justify Shay hunting down his former friends. Shay could very well be the Darth Vader of the saga. A former assassin who decides to abandon his order and become a templar. I think in the context of the game, Shay could very well seek revenge not only for being shot by his friends, but also for being underestimated and used as a bloodhound by them throughout the entire first act of the game. Instead, the game tries to justify all of Shay's actions just because the assassins really are evil in this story and the only way to save the world is to kill them all. Which proves futile, as at the end of the game Achilles acknowledges that Shay was right about the Tree of Eden. Another thing that annoys me about this game is that it never seems to give you a bit of time to breathe. Black Flag was so much fun with those same mechanics because a lot of the time the story didn't take itself too seriously. You were a greedy pirate looking for money and fame, so it made sense when Edward said he'd rather explore the Caribbean than go on the next quest. That was a really fun feeling that the game had, a feeling of adventure. Whereas in Rogue there's always that sense of urgency, important events happen and the game quickly screams in your ear to get you to the next big story point. You're a soldier, an enforcer, a serious templar who takes his templar business very seriously, there's no time to explore. It's a shame because the map is very interesting, especially the northern part, full of interesting little islands with lots of secrets. The story could very well justify these moments by saying that Shay is a private in the British Army, hunting Frenchmen on the north coast of the United States.
>Shane could very well be the Darth Vader of the saga I actually love this comparison and Rogue is the SW Episode III of the series imo. The Assassin Order has its own Order 66 basically in the Colonial Era and Shay is a cornerstone of that. Finally, Assassin Mentor and Master Achilles Davenport is sort of Yoda, sort of Obi-Wan, where as Bryan (Shays' best friend, I can't quite remember his name) is sort of Obi-Wan. ACIII basically being A New Hope. Regardless, I LOVE your comparison of the series and I appreciate the perspective!
wow, just found out that this dweeb youtuber just shadowbanned my other account for refuting his video about Rogue, here it is once again... i do agree with the Assassin's or as the game calls it 'gangs' that the colour pallete is stupid considering that in one of the concept arts of shay killing assassin's and holding his rifle, the assassin's have a white robe with brown and red accents which is alot like the crusading assassin's... some have more brown armor on their white robe and some have no armor but im pretty sure all of them have red scarfs around their waist.... only one variant with the Colonial brotherhood (except master assassin's) has a hood and its the 'gang' leader... i wouldve heavily preferred if it were like the concept arts where some assassin's don't have hoods but still have white robes to show which rank they are in.... i also have gripes with shays templar outfit despite it looking amazing but they downgraded his main templar outfit compared to his concept art, most notably is the hood aspect of the outfit to show spite against the assassin's and how even though hes a templar and an assassin hunter, he's still an assassin in shays twisted own way... so many ppl say the reasoning behind the removal of the hood is because of shay becoming a templar although that makes no sense as there are templars like Germain and Rodrigo that wear hoods to spite the assassin's but also in the lore, there are many templar spies who go undercover and train within the brotherhood to ultimately train other templars to become assassin hunters yet shay is the one without the hood... the hidden blades are just as important as the hood.... its a shame because this game was apparently in development for 8 months and they made decisions that they couldn't back on over time... but it isnt just the hood, there are many aspects of the outfit in the final version that got removed compared to the concept art like the buttons on his boots, his red and white collar (not the main black one) being smaller, his hidden blade where in the concept art and CGI trailer had his blade be sealed completely within the wrist pocket that was completely hidden away while in-game you can still see the hidden blade while it is sealed away. but the master assassin's can have whatever outfit they want while still remaining within the assassin spirit.... although the rest of the colonial assassin's are bland in design and they stuck out like a sore thumb, just don't forget about Brotherhoods ezio where his outfit looks way more like a sore thumb compared to the colonial brotherhood, at least they look like they are frontiersmen mixed with military attire that can blend in way more than Brotherhood ezios outfit im at the 9 min mark but here's where you're wrong about the templars... they are actually losing and don't or didn't have many resources in that time when shay assassinated 3 high figured templars as well as the Assassin's siding with the french which in turn the french support and have forts everywhere.... the Colonial Assassin's got too desperate in defeating the templars and caused chaos because of it... its why Achilles says to connor 'in order to save the world, make sure you don't destroy it' - Assassin's have always been causing chaos since AC1 and ezios era (apart from AC2 since its horribly written) compared to templars who don't cause that much chaos as compared to assassin's, you'd think that with the templars they would destroy a city to further their goal since they believe in killing if necessary towards anyone but you never actually see that except for Cesera but REAL Templars agree that the Renaissance as a whole was a dark era for the Templars while with the Assassin's, you'd expect then to never kill innocents or cause chaos ever since there will be innocents being caught by the blade into their flesh but you that isn't true if ppl actually take a look at Assassin's Creed as a whole (minus AC2; although it has some grey elements but ultimately it fulls flat because of th3 horrible writing, same case goes for syndicate until the Jack the Ripper DLC came in and made the assassin's look horrible because of how Jack came to be, Origins is basically just like AC2 but the difference is that one had established lore that established ACs universe while the other dismissed that and retconed the fuck out of it) ok your anger towards the the modern day is fckin blinded... have you ever tried looking in the computers to hack where they give a lot of context throughout the assassin's creed universe and how it ties to rogue the church is nowhere near the depth of AC2 but majority don't care about that because it's just supposed to be a nostalgia trip and you having a good time because of it... the quire is supposed to ease you up for what's to come. but shay also isn't out of the loop, he also makes a bold claim that he thought that Achilles knew of what causes the earthquake but he was way in over his head since before that he just mentioned how he destroyed a city thanks to that manuscript... Achilles is also suffering mentally because of his wife and son dying, the assassin's blindly follow Achilles because HE saved them when they were at their lowest.... have EVER seen like assassin's blindly follow whatever... it happened all the way since AC1 with Altair blindly following himself because he was an evil sociopath but untik Al Mualim offered him redemption but that's how Altair breaks it and doesn't blindly follow his master and how the other assassin's do because Altair actually LISTENS to the ppl he kills... its not just templar targets that shifted his way of thinking but its also ppl he interrogates which at the end Altair kills them (innocent or not) since Altair still in admist of his redemption does bad stuff just like Kratos, Dante (from Dante's Inferno) and Arthur Morgan who still do bad stufd in admist of their redemption but anyways Altair overcomes his lust for killing ppl he interrogates when he found out a woman was disguised as Robert De Sable and eventually fell in love with her who btw that woman was an actual TEMPLAR that Altair piped. you really think that Haytham is just a 'fun, gentleman bastard' ummmmmm, wtf are you on right now.... this is a time where Haytham watches many many atrocities that he witnessed and that took a toll on him, i really really hate this argument of 'tHe cOloNiaL AsSASsiNs aRe aCtInG liKe bEtTeR TeMplaRs tHaN tHe AcTuAl teMplArS' - HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANY ASSASSIN from previous AC games INCLUDING EZIO from revelations where he has bombs that kill INNOCENT ppl and has poison gas and basically its a CHEMICAL WARFARE bomb just like the grenade launcher that shay has that was taken by the Assassin's.... ARE YOU FORGETTING THAT EZIO is not a good person at all in revelations and Ezio himself knows that.... he and his assassin's blindly follow him because they think hes the most wisest, the messiah but in actuality, hes literally just like how Cesera was.... Ezios struggle with the Assassin's and himself never wanting to be an assassin while witnessing the atrocities that the renaissance templars caused made Ezio a monster that he swore to destroy because he thinks that templars are all bad but with Constantanople, it looked peaceful... there were no corruption within the templars and so in one of the missions, he assassinates a templar that he thought waa against Ezio but it turns out, he was with Ezios side.... if you actually did the master assassin missions that ezio would look over his master assassin's then you'll know that one of them kills an innocent accidentally yet Ezio never exiles them or give then a massive penalty, all ezio does is give the assassin a slap on the wrist meanwhile Ezio causes an explosion that suffocated thousands in the underground city for just ONE templar target, you see the resemblance with Ezio and Cesera but anyways in the game ezio never shows remorse for the explosion and thousands of innocents dying while in the novelization of Revelations, ezio actually feels remorse but thought it was necessary to kill that ONE templar, the only time Ezio shows any emotion in the underground city is when a templar swears to go after Sofia who is supposed to be ezios hope and light.... point is that both assassin's and templars aren't good and are just Grey morally as it should be... both are capable of good but at the same time they are 2 sides of the same coin yet want to differentiate as much as possible but as the same time, som assassin's and templars actually want balance like Haytham and the french templars and the whole entire French Brotherhood that wants balance except that both at the end will always differentiate because ppl like Bellec are too blinded by old texts like how he mentioned Ezio and how templars are evil and the other are templars like Germain who thinks himself superior because he's a sage and the other templars go against the grand master who wanted peace and balance... Rogue doesn't suffer anything from its ideological story since even shay gets succumbed by the darkness overtime and you see that how he acts when he kills Charles Dorian, there were hints of Shay throughout that the darkness within him will succumb him like how he acts when he kills templars as an assassin who yes felt bad about killing but because of the the rest of the brotherhood trying to tell that he shouldn't feel for his enemies which makes shay constantly kill and kill "Assassin's Creed Brogue: A Video Analysis of Shay Cormac" - th-cam.com/video/YrqrKtcJuJ8/w-d-xo.html i really hope you see this because your video is a common misconception that some ppl have with Rogues story...
obviously that push was a mistake and Achilles didn't want that to happen but i forgot to mention how shays betrayal is handled right... many many ppl always try to 'fix' the story by mentioning that shay could've listened and how shay shouldve calmed down while with Achilles, ppl mention how he couldve just talked about how he didn't know of the cause of the earthquake but in REAL LIFE, most of human depravity like War comes from 'miscommunication' - its not like Achilles was happy every single time especially other assassin's and Shay specifically as with the thing he went through, his madness or torment will go further and further while SAILING A SHIP FOR MONTHS.... idk how ppl don't realise this but sailing a ship that long and with shay went through, you will suffer forever... just look at how ppl get sick when on a boat for a short amount of time and imagine double that in a big ass boat that is a ship and addition to shays trauma going all the way to jupiter..... Shay obviously didn't mean that Achilles knew of what would happen with those artifacts but at the same time when they spoke again, shay grew suspicion of Achilles when he seemingly knew of that artifact based on how he emphasised the manuscript in saving the world, shay realised this but then said that 'we don't have the right to decide that future' - even Templars wouldn't do that as they want to save the world and bring world peace and it isn't just from the assassin's, its the same way for assassin's but difference is that Assassin's associate Templars with the corrupt kings or leaders and part of the problem meanwhile the templars can say the same thing but they actually don't because i believe that templars know that both of then are the same just like the 2 sides of the same coin whicg Rogue displays at its start-up menu. Rogue isn't to show whos morally are correct... neither of them are... nobody questions why that person in the beginning in AC1 betrayed the brotherhood because he believed in the templars... nobody questions why that Assassin within ezios brotherhood in revelations betrayed the assassin's because he thought the templars were right and was just doing in what he believed in mind you that if i remember correctly, he never killed any assassin while Ezio and other assassin's chased after him.... plus Assassin's in rogue were never 'out of character' i hope you understand where im coming from with Rogue and essentially the whole of Assassin's Creed with the Assassin's vs Templars story that was it's foundation since AC1 and how grey it was... and i hope you understand that thr colonial assassin's were never 'out of character' that's not to mention how Mackandals brotherhood is portrayed in rogue and liberation and how rogue or Otso Berg explains Baptistes motive in betraying Mackandals brotherhood and siding with the templars. yep your words are legit propaganda.... im joking but i feel like you got in over your head way too much about Rogue and looking into other ppls opinions while thinking you know better and how you failed to see that it showcases its conflict from other AC games that actually present the Assassin's vs Templars as NOT black and white but gave no consideration how Rogue actually presents itself and not just a simple look at a surface level.... look at how many ppl hated or disliked AC1 at its time because they just simply glanced at it while AC2.... EVERYONE glanced at the story and Ezio and took no consideration to it which made the public opinion go wild and brainfuzzed other ppl to think that AC2 is the best game based on its story and characters when that isn't the case at all.... the AC2 Assassin vs Templar conflict had no consideration put by ubisoft (although they tried but fell flat because of the writing) and the fans.... its funny how Ubisoft realised the fuxked up AC2s story compared to the 1st game where it was an actual masterpiece in both gameplay and story and had to fix the story in Brotherhood and giving Ezio the nuance that he deserved and ultimately it payed off in revelations and in Embers.... so many ppl don't actually understand Ezio as a character deep down or if they took consideration what makes Ezio 'Ezio' but fck me did Ubisoft have Deja-vu with AC: Origins where it completely ruined Assassin's Creed as a whole.
Using Shay as an assassin gone templar is a fantastic dynamic that bridged the storylines together by giving us an "outsider pov" of the current and past affairs of both factions at large, in addition to key character motivations across AC3/AC4. Honestly, Rogue is positioned excellently in the storyline and completed the Kenway Saga in the Americas in order for a new storyline to emerge. Rogue will always be the outlier to the franchise and should not be considered its own game and instead a DLC to black flag, that ending scene alone is an iconic cliffhanger that introduces us to Unity.
Shay is one of my favorite characters in the Assassin's Creed series. You keep saying that the game doesn't let you be the bad guy, but I think what the game does instead is much more interesting. Shay realizes the danger in Achilles' ambition. He will stop at nothing to find more Isu temples, and there will be more disasters like in Lisbon and Haiti. That's why I see Shay as a tragic character. He chooses to betray the Assassins not because of his own ambition, but because he sees killing his former Assassin friends and mentors as the only way to save innocent lives from Achilles' recklessness. We Shay doubt himself and wonder if he's made the right choice, like when he shows remorse after he kills Hope and Kesegowaase. He doesn't immediately join turn traitor and join the Templars, his immediate plan after stealing the Manuscript was just to commit suicide and sink to the bottom of the river with it in hand. It just so happened that he was nursed back to health by a family who had ties to the Templar Colonel Monro, and the Templars' ideas aligned with Shay's own. I love that Rogue more than any other game in the series really showed how the Assassins and Templars are both sides of the same coin. Both sides are equally capable of both compassion and cruelty. And I admire how the game has the balls to show how far the Assassins we've known and loved for 5 years could fall having uncontested control over the American colonies, devolving into a collection of bandit gangs and mass producing chemical weapons in their mad pursuit of maintaining "freedom".
Aqua i want to point out that you left out an important piece of the story. Rogue wasn't simply delayed and released on the same day as unity. Rogue was released as a previous-gen exclusive at the time. The only people who bought rogue were people who hadn't gotten the newest systems yet. I know this because at that time i was barely out of high school and I was still using a 360 enjoying rogue, while watching memes of the dumpster fire that was unity
I think the orange clad assassins weren't assassins but some gang that the brotherhood employed, adding to Rogue's lazy "assassins are straight up villains" narrative. Which makes me jokingly think that while Rogue does a poor job at a "what if templars were protagonists", Syndicate does a good job at "what if Rogue assassins were protagonists" - Jacob and Evie employ a literal gang and they can kinda kill innocents (driving people over with a carriage doesn't cause desynchronization)
I don’t mind that the Assassins acted so evil in this game, since one of the main dilemmas of the series is that both sides can be good or bad depending on the situation and the people involved. I just wish the developers had had enough time to flesh those things out. It is interesting in itself to have a game that showcases a faction of the Assassins as the antagonists, blinded by the idea that the ends justify the means.
It would've been cool if we got to see the Assassin/Templar conflict from the other side in this game but that's not what it was, it was just a palette swap; the Templars in this game are just Assassins and the Assassins are just Templars, they don't even behave in a way that makes any idealogical sense.
Agreed. The Assassin/Templar thing would have been great if there was a cohesive explanation, but for all of it's flaws, Unity did that idea better, without needing to be a Templar.
I mean to be fair you are in the shoes of someone that previously was an assasin and therefore played like one. My biggest complaint about the story is that everytime you killed one of your previous teachers they'd keep talking about templars being the baddies whilst they were actively ripping islands inhabited by people to shreds.
@@schnitzelfritzel6287 no I don’t mean Shay, I mean ALL the Assassins just behave the way the Templars did in the games before it, and ALL the Templars just behave the way the Assassins used to, they just swapped their names around.
When you hear about how little time the devs had to develop this game you understand why things seem short and untapped because everything from the writing to building the game had to be done in less than a year
I think partially the point of having the Colonial brotherhood seem so insane was because they needed to be purged for lack of a better word. The creed was losing its way, and you see in AC3 the beaten down Achilles still in deep regret in how he mismanaged everything and allowed an actually noble man, Shay, be lost to the templars. Shay coming to the other side is also probably what solidified the templar control in so many things in AC3 to begin with. Connor coming into the picture to rebuild the colonial brotherhood is what put the assassin's back on the righteous path. In a way, Osto was right, Shay may have been the most important assassin, not because of his defection but because he was the impetus that brought the brotherhood back to its core.
I got black flag, rogue, and freedom cry in a package for like 8 dollars on my switch about a year or two ago. Coming really in handy the past few weeks after I broke my arm and have been on light duty at work recently.
To be fair, Shay didn’t articulate that messing with the Precursor artefact caused the earthquake, he kept shouting that Achilles screwed up. So while the Assassins were strawmanned into being antagonistic Shay’s not exactly got the best case either. Shay’s memories too could be why the Assassin’s are depicted as horrendously unsympathetic and the Templars more morally preferable. These are experiences influenced by his later views, and he looks back at them with that later pro-Templar anti-Assassin mindset. The games don’t explore unreliable narrator nearly enough when the main mechanic is memory, often a very self-serving thing, and this could have been the ideal place to incorporate it. Some of the cheats can be very fun, like the one where Shay spouts cheesy lines. Jumping off a viewpoint he’ll shout “I CAN FLY!”
we see the events as they are, in what order Shay's genome recorded them (Remember, the whole 'flashback to the past' thing is some sci-fi 'genetic memory' thing, they even state something about events recorded to the genome in sequence in Brotherhood I think it was)
This one actually happened to be my favorite out of all of them thus far, I'm still playing Valhalla, mainly for the fact that actually explorer is fully the other side of the conflict. An actual game where you're predominantly a Templar.
To be honest, I think an Assassin's Creed game LIKE Rogue - where you play as a Templar - could work. It just needs to be fleshed out and with proper systems unique to the Templars, (as mentioned: politics, resources, more diplomatic styles of accomplishing your objectives) because Rogue was, to me, a solid game that I personally really enjoyed. I just think it should have been given more substance than what we ultimately got. Another Rogue-style game with the attention the concept deserves would be great.
Thank you so much for saying this Aqua. I've realized lately that games such as Unity and Rogue have been universally agreed upon to be underrated - so much in fact that all their real criticisms are hid under the guise of a "hidden gem." Don't get me wrong, I love Unity and enjoyed Rogue, but I think the AC community has definitely overhyped these games in recent years.
Nobody's saying AC rogue is there fav. It's like someone makes a tier list of AC games and places it in loke the F tier. That's when people say that it's more like a B tier. Now you may disagree but that's not overhyping lol
@@yatharthrai4658I would say Assassins creed odyssey and Origins deserve C Tier. unity and Rogue deserve A tier and Black Flag is S tier, Valhalla is F Tier. B tier goes to assasins creed 3. Syndicate is one of my personal favorites of mine if not my most favorite just due to the setting.
I feel like the reason it could be “overrated” (which I don’t think it is) is because every ranking you’ll see of the franchise will have rouge either at the very bottom or 2nd to the bottom. So most people go “hey it’s not that bad”, I definitely feel like unity is the most overrated at this point
The reason it's overrated is because everyone says it's underrated. If a thousand people say something is underrated, it's not underrated anymore, it becomes overrated.
From what I understand Adewale would have had no idea Lisbon went down, as after he visits the homestead he returns to Haiti. So to him this was a blatant betrayal. Its more sad in all honesty because it seems as if Achilles was essentially puppeting these people around potentially to their demise.
I kind of liked how it gave an explanation to how the creed was down to literally one man in ac3 by Achilles throwing away the most important aspects of the creed, protecting innocent lives, stay your blade of the innocent, not let them die as collateral damage so Templars don't have a tool to control them, when I look at this game being the last of the 3 kenway games, it actually really works for me, ultimately the assassins went against what they said they would, and they deserved to be stopped, is it a little tv drama with how people don't speak to each other, sure, but also pride to ones fall is a common aspect of all the games, especially with the templars but even with the assassins as far back as the first, either way, I like the game, but don't love the game...because I can't wear a hood at all times :)
10:15 to 11:20 and all those mechanics were based on the multiplayer games that used to be part of brotherhood, revelations, 3 & 4. It was a pvp with different gamemodes but the most popular one was the one this mechanic is based off of, where you're assigned a target and you're being targeted by someone at the same time. In the map there were NPCs that looked exactly like you, your pursuers, and and your targets so you had to pay attention to their mannerisms instead of how they looked, and they could be anywhere. When you were near your target, your compass would fill up and brighten if theyre in your direct line of sight. If your pursuer was near, you'd hear the whisper sounds. What they implemented in rogue was a halfassed attempt at the multiplayer. Unlike in this game, hearing the whispers was terrifying because you didn't know who was after you. The NPCs all look exactly the same and the only "meta" way of knowing was to see who you were in a match against cause their character model would be next to them. The kills were also instant. If someone clicked the kill button while you weren't prepared, you got killed. You can only "stun" your pursuers, not outright kill them, so you had to outwit your pursuer to bitchslap them from behind and then run away. The mechanics in this game feel like a halfassed attempt to say "look we're never doing this multiplayer again anyway so enjoy this half baked version instead." And it's honestly heartbreaking because I genuinely enjoyed the multiplayer. It had its jank and it's metas but it felt like a real survival game with how you needed to constantly be on the lookout
First AC game i played and imo one of the best if not for sentimental reasons. Noce seeing a different and tbf relateable perspective. Soundtrack a banger too
This game needed a novelisation to flesh out the conflict and give it the nuance the game itself didn’t afford. Oliver Bowden’s treatment of Haytham in Forsaken showed a lot of nuance between his Assassin and Templar based ideals, and a journal structure would do better to show Shay’s evolving view of the people and ideologies he was interacting with or acting against. Maybe some more of Shay in the Unity prologue setting after the point the credits start rolling in the game or at least some closure as to how his lineage continued.
I really enjoyed how this game had the assasins trying to kill you like randomly through out the game. Reminds me of the old wanted game mode I miss from brotherhood. I'd love them to try this concept again.
3:47 imagine my surprise when I played assassin's creed unity /syndicate /origin, the main story was so short that it actually upset me for days 😐 it's wildly disspointing when you care more about side activities more than your game main quest and storyline
The worst thing about this game is that it made a lot of people believe that after unity it would be possible to get a game connecting stories for 3 and rogue just like it connected to unity
This is why I want a remake, so they can fix the problems Not saying they did bad, they did great since they had a quarter of the time that they should have gotten
this game is super goated never would have thought that you be an assassin while working with the Templars in a scenerio tbh Shay had Luck in his hands and had the balls to betray the Assassin Brotherhood.
I remember buying the deluxe and finishing the game being like "Wait where's the rest?" And then checked the progress tracker and it was significantly shorter than black flag. Left a sour taste in my food hole.
You're one of the people who is why we don't have much interaction in the newer games with the "modern" world of Assassin's Creed games. Although that being said, I do agree that Rogue sounds like it really missed the mark in story and how it had so much wasted potential. I wish the games today had MORE modern world gameplay segments. It feels so much like an afterthought these days. The whole reason I got so interested in the AC series is because of Desmond and his story in the modern world. It was far more interesting than most of the new modern assassin stories where it is just some random girl in a cottage in a custom animus. When you hop out of the animus you don't have a world to explore, you have mostly a room or a tiny tiny area to explore. I long for the days of Desmond exploring a massive Abstergo building while running and hiding from Abstergo/Templar goons. Now it feels like the games have become merely vessels for the eras they are set in. No more long story arcs where you learn to use your Assassin skills in the modern world where you have some conspiracy to uncover. Now it is 5 minute clips where you get gas to put in the generator so you can go back into the past memories, or just walk around a room and read emails on a computer screen and then go back into the Animus. It feels like people just would rather have a game set in the past with no ties to AC. The series definitely went downhill after Desmond died. It sounds like Ubisoft really missed the mark with this one.
Thing is that shays story cant be heavily edited like avelines story because this is abstergos first time going through these memories. Avelines story was also sold as a game, shays story is the nitty gritty truth. This is HOW shays story went.
They could've done this game like they done the haytham intro in AC3. Templars and assassins are inheritently gray. Similar but different. All they done is pallet swap the sides and call it a day. The trailer for this game is incredibly misleading. From the outfit having a hood, the gun being a lethal and quiet tool not a overgrown blowpipe. The assassins BEING ACTUAL ASSASSINS.
Weird thing but I think Rogue had the best title screen (I like how the usual symbol fragments into the templar cross) and I do like the grenade launcher for the sheer amount of fun it can be (assassin or bounty hunters giving you trouble? hit them with the old "parry this"). I think the crafting is another underdeveloped mechanic too with potential for some more customisation (ac 3 had some very different pistols with ones like the duckfoot, pistols in this game just have better range and power and I couldn't tell you what changes upgrading your sword and dagger gets) although I do find it hilarious that Shay is walking everywhere with the better part of an endangered animals exhibit on his person at all times.
The only way I feel they could have made the story make sense towards the end of the game would be to reveal that the Templars did in fact modify the memories to mislead Shay.
I love this game, even though it id Black Flag 1.5. My biggest beef is that they established what Haytham was doing during the 7 years war in his journal (the AC3 novelization). He was murdering his mentor, saving his sister from slavery, lost his best friend and was recovering from a life threatening injury. He wasnt even on the americas after he and Zio broke it off
Rogue is a pretty good game imo. It's like a "best hits" music album. It combines the best elements of AC3, AC4 and the assassin detector mechanic from the multiplayer in brotherhood is also a good addition. I do think it would've benefitted from a longer story and more character development. Most of the characters just don't get enough screen time in order for the player to feel one way or another about them, and things do feel a bit rushed. Characters like Achilles, Adewale and Haytham just don't get the in-game time that they really should've as these are the characters that fans are most interested in and what happened with them between the timeline of Black flag and AC3. But it's still a fun game overall. Familiar feeling game to fans of the series with some of the "Ubi-bloat" fat trimmed off. I'd give it a 7/10. It's worth playing if anyone skipped it especially as it's free to play on PSN. Probably free on gamepass too.
I started playing again after a long time and I am having a lot of fun especially taking out assassins, saving areas, and then renovating. It is super underrated and just a lot of dumb fun
It is weird how people overlook that Haythem acts out of character, as well as the Assassins. Haythem spares Achilles when he wouldn't even spare 3 British soldiers in AC3. And the Assassins make outposts waving a flag in the sky. Going against what Altair wanted after he killed Al Mualim and reformed the Brotherhood
I disagree with your take on Haytham. Haytham at the beginning of AC3 is shown to be calmer and a bit more mellow compared to how spiteful he is when he is older (he is older when he executes the soldiers in cutscenes). Rogue takes place when he is still fairly young, so it makes sense that he isn’t quite as callous yet as he is later in AC3. Plus he was going to kill Achilles until talked down by Shay, and even then he still decided to shoot Achilles through the leg and cripple him.
Well to be fair I can see why haytham wouldn't kill achiles (if you ignore Shays plea) and that's to keep the assassin's weak, prevents martyrs showing up, and a reignition of the creed in the colonies could end up being a pain vs keeping the creed under a crippled leader. Haytham is someone who favors practicality, guy killed the guards because let's be honest where would they keep them, how would they be fed, and how would you keep them hush while doing the mission? Too much effort and too many resources might as well kill them and save themselves the trouble.
As someone who has Platinumed the Rogue Remastered game for ps4 and xbox one and who is now going back to platinum the original Rogue for 360 and ps3 I feel obligated to offer my two cents. I should also note I am about 10 mins in so for all I know Aqua could have covered this later in the video. Rogues greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. The open world is fantastic to explore and it gives the same vibes as exploring the locations in the carribean. The problem is, because the game is 6 sequences long, the world feels too big. One thing I often go to is if River Valley was not a thing and the game were to focus more on the North Atlantic and New York the exploration wouldnt feel too overwhelming. I have completed every location in the game twice now and I can tell you the most bored you will get is slowly clearing each location in the 3 areas in AC Rogue. The problem is this wouldnt necessarily be a problem if the game wasnt 6 sequences long. If the story was longer it would give you more incentive to explore as missions would likely take you to new places. You dont have much of that with Rogue's story being half the length of the typical ac game.
Bias here. Rogue was what got me back into the franchise that I had fallen out of so I have a really soft spot for it. One of the few people to play it instead of unity because I didn’t have the hardware. I really love the game and I love the criticisms that you pointed out here because most of them I agree with wholeheartedly, sadly, I feel it still a bit underrated but I feel like it also gets a little overhyped if that makes sense. In a weird way? Sadly, it’s nothing groundbreaking. I would’ve loved to see some dual conflict and dive more deeply into both sides of the story. It could’ve been handled much better. There was a lot of cut content and sadly neither had the time nor budget to probably push forward a lot of its ideas . Which had a lot of potential as much as I love it I can definitely share in the criticism. ❤
@@becmcclean4915Well with Origins the argument can be made that you don't get full access to the ship because it cannot be customized. And even then, it's mostly with the Aya missions.
First time viewer and subscriber: I’m playing through rogue now. Shay did have some cool qualities, but imo he only exists to link to Unity. If they would’ve made AC3 entirely about Connor and then Rogue was about Haytham, then I think we would’ve had much better option.
u forget that until the end of the game no one realized or questioned how powerful thoes pieces, like how it stated in rouge and ac3. I think it's nice to see the journey and how the character developed, there is definitely much deeper reasons that you haven't touched in the video
It always felt like Rogue was a secondary game. It was only on previous game systems and unity was only on the next gen consoles. It instantly came out feeling like it was already a side game or a spin off.
the IRONY of talking about a game being overrated because 3 people said its underrated WHILE sponsoring Wanted: Dead is BEYOND me lmao... ik u gotta make dat bag but u shouldve chosen another video cuz that threw me off too much
Shay actually makes his own luck. How did you expect him to survive everything? He may be the most powerful AC protagonist of the original AC games, and possibly of all time. How many times does he have to tell you? Shay makes his own luck.
...22:00...I thought the "I make my own luck" line was in reference to him being Irish...arent both Liam and Shay Irish?..."the luck of the Irish," right?...but the American Rite doesn't need luck...we make our own!...WOOOOOOOOO!!!...
All in honesty, the memory tampering (which you mentioned) makes total sense. Although, the way it was pulled off does not. If they would have made a DLC for example, which would show that the memory was tampered with, it would be so much better.
@@hitori_4 yeah I thought as much especially seeing the "UNLEASH THE CHAOS IN WANTED: DEAD WITH UP TO 50% OFF NOW!" pinned comment along the title lmao
Why are people clicking on a video and then not even watching the introduction where he explains the difference between underrated and overlooked? Seriously, are people playing a game of how stupid they can make themselves look on the internet?
@@Modie The difference between underrated and overlooked going straight up to "the most overrated game in the franchise" you sure won the prize on that game of yours
@@discoalice So the title is a bit of clickbait? Who would have guessed. My point still stands though. You are claiming it is underrated when you have no idea what underrated even means.
One problem i have with rogue is why are you helping the british in the game im pretty sure the templers weren't helping either the british of french in the colonies especially in assassin's creed 3
I literally would make fun of Shay every time he said,"I make my own luck". It was just super cringy, and near the end of the game I just ended up busting up laughing and mocking him.
I can see how you wouldn’t like it because being pulled out of the Animus to do modern day stuff has been a criticism since the first game, but I quite like the modern days for Black Flag and Rogue. Any protagonist immediately following Desmond would have huge shoes to fill, and having a modern day protagonist we know literally nothing about not even appearance is a good compromise (much better than Unity and Syndicate, where there aren’t even any playable modern day sequences). Being inside Abstergo is both a callback to the first game but also a change from II-III with seeing how Abstergo Entertainment operates and offering some fun fourth wall and production foreshadowing entries you can find. Black Flag used its modern day to include payoff for the Sage storyline in the Animus simulation, progressing Juno’s story from III’s conclusion and seeding the Instruments of the First Will (a storyline that would ultimately conclude in the comics).
I don't think is either underrated nor overrated i see lots of people saying good stuff about it but no one is so obsessed with the game and theres no army of people prepared to defend it so i don't see it as underrated or overrated i see it as a game lots of people didn't expected to enjoy since it was so overlooked when it came out. I myself love Rogue alot and Shay is easily one of my fav main characters, though i understand your point, i also didnt like how assassin's were used in this game and the fact that you are a templar only by name since you got to liberate zones for some reason and the "assassin's" look like friggin guards like WHY THEY ARE ORANGE THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BLEND IN, i also agree about the fact that usually and for usually i mean always the templars are WINNING theres no reason to liberate zones those zones are supposed to be under the templar control already, also it make feels like templars are just the goody goods, my dream is a templar game where you are just a templar no assassin shit, you have to fight and discover assassins and your MC and allies are actually evil aka the actual POV of a templar even if the line is pretty gray theres no real good or bad usually templars are a little bit more evil. Amazing video Aqua.
I like Rogue, but it could've been so much better, and I really wish it was. I don't mind the similar gameplay to Black Flag either, and I like the River Valley (minus the often-too-frequent wind that stops the shanties) and NYC regions. My main complaint is with the story and writing. The whole Templar-Assassin philosophical debate wasn't really explored in the game. IMO, the main conflict was more about a macguffin (the Piece of Eden). At least in the earlier games, I thought AC1 and AC3 did the best job of presenting the complexities and nuisances of the arguments of freedom vs. control. My other complaint was, in what I felt, a lack of connection and feeling with the historical setting of the French and Indian War. Every mission didn't have to focus on the war, but I wish there were a lot more and getting a sense of the conflict in the missions, regions, and free-roaming.
One fact Ik bout rogue is the absolutely short dev time as Ubisoft told the team they have 8 months to make this a game to go with the 360 And ps3. And one of the only pieces of marketing this game had was the voice actor for Shay going to a convention wearing a shirt he made of the game with just the title on it.
I 100% agree with so many things you said. At this point I feel like people are just calling it "underrated" without actually playing, its plot is usually praised like there's no tomorrow but it's literally one of the worst ones in AC
Something that would be cool and a call back to a handheld game is if shay trained his own assassins, like the crows from ezios time. Shay could become a twisted version of a assassins mentor
I agree with the part about the gameplay being too "Assassin'y." I also expected to see much more Templar tomfoolery. Less sneaking and backstabbing, more politics and metaphorical backstabbing. Nevertheless, I love this game. We can only hope that Ubisoft takes another shot at creating a Templar story for us.
Shay is a former assassin, what did you expect? It was obvious that he would continue with the skills he acquired in assassin training, and Templar training was unnecessary. But that doesn't mean he couldn't use his assassination skills in a more creative way, in fact, narratively speaking it's very coherent and it interests Shay, as a former assassin, to explore the disadvantages of the brotherhood in favor of the templars.
I think the team making rogue only had around 8 months to put this game together(don't quote me on that), and I feel that if there was more time, the game would've reached much more of its potential. I still love it though
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It is important to understand that Rogue only got 8 months of development time whereas Unity got about 2 years. A lot of features that were planned for this game were put on the back burner to focus on the main parts of the game. It is obvious that Rogue uses a lot of black flags assets but like Aqua mentions in the video, there was so much more that was meant to be done with the game (length, content, lore etc.) if you do any research on this game you’ll find out exactly what was withheld from the players
Actually Unity was in development since 2010 around the time of Brotherhood
There's also the problem that Rogue wasn't developed by Ubisoft Montreal (the studio that usually does all the mainline games) but instead Ubisoft Sofia, which was much smaller and had only ever made Assassin's Creed Liberation. That's probably why the story suffers so much too is because the usual writers like Corey May and Darby McDevitt weren't involved.
and yet rogue managed to be way better than unity
but its the end product that matters, whatever be the history. and the end product.. isn't good.
Details in Unity are mind blowing. I can tell that they worked on it way longer than 2 years.
the “who was in paris” joke was actually hilarious and the music made it even better
i didn’t know people cared enough about it for it to even be considered overrated
I was thinking the same
Yeah it's not
Rogue gets the same treatment as Sleeping dogs, many consider both games underrated so much that it becomes no longer underrated and pretty much overrated
@@EternalNightingale that honor can go to unity, everyone says it's underrated to the point it isn't anymore. Rogue IS underrated
believe or not, it kinda is inside the fanbase. It's the same thing with Unity. A mediocre game is called underrated for some time. It gets so much praise that itself becomes way too much overrated.
Bro talking trash on Rouge while advertising Wanted Dead is crazy
Sponsored message you mean?
@@fastertrackcreative das what advertising is
The story of rogue mainly explains that assassins limit themselves to either stop the templars or locate the isu artifacts, nothing more. Even if an innocent is dying by the hands of non-templar, assassins will ignore them because they care about templars and artifacts more than anything.(except AC freedom cry)
You can see this first in AC revelations, where one of the assassin turned Templar vali cel tradat wanted assassins to intervene when Ottomans killed innocent romanians who had no role in Vlad the impaler's conquest. He joined the assassins thinking that they would help the innocents but in return, assassins didn't even care about that.
The same happened in rogue, During his travels with Liam, Shay asks him that they are supporting french army who is conducting slavery in Port-au-Prince, for which Liam says they don't involve themselves in politics.
As for the poison use, they wanted to have an upper hand on templars so much that they were ready to even kill innocents just like Ezio in Cappadocia(even though after this he quit the assassins).
Also, during shay's early life as an assassin, Liam, Hope, kasegowase, Chevalier and achilles followed the creed blindly without even asking the questions. Even when Shay asks questions about his kills, Liam says that "but nothing. Just do it" which is weird because in the first AC, altaïr asks Al mualim questions about his kills and he gladly answers which gives him clarity about his affiliation with assassins. But in the colonial era, they were arrogant and too loud, so the questions which were supposed to be answered by assassins were answered by the templars in both words and actions, this is why Shay became Templar.
Also, one of the main reasons is achilles's selfishness after his family's death. He became so selfish that he didn't want to hear any reasonable arguments at all. Shay didn't want to steal the precursor box and manuscript, he wanted to destroy it because he believed no one should have that power, neither assassins nor Templars. But achilles was not ready to hear any reason at all. He directly ordered assassins to kill him. If he would've listened to him or explained that they didn't know what was in the temple, Shay might have stayed as an assassin.
I appreciated this comment. AC Rogue is the best AC game and deserves a direct sequel
My thing is that the first confrontation with Achilles and Shay, after Lisbon, is BOTH handle it poorly. Sure, Achilles isn’t listening or explaining, but Shay barges in, spitting accusations at him - and remember that this is after a month or two of travel time, and Achilles may not even know about the earthquake itself, so it’s easy for him to just view Shay as a madman, ranting and raving at him.
And Shay doesn’t try again, just decides to break in and steal the box, betraying the Assassins, which honestly does justify the weapons coming out, that he stole from them, which could easily mean they suspect him of doing what ends up happening and running to the Templars - this IS after Black Flag and Duncan Walpole.
Basically, this is “Poor Communication Kills,” The Game.
To be fair, this is also after what looks like years of treating Shay like the newbie who gets all the dirty jobs dumped on him and whose opinion doesn't matter in the slightest so he should just shut up and obey the brotherhood more. Such freedom, wow.
...but yeah Shay really did a horrible job of communicating the problem, but it was kind of just the spark that landed on the pile of powder kegs. The plot beats were way too rushed and he probably should've at least tried again, but I don't want to be too harsh on him when his coworkers have had a history of showing no respect to his loyalty and telling him to shut up every time he opens his mouth. They were almost cartoonishly horrible and the templars in the game are overwhelmingly in the white rather than grey, which is my biggest problem with this story.
The only reason Shay "betrayed" the Assassin because Achilles got physical on him first. lmao As if anything, it's on Achilles for being a poor leader that all these events even happened.
Achilles knew what Shay was talking about because towards the end of the game when Liam and Achilles are getting ready to take the artifact Achilles stops Liam and said Shay was right.
@@caesarslegion9872 That doesn't necessarily mean he knew the whole time. I always interpreted as a man reluctantly admitting he's wrong after given time to think
* watches an entire city of 50,000+ people, men women and children, collapse due to an earthquake you caused cus your mentor wanted you to get a box for him *
"Omg Shay had been on a ship for TWO MONTHS and he just barges in! Shouldn't he be over it by now? Like take a chill pill dude, it's just one city!"
I agree with you on the whole, but PTSD is a real b&tch and tbh most people would handle it like Shay did...or even more intensely!
Achilles honestly thought Shay messed up when he retrieved the artifact and thought either Shay caused the earthquake due to his mistake or that the earthquakes were coincidences. They've probably found other artifacts prior without any problem, so having 2 earthquakes back to back didn't demonstrate cause and effect to him. He was too wrapped up in his pride to think it was his own fault, and didn't let go until the end, at the last moment before he grabs the box. I think it is normal to reconsider something like that at the last minute. I think you're right about how they could have done better, but I don't think that portion was as unrealistic as people think.
Regarding the gangs, I think that made sense. Assassin's in previous titles often support gangs of thieves and gangs of mercenaries, giving them targets, helping them, and paying them. In Syndicate they go even further and start a gang to fight other gangs. They could have done a better job with the assassin's but when I played it fresh off the earlier games, I thought it was a cool play on how assassins helping the criminals leads to bad things happening in the city.
I also think it's because Achilles family had died and wasn't in the right headspace to think about what he was doing and shay was still newer to the creed so the rest sided with Achilles and believed shay was in the wrong
I remember discussing this game with some of my coworkers a few years ago bringing up that it felt like they just CTRL+F "Assassin" and replaced it with "Templar", and vice versa, because suddenly the Assassins were mass producing poison and terrorizing people, and the Templars were doing all the things the Assassins did. One of my coworkers said he vividly remembers walking around randomly poisoning people in the Ezio games, so he found Rogue believable. But there are a number of problems with that. First, you can't do that in the Ezio games because you'll get desynchronized if you kill 3 NPCs, and Ezio didn't kill civilians. Second, you were poisoning Templar agents who were doing all those things like terrorizing people and seizing power. Third, Ezio wasn't mass-producing poison anywhere. It was actually explicitly stated he was using large doses of medicine purchased from doctors.
The point I was trying to make, and the point that That Boy Aqua made, was that the game felt like a lazy attempt to make a Templar protagonist by just switching out "Templar" for "Assassin" instead of actually trying to show why the Assassin Brotherhood you were familiar with was wrong, and why the Templar Order you spent so many games fighting could be right. Instead they just made the Assassins be the Templars for one game.
If anything the best argument for the faults of the brotherhood and the templars being kind of right is probably AC3...Connor's fight for "freedom" pretty much cost him everything, including what he originally set out to protect, and the world just traded one kind of oppression for another after a round of bloody chaos, because all of Haytham's (admittedly pessimistic) condemnations of human society were mostly right on the mark.
You even help the templar order take down a corrupt ex-member You don't see that much in the mainline games, people from both organizations actually agreeing on something being horrible.
I don't know what to think of that. I mean yes, the Assassins mass producing poison seems out of character, but its not like they planned on using it on civilians. They planned to use it in war and Assassins actively participating in wars is not new at all. Ezio mobilized mercenary forces to counter the Templars armies and he made use of unethical warfare tactics in his conflicts, like burning a harbor down with greek fire or destroying an underground cave settlement etc.
In many ways, Rogue probably demonstrated what the liberated, assassin controlled societies can develop into once they succeeded. The criminal gangs are basically the mercenaries who where supported by Assassins and helped them to secure the areas from Templar influence. Though because of a lack of order, resources and control, these gangs get involved in criminal activity, because the Assassins never really learned how to actually maintain their influence differently. After all, the Assassins are known to strengthen thieve guilds and similar organizations, and those won't stop harassing and robbing people. In the contrary they are protected now and nobody is left to regulate or stop them efficiently, because the Assassins actually support and rely on their methods. That is fine when the ones in power seem to be evil and the current structures are morally bankrupt, but once these structures are overcome this new foundation is kinda deemed to affect the innocent again.
I like how we all conveniently forget the plot of Assassins creed 1 lol dude the games go out of their way to tell you, it doesn’t matter your creed or oaths, your duty or whatever. People are still people. Being an Assassin doesn’t chemically change your brain to being a peace loving pacifist and being a Templar doesn’t automatically turn you into a sociopathic, genocidal maniac. Assassins have to kill people on a daily basis. You don’t kill them because they wronged you personally or because of self defense. Assassins will have you killing unarmed Templars or pawns in their employment who have wives, husbands, brothers, sisters and children. Yes they’re not always unarmed but my point is it doesn’t matter. You literally murder people for a living on a regular basis all because of a feud that started even before humans were created. Basim/Loki is a perfect example. He’s a bad guy and extremely selfish and manipulative. In fact he’s the one who TAINTED the brotherhood in the first game.
The games tell you that this feud between Templars and Assassin comes from the Isu. From human sympathizers (who ultimately lay the foundation for Assassins) and ones that want to dominate and control (who lay the foundation for Templars) these two groups wanted the same thing. Peace and to survive. The “good” ones use chaos and the “bad” ones use order. If you pay attention to all the Isu stuff they say that too much of both is evil. Including the Assassins. They would destroy order and decide for everyone else that their “free will” is more important than security and order. There are some people perfectly fine with that sacrifice but nope the Assassins decide what’s good for you. The Templars are willing to stamp out free will for peace. Again deciding for the innocent people in the middle who are willing to sacrifice anything for their free will. Both are flawed. And both Assassins and Templars genuinely have both good and evil people in both. For example Woodes Roger’s is a Templar right? He genuinely wanted to pacify the West Indies for peace. And more importantly he wanted to take power away from the king. He never harmed innocents or went out of his way to hurt innocents. He was a decent person even as Edward nearly killed him he was happy to help Edward stop Robert’s from using the Observatory. He even says he’s honored to be able to work with Edward.
You have to take into account that Rogue only released for PS3 and Xbox 360 while Unity was on PS4 and Xbox One. I didn’t have a PS4 yet so Rogue was the only option for me at the time.
its on pc too you console scrub
@@corvoattano4544 you're kinda sad to look at, get over yourself
@@corvoattano4544y’all pc junkies gotta be the most annoying people, go clean the Doritos dust off your finger tips and take a shower lol
@@corvoattano4544 not many people had a pc back then. Today pc gaming is almost as popular like consoles
@@corvoattano4544why so mad?😂
Rogue is my guilty pleasure, I love this game even though I am aware of its many problems. Possessing one of the most interesting premises of the entire saga, which is wasted with the simplification of the conflict between assassins and templars, which, as we both know, is extremely complex in moral terms because both sides consider themselves to be doing the right thing. Of course, I know the Templars are villains after all, but the Kenway Saga has always tried to understand both sides in a humane way like in AC3. However, here, assassins are demoted to mere idealistic and arrogant villains. The game deliberately makes characters like Achilles extremely dumb just to justify Shay hunting down his former friends.
Shay could very well be the Darth Vader of the saga. A former assassin who decides to abandon his order and become a templar. I think in the context of the game, Shay could very well seek revenge not only for being shot by his friends, but also for being underestimated and used as a bloodhound by them throughout the entire first act of the game. Instead, the game tries to justify all of Shay's actions just because the assassins really are evil in this story and the only way to save the world is to kill them all. Which proves futile, as at the end of the game Achilles acknowledges that Shay was right about the Tree of Eden.
Another thing that annoys me about this game is that it never seems to give you a bit of time to breathe. Black Flag was so much fun with those same mechanics because a lot of the time the story didn't take itself too seriously. You were a greedy pirate looking for money and fame, so it made sense when Edward said he'd rather explore the Caribbean than go on the next quest. That was a really fun feeling that the game had, a feeling of adventure. Whereas in Rogue there's always that sense of urgency, important events happen and the game quickly screams in your ear to get you to the next big story point. You're a soldier, an enforcer, a serious templar who takes his templar business very seriously, there's no time to explore. It's a shame because the map is very interesting, especially the northern part, full of interesting little islands with lots of secrets. The story could very well justify these moments by saying that Shay is a private in the British Army, hunting Frenchmen on the north coast of the United States.
>Shane could very well be the Darth Vader of the saga
I actually love this comparison and Rogue is the SW Episode III of the series imo. The Assassin Order has its own Order 66 basically in the Colonial Era and Shay is a cornerstone of that. Finally, Assassin Mentor and Master Achilles Davenport is sort of Yoda, sort of Obi-Wan, where as Bryan (Shays' best friend, I can't quite remember his name) is sort of Obi-Wan. ACIII basically being A New Hope.
Regardless, I LOVE your comparison of the series and I appreciate the perspective!
wow, just found out that this dweeb youtuber just shadowbanned my other account for refuting his video about Rogue,
here it is once again...
i do agree with the Assassin's or as the game calls it 'gangs' that the colour pallete is stupid considering that in one of the concept arts of shay killing assassin's and holding his rifle, the assassin's have a white robe with brown and red accents which is alot like the crusading assassin's... some have more brown armor on their white robe and some have no armor but im pretty sure all of them have red scarfs around their waist.... only one variant with the Colonial brotherhood (except master assassin's) has a hood and its the 'gang' leader... i wouldve heavily preferred if it were like the concept arts where some assassin's don't have hoods but still have white robes to show which rank they are in.... i also have gripes with shays templar outfit despite it looking amazing but they downgraded his main templar outfit compared to his concept art, most notably is the hood aspect of the outfit to show spite against the assassin's and how even though hes a templar and an assassin hunter, he's still an assassin in shays twisted own way...
so many ppl say the reasoning behind the removal of the hood is because of shay becoming a templar although that makes no sense as there are templars like Germain and Rodrigo that wear hoods to spite the assassin's but also in the lore, there are
many templar spies who go undercover and train within the brotherhood to ultimately train other templars to become assassin hunters yet shay is the one without the hood... the hidden blades are just as important as the hood.... its a shame because this game was apparently in development for 8 months and they made decisions that they couldn't back on over time... but it isnt just the hood, there are many aspects of the outfit in the final version that got removed compared to the concept art like the buttons on his boots, his red and white collar (not the main black one) being smaller, his hidden blade where in the concept art and CGI trailer had his blade be sealed completely within the wrist pocket that was completely hidden away while in-game you can still see the hidden blade while it is sealed away.
but the master assassin's can have whatever outfit they want while still remaining within the assassin spirit.... although the rest of the colonial assassin's are bland in design and they stuck out like a sore thumb, just don't forget about Brotherhoods ezio where his outfit looks way more like a sore thumb compared to the colonial brotherhood, at least they look like they are frontiersmen mixed with military attire that can blend in way more than Brotherhood ezios outfit
im at the 9 min mark but here's where you're wrong about the templars... they are actually losing and don't or didn't have many resources in that time when shay assassinated 3 high figured templars as well as the Assassin's siding with the french which in turn the french support and have forts everywhere.... the Colonial Assassin's got too desperate in defeating the templars and caused chaos because of it... its why Achilles says to connor 'in order to save the world, make sure you don't destroy it' - Assassin's have always been causing chaos since AC1 and ezios era (apart from AC2 since its horribly written) compared to templars who don't cause that much chaos as compared to assassin's, you'd think that with the templars they would destroy a city to further their goal since they believe in killing if necessary towards anyone but you never actually see that except for Cesera but REAL Templars agree that the Renaissance as a whole was a dark era for the Templars while with the Assassin's, you'd expect then to never kill innocents or cause chaos ever since there will be innocents being caught by the blade into their flesh but you that isn't true if ppl actually take a look at Assassin's Creed as a whole (minus AC2; although it has some grey elements but ultimately it fulls flat because of th3 horrible writing, same case goes for syndicate until the Jack the Ripper DLC came in and made the assassin's look horrible because of how Jack came to be, Origins is basically just like AC2 but the difference is that one had established lore that established ACs universe while the other dismissed that and retconed the fuck out of it)
ok your anger towards the the modern day is fckin blinded... have you ever tried looking in the computers to hack where they give a lot of context throughout the assassin's creed universe and how it ties to rogue
the church is nowhere near the depth of AC2 but majority don't care about that because it's just supposed to be a nostalgia trip and you having a good time because of it... the quire is supposed to ease you up for what's to come.
but shay also isn't out of the loop, he also makes a bold claim that he thought that Achilles knew of what causes the earthquake but he was way in over his head since before that he just mentioned how he destroyed a city thanks to that manuscript... Achilles is also suffering mentally because of his wife and son dying, the assassin's blindly follow Achilles because HE saved them when they were at their lowest.... have EVER seen like assassin's blindly follow whatever... it happened all the way since AC1 with Altair blindly following himself because he was an evil sociopath but untik Al Mualim offered him redemption but that's how Altair breaks it and doesn't blindly follow his master and how the other assassin's do because Altair actually LISTENS to the ppl he kills... its not just templar targets that shifted his way of thinking but its also ppl he interrogates which at the end Altair kills them (innocent or not) since Altair still in admist of his redemption does bad stuff just like Kratos, Dante (from Dante's Inferno) and Arthur Morgan who still do bad stufd in admist of their redemption but anyways Altair overcomes his lust for killing ppl he interrogates when he found out a woman was disguised as Robert De Sable and eventually fell in love with her who btw that woman was an actual TEMPLAR that Altair piped.
you really think that Haytham is just a 'fun, gentleman bastard' ummmmmm, wtf are you on right now.... this is a time where Haytham watches many many atrocities that he witnessed and that took a toll on him, i really really hate this argument of 'tHe cOloNiaL AsSASsiNs aRe aCtInG liKe bEtTeR TeMplaRs tHaN tHe AcTuAl teMplArS' - HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANY ASSASSIN from previous AC games INCLUDING EZIO from revelations where he has bombs that kill INNOCENT ppl and has poison gas and basically its a CHEMICAL WARFARE bomb just like the grenade launcher that shay has that was taken by the Assassin's.... ARE YOU FORGETTING THAT EZIO is not a good person at all in revelations and Ezio himself knows that.... he and his assassin's blindly follow him because they think hes the most wisest, the messiah but in actuality, hes literally just like how Cesera was.... Ezios struggle with the Assassin's and himself never wanting to be an assassin while witnessing the atrocities that the renaissance templars caused made Ezio a monster that he swore to destroy because he thinks that templars are all bad but with Constantanople, it looked peaceful... there were no corruption within the templars and so in one of the missions, he assassinates a templar that he thought waa against Ezio but it turns out, he was with Ezios side.... if you actually did the master assassin missions that ezio would look over his master assassin's then you'll know that one of them kills an innocent accidentally yet Ezio never exiles them or give then a massive penalty, all ezio does is give the assassin a slap on the wrist meanwhile Ezio causes an explosion that suffocated thousands in the underground city for just ONE templar target, you see the resemblance with Ezio and Cesera but anyways in the game ezio never shows remorse for the explosion and thousands of innocents dying while in the novelization of Revelations, ezio actually feels remorse but thought it was necessary to kill that ONE templar, the only time Ezio shows any emotion in the underground city is when a templar swears to go after Sofia who is supposed to be ezios hope and light.... point is that both assassin's and templars aren't good and are just Grey morally as it should be... both are capable of good but at the same time they are 2 sides of the same coin yet want to differentiate as much as possible but as the same time, som assassin's and templars actually want balance like Haytham and the french templars and the whole entire French Brotherhood that wants balance except that both at the end will always differentiate because ppl like Bellec are too blinded by old texts like how he mentioned Ezio and how templars are evil and the other are templars like Germain who thinks himself superior because he's a sage and the other templars go against the grand master who wanted peace and balance... Rogue doesn't suffer anything from its ideological story since even shay gets succumbed by the darkness overtime and you see that how he acts when he kills Charles Dorian, there were hints of Shay throughout that the darkness within him will succumb him like how he acts when he kills templars as an assassin who yes felt bad about killing but because of the the rest of the brotherhood trying to tell that he shouldn't feel for his enemies which makes shay constantly kill and kill
"Assassin's Creed Brogue: A Video Analysis of Shay Cormac" - th-cam.com/video/YrqrKtcJuJ8/w-d-xo.html
i really hope you see this because your video is a common misconception that some ppl have with Rogues story...
obviously that push was a mistake and Achilles didn't want that to happen but i forgot to mention how shays betrayal is handled right... many many ppl always try to 'fix' the story by mentioning that shay could've listened and how shay shouldve calmed down while with Achilles, ppl mention how he couldve just talked about how he didn't know of the cause of the earthquake but in REAL LIFE, most of human depravity like War comes from 'miscommunication' - its not like Achilles was happy every single time especially other assassin's and Shay specifically as with the thing he went through, his madness or torment will go further and further while SAILING A SHIP FOR MONTHS.... idk how ppl don't realise this but sailing a ship that long and with shay went through, you will suffer forever... just look at how ppl get sick when on a boat for a short amount of time and imagine double that in a big ass boat that is a ship and addition to shays trauma going all the way to jupiter..... Shay obviously didn't mean that Achilles knew of what would happen with those artifacts but at the same time when they spoke again, shay grew suspicion of Achilles when he seemingly knew of that artifact based on how he emphasised the manuscript in saving the world, shay realised this but then said that 'we don't have the right to decide that future' - even Templars wouldn't do that as they want to save the world and bring world peace and it isn't just from the assassin's, its the same way for assassin's but difference is that Assassin's associate Templars with the corrupt kings or leaders and part of the problem meanwhile the templars can say the same thing but they actually don't because i believe that templars know that both of then are the same just like the 2 sides of the same coin whicg Rogue displays at its start-up menu.
Rogue isn't to show whos morally are correct... neither of them are... nobody questions why that person in the beginning in AC1 betrayed the brotherhood because he believed in the templars... nobody questions why that Assassin within ezios brotherhood in revelations betrayed the assassin's because he thought the templars were right and was just doing in what he believed in mind you that if i remember correctly, he never killed any assassin while Ezio and other assassin's chased after him.... plus Assassin's in rogue were never 'out of character' i hope you understand where im coming from with Rogue and essentially the whole of Assassin's Creed with the Assassin's vs Templars story that was it's foundation since AC1 and how grey it was... and i hope you understand that thr colonial assassin's were never 'out of character' that's not to mention how Mackandals brotherhood is portrayed in rogue and liberation and how rogue or Otso Berg explains Baptistes motive in betraying Mackandals brotherhood and siding with the templars.
yep your words are legit propaganda.... im joking but i feel like you got in over your head way too much about Rogue and looking into other ppls opinions while thinking you know better and how you failed to see that it showcases its conflict from other AC games that actually present the Assassin's vs Templars as NOT black and white but gave no consideration how Rogue actually presents itself and not just a simple look at a surface level.... look at how many ppl hated or disliked AC1 at its time because they just simply glanced at it while AC2.... EVERYONE glanced at the story and Ezio and took no consideration to it which made the public opinion go wild and brainfuzzed other ppl to think that AC2 is the best game based on its story and characters when that isn't the case at all.... the AC2 Assassin vs Templar conflict had no consideration put by ubisoft (although they tried but fell flat because of the writing) and the fans.... its funny how Ubisoft realised the fuxked up AC2s story compared to the 1st game where it was an actual masterpiece in both gameplay and story and had to fix the story in Brotherhood and giving Ezio the nuance that he deserved and ultimately it payed off in revelations and in Embers.... so many ppl don't actually understand Ezio as a character deep down or if they took consideration what makes Ezio 'Ezio' but fck me did Ubisoft have Deja-vu with AC: Origins where it completely ruined Assassin's Creed as a whole.
Using Shay as an assassin gone templar is a fantastic dynamic that bridged the storylines together by giving us an "outsider pov" of the current and past affairs of both factions at large, in addition to key character motivations across AC3/AC4. Honestly, Rogue is positioned excellently in the storyline and completed the Kenway Saga in the Americas in order for a new storyline to emerge. Rogue will always be the outlier to the franchise and should not be considered its own game and instead a DLC to black flag, that ending scene alone is an iconic cliffhanger that introduces us to Unity.
Shay is one of my favorite characters in the Assassin's Creed series. You keep saying that the game doesn't let you be the bad guy, but I think what the game does instead is much more interesting.
Shay realizes the danger in Achilles' ambition. He will stop at nothing to find more Isu temples, and there will be more disasters like in Lisbon and Haiti. That's why I see Shay as a tragic character. He chooses to betray the Assassins not because of his own ambition, but because he sees killing his former Assassin friends and mentors as the only way to save innocent lives from Achilles' recklessness.
We Shay doubt himself and wonder if he's made the right choice, like when he shows remorse after he kills Hope and Kesegowaase. He doesn't immediately join turn traitor and join the Templars, his immediate plan after stealing the Manuscript was just to commit suicide and sink to the bottom of the river with it in hand. It just so happened that he was nursed back to health by a family who had ties to the Templar Colonel Monro, and the Templars' ideas aligned with Shay's own.
I love that Rogue more than any other game in the series really showed how the Assassins and Templars are both sides of the same coin. Both sides are equally capable of both compassion and cruelty. And I admire how the game has the balls to show how far the Assassins we've known and loved for 5 years could fall having uncontested control over the American colonies, devolving into a collection of bandit gangs and mass producing chemical weapons in their mad pursuit of maintaining "freedom".
Shay is an Assassin gone rogue, not a Templar gone rogue.
Aqua i want to point out that you left out an important piece of the story.
Rogue wasn't simply delayed and released on the same day as unity. Rogue was released as a previous-gen exclusive at the time. The only people who bought rogue were people who hadn't gotten the newest systems yet.
I know this because at that time i was barely out of high school and I was still using a 360 enjoying rogue, while watching memes of the dumpster fire that was unity
Loved Rogue so much i played it twice on 360 before buying Unity. Then i got the Rogue Remaster and played it twice again. It was such a great game
I think the orange clad assassins weren't assassins but some gang that the brotherhood employed, adding to Rogue's lazy "assassins are straight up villains" narrative.
Which makes me jokingly think that while Rogue does a poor job at a "what if templars were protagonists", Syndicate does a good job at "what if Rogue assassins were protagonists" - Jacob and Evie employ a literal gang and they can kinda kill innocents (driving people over with a carriage doesn't cause desynchronization)
Feels like a "best of" compilation of 3 and 4, in a short and sweet format. It's probably my favourite AC next to 2 and Brotherhood.
I don’t mind that the Assassins acted so evil in this game, since one of the main dilemmas of the series is that both sides can be good or bad depending on the situation and the people involved. I just wish the developers had had enough time to flesh those things out.
It is interesting in itself to have a game that showcases a faction of the Assassins as the antagonists, blinded by the idea that the ends justify the means.
It would've been cool if we got to see the Assassin/Templar conflict from the other side in this game but that's not what it was, it was just a palette swap; the Templars in this game are just Assassins and the Assassins are just Templars, they don't even behave in a way that makes any idealogical sense.
Agreed. The Assassin/Templar thing would have been great if there was a cohesive explanation, but for all of it's flaws, Unity did that idea better, without needing to be a Templar.
I mean to be fair you are in the shoes of someone that previously was an assasin and therefore played like one. My biggest complaint about the story is that everytime you killed one of your previous teachers they'd keep talking about templars being the baddies whilst they were actively ripping islands inhabited by people to shreds.
@@schnitzelfritzel6287 no I don’t mean Shay, I mean ALL the Assassins just behave the way the Templars did in the games before it, and ALL the Templars just behave the way the Assassins used to, they just swapped their names around.
EXACTLY
@@akaneki7234yeah that’s what irks me, the templars aren’t templars they just switched the names and had shay join the assassins
When you hear about how little time the devs had to develop this game you understand why things seem short and untapped because everything from the writing to building the game had to be done in less than a year
Agreed Shay's outfits are some of the best in the series.
My favorite AC is Black Flag and I played when it came out. I played Rogue in 2021 and thorougly enjoyed getting the platinum.
I think partially the point of having the Colonial brotherhood seem so insane was because they needed to be purged for lack of a better word. The creed was losing its way, and you see in AC3 the beaten down Achilles still in deep regret in how he mismanaged everything and allowed an actually noble man, Shay, be lost to the templars. Shay coming to the other side is also probably what solidified the templar control in so many things in AC3 to begin with. Connor coming into the picture to rebuild the colonial brotherhood is what put the assassin's back on the righteous path.
In a way, Osto was right, Shay may have been the most important assassin, not because of his defection but because he was the impetus that brought the brotherhood back to its core.
Despite the game's story being very flawed, i do love shay, probrably one if my favorite protaganists
I got black flag, rogue, and freedom cry in a package for like 8 dollars on my switch about a year or two ago. Coming really in handy the past few weeks after I broke my arm and have been on light duty at work recently.
To be fair, Shay didn’t articulate that messing with the Precursor artefact caused the earthquake, he kept shouting that Achilles screwed up. So while the Assassins were strawmanned into being antagonistic Shay’s not exactly got the best case either.
Shay’s memories too could be why the Assassin’s are depicted as horrendously unsympathetic and the Templars more morally preferable. These are experiences influenced by his later views, and he looks back at them with that later pro-Templar anti-Assassin mindset. The games don’t explore unreliable narrator nearly enough when the main mechanic is memory, often a very self-serving thing, and this could have been the ideal place to incorporate it.
Some of the cheats can be very fun, like the one where Shay spouts cheesy lines. Jumping off a viewpoint he’ll shout “I CAN FLY!”
we see the events as they are, in what order Shay's genome recorded them (Remember, the whole 'flashback to the past' thing is some sci-fi 'genetic memory' thing, they even state something about events recorded to the genome in sequence in Brotherhood I think it was)
my first time playing it, 2023 sept 21st i can honestly say this is probably the best one out of all of them. im huge on 3 and odyssey
I play rogue because you can kill civilians without being penalized
This one actually happened to be my favorite out of all of them thus far, I'm still playing Valhalla, mainly for the fact that actually explorer is fully the other side of the conflict. An actual game where you're predominantly a Templar.
What you said about Shay surviving due to dumb luck rather than the luck he 'makes'.... that such a damn good point lol
Shay is the Anakin of Assassin's Creed
people talk about rogue enough for it to be overrated?
Dude! Thanks for playing cs with me! It was fun playing with you, best of luck to your channel! - Gangsta Washington
Thanks for the carry my man, much love 🙏
To be honest, I think an Assassin's Creed game LIKE Rogue - where you play as a Templar - could work. It just needs to be fleshed out and with proper systems unique to the Templars, (as mentioned: politics, resources, more diplomatic styles of accomplishing your objectives) because Rogue was, to me, a solid game that I personally really enjoyed. I just think it should have been given more substance than what we ultimately got. Another Rogue-style game with the attention the concept deserves would be great.
Thank you so much for saying this Aqua. I've realized lately that games such as Unity and Rogue have been universally agreed upon to be underrated - so much in fact that all their real criticisms are hid under the guise of a "hidden gem." Don't get me wrong, I love Unity and enjoyed Rogue, but I think the AC community has definitely overhyped these games in recent years.
Nobody's saying AC rogue is there fav. It's like someone makes a tier list of AC games and places it in loke the F tier. That's when people say that it's more like a B tier. Now you may disagree but that's not overhyping lol
Unity is one of the best AC games ever made and that’s not an exaggeration
@@yatharthrai4658I would say Assassins creed odyssey and Origins deserve C Tier. unity and Rogue deserve A tier and Black Flag is S tier, Valhalla is F Tier. B tier goes to assasins creed 3. Syndicate is one of my personal favorites of mine if not my most favorite just due to the setting.
I feel like the reason it could be “overrated” (which I don’t think it is) is because every ranking you’ll see of the franchise will have rouge either at the very bottom or 2nd to the bottom. So most people go “hey it’s not that bad”, I definitely feel like unity is the most overrated at this point
same
i still don't like unity, it's probably one of my least favourites
The reason it's overrated is because everyone says it's underrated. If a thousand people say something is underrated, it's not underrated anymore, it becomes overrated.
@@ajax3748 if it deserves the praise then it's not overrated nor underrated
Unity was incredibly short and mehhh. One of the best looking AC games to date though.
From what I understand Adewale would have had no idea Lisbon went down, as after he visits the homestead he returns to Haiti. So to him this was a blatant betrayal. Its more sad in all honesty because it seems as if Achilles was essentially puppeting these people around potentially to their demise.
I kind of liked how it gave an explanation to how the creed was down to literally one man in ac3 by Achilles throwing away the most important aspects of the creed, protecting innocent lives, stay your blade of the innocent, not let them die as collateral damage so Templars don't have a tool to control them, when I look at this game being the last of the 3 kenway games, it actually really works for me, ultimately the assassins went against what they said they would, and they deserved to be stopped, is it a little tv drama with how people don't speak to each other, sure, but also pride to ones fall is a common aspect of all the games, especially with the templars but even with the assassins as far back as the first, either way, I like the game, but don't love the game...because I can't wear a hood at all times :)
10:15 to 11:20 and all those mechanics were based on the multiplayer games that used to be part of brotherhood, revelations, 3 & 4. It was a pvp with different gamemodes but the most popular one was the one this mechanic is based off of, where you're assigned a target and you're being targeted by someone at the same time. In the map there were NPCs that looked exactly like you, your pursuers, and and your targets so you had to pay attention to their mannerisms instead of how they looked, and they could be anywhere. When you were near your target, your compass would fill up and brighten if theyre in your direct line of sight. If your pursuer was near, you'd hear the whisper sounds. What they implemented in rogue was a halfassed attempt at the multiplayer. Unlike in this game, hearing the whispers was terrifying because you didn't know who was after you. The NPCs all look exactly the same and the only "meta" way of knowing was to see who you were in a match against cause their character model would be next to them. The kills were also instant. If someone clicked the kill button while you weren't prepared, you got killed. You can only "stun" your pursuers, not outright kill them, so you had to outwit your pursuer to bitchslap them from behind and then run away. The mechanics in this game feel like a halfassed attempt to say "look we're never doing this multiplayer again anyway so enjoy this half baked version instead." And it's honestly heartbreaking because I genuinely enjoyed the multiplayer. It had its jank and it's metas but it felt like a real survival game with how you needed to constantly be on the lookout
The listing at the beginning is missing Liberation which is certainly a main title very similar to Rogue
First AC game i played and imo one of the best if not for sentimental reasons. Noce seeing a different and tbf relateable perspective. Soundtrack a banger too
This game needed a novelisation to flesh out the conflict and give it the nuance the game itself didn’t afford. Oliver Bowden’s treatment of Haytham in Forsaken showed a lot of nuance between his Assassin and Templar based ideals, and a journal structure would do better to show Shay’s evolving view of the people and ideologies he was interacting with or acting against. Maybe some more of Shay in the Unity prologue setting after the point the credits start rolling in the game or at least some closure as to how his lineage continued.
I really enjoyed how this game had the assasins trying to kill you like randomly through out the game. Reminds me of the old wanted game mode I miss from brotherhood. I'd love them to try this concept again.
3:47 imagine my surprise when I played assassin's creed unity /syndicate /origin, the main story was so short that it actually upset me for days 😐 it's wildly disspointing when you care more about side activities more than your game main quest and storyline
Dude that fuck no baby got me! Next time smack a big sound hit and a wash of reverb and that’s an even more hilarious joke.
The worst thing about this game is that it made a lot of people believe that after unity it would be possible to get a game connecting stories for 3 and rogue just like it connected to unity
I think the quality of those sea shanties calls for a full soundtrack of them
Asking “who was in Paris?” at 12:48 then playing THAT song😂😂😂
Can’t believe it’s been 9 years! Wish there was a game where Arno avenges his father and kills Shay!
Man I binged like your whole channel recently, been loving these In-Depth-videos!
This is why I want a remake, so they can fix the problems
Not saying they did bad, they did great since they had a quarter of the time that they should have gotten
The fact that this came out nine years ago genuinely made me realize how much time has gone by since my childhood f***
this game is super goated never would have thought that you be an assassin while working with the Templars in a scenerio tbh Shay had Luck in his hands and had the balls to betray the Assassin Brotherhood.
Wrong, he made his own luck
@@HeliodromusScorpioO…k? So he made his own luck. Still had luck then, didn’t he?
I remember buying the deluxe and finishing the game being like "Wait where's the rest?" And then checked the progress tracker and it was significantly shorter than black flag. Left a sour taste in my food hole.
To be fair Black Flag was way too long
This is personally my favourite story in the whole series. It’s more quick and to the point
If u haven’t played ac 2 then u should. It’s a lot better storywise
@@blazepl7285I felt like ac2’s story dragged on a lotttt. But I still like the game.
You're one of the people who is why we don't have much interaction in the newer games with the "modern" world of Assassin's Creed games. Although that being said, I do agree that Rogue sounds like it really missed the mark in story and how it had so much wasted potential.
I wish the games today had MORE modern world gameplay segments. It feels so much like an afterthought these days. The whole reason I got so interested in the AC series is because of Desmond and his story in the modern world. It was far more interesting than most of the new modern assassin stories where it is just some random girl in a cottage in a custom animus. When you hop out of the animus you don't have a world to explore, you have mostly a room or a tiny tiny area to explore.
I long for the days of Desmond exploring a massive Abstergo building while running and hiding from Abstergo/Templar goons. Now it feels like the games have become merely vessels for the eras they are set in. No more long story arcs where you learn to use your Assassin skills in the modern world where you have some conspiracy to uncover. Now it is 5 minute clips where you get gas to put in the generator so you can go back into the past memories, or just walk around a room and read emails on a computer screen and then go back into the Animus. It feels like people just would rather have a game set in the past with no ties to AC.
The series definitely went downhill after Desmond died.
It sounds like Ubisoft really missed the mark with this one.
The fact that the gun shay has, shouldve been like a quiet musket but they changed it to a overblown blowpipe
Thing is that shays story cant be heavily edited like avelines story because this is abstergos first time going through these memories. Avelines story was also sold as a game, shays story is the nitty gritty truth. This is HOW shays story went.
They could've done this game like they done the haytham intro in AC3. Templars and assassins are inheritently gray. Similar but different. All they done is pallet swap the sides and call it a day. The trailer for this game is incredibly misleading. From the outfit having a hood, the gun being a lethal and quiet tool not a overgrown blowpipe. The assassins BEING ACTUAL ASSASSINS.
Weird thing but I think Rogue had the best title screen (I like how the usual symbol fragments into the templar cross) and I do like the grenade launcher for the sheer amount of fun it can be (assassin or bounty hunters giving you trouble? hit them with the old "parry this"). I think the crafting is another underdeveloped mechanic too with potential for some more customisation (ac 3 had some very different pistols with ones like the duckfoot, pistols in this game just have better range and power and I couldn't tell you what changes upgrading your sword and dagger gets) although I do find it hilarious that Shay is walking everywhere with the better part of an endangered animals exhibit on his person at all times.
The only way I feel they could have made the story make sense towards the end of the game would be to reveal that the Templars did in fact modify the memories to mislead Shay.
If everyone says it’s underrated, then it’s no longer underrated.
There was a line from faith that sums the game up completely: "Pitty, you had so much potential"
I dropped a like at the Paris part 💀 had me rolling, especially with ye playing in the background. W man’s
I love this game, even though it id Black Flag 1.5. My biggest beef is that they established what Haytham was doing during the 7 years war in his journal (the AC3 novelization). He was murdering his mentor, saving his sister from slavery, lost his best friend and was recovering from a life threatening injury. He wasnt even on the americas after he and Zio broke it off
Rogue is a pretty good game imo. It's like a "best hits" music album. It combines the best elements of AC3, AC4 and the assassin detector mechanic from the multiplayer in brotherhood is also a good addition. I do think it would've benefitted from a longer story and more character development. Most of the characters just don't get enough screen time in order for the player to feel one way or another about them, and things do feel a bit rushed. Characters like Achilles, Adewale and Haytham just don't get the in-game time that they really should've as these are the characters that fans are most interested in and what happened with them between the timeline of Black flag and AC3.
But it's still a fun game overall. Familiar feeling game to fans of the series with some of the "Ubi-bloat" fat trimmed off. I'd give it a 7/10. It's worth playing if anyone skipped it especially as it's free to play on PSN. Probably free on gamepass too.
It's underrated and yes, it had the potential to be the best one
Rogue>Unity
I started playing again after a long time and I am having a lot of fun especially taking out assassins, saving areas, and then renovating. It is super underrated and just a lot of dumb fun
I remeber playing unity and then hearing about rogue years later and i was deep in the assasins creed fandom but i had zero idea rogue even existed
It is weird how people overlook that Haythem acts out of character, as well as the Assassins. Haythem spares Achilles when he wouldn't even spare 3 British soldiers in AC3. And the Assassins make outposts waving a flag in the sky. Going against what Altair wanted after he killed Al Mualim and reformed the Brotherhood
I disagree with your take on Haytham. Haytham at the beginning of AC3 is shown to be calmer and a bit more mellow compared to how spiteful he is when he is older (he is older when he executes the soldiers in cutscenes).
Rogue takes place when he is still fairly young, so it makes sense that he isn’t quite as callous yet as he is later in AC3. Plus he was going to kill Achilles until talked down by Shay, and even then he still decided to shoot Achilles through the leg and cripple him.
Well to be fair I can see why haytham wouldn't kill achiles (if you ignore Shays plea) and that's to keep the assassin's weak, prevents martyrs showing up, and a reignition of the creed in the colonies could end up being a pain vs keeping the creed under a crippled leader. Haytham is someone who favors practicality, guy killed the guards because let's be honest where would they keep them, how would they be fed, and how would you keep them hush while doing the mission? Too much effort and too many resources might as well kill them and save themselves the trouble.
As someone who has Platinumed the Rogue Remastered game for ps4 and xbox one and who is now going back to platinum the original Rogue for 360 and ps3 I feel obligated to offer my two cents. I should also note I am about 10 mins in so for all I know Aqua could have covered this later in the video. Rogues greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. The open world is fantastic to explore and it gives the same vibes as exploring the locations in the carribean. The problem is, because the game is 6 sequences long, the world feels too big. One thing I often go to is if River Valley was not a thing and the game were to focus more on the North Atlantic and New York the exploration wouldnt feel too overwhelming. I have completed every location in the game twice now and I can tell you the most bored you will get is slowly clearing each location in the 3 areas in AC Rogue. The problem is this wouldnt necessarily be a problem if the game wasnt 6 sequences long. If the story was longer it would give you more incentive to explore as missions would likely take you to new places. You dont have much of that with Rogue's story being half the length of the typical ac game.
Bias here. Rogue was what got me back into the franchise that I had fallen out of so I have a really soft spot for it. One of the few people to play it instead of unity because I didn’t have the hardware. I really love the game and I love the criticisms that you pointed out here because most of them I agree with wholeheartedly, sadly, I feel it still a bit underrated but I feel like it also gets a little overhyped if that makes sense. In a weird way?
Sadly, it’s nothing groundbreaking. I would’ve loved to see some dual conflict and dive more deeply into both sides of the story. It could’ve been handled much better.
There was a lot of cut content and sadly neither had the time nor budget to probably push forward a lot of its ideas . Which had a lot of potential as much as I love it I can definitely share in the criticism. ❤
I like the 3rd one, 4th one and Rogue. They hold a special place in my heart. And give me nostalgia ❤
They are all the ones where you can control your own ship (excluding Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla)
@@becmcclean4915Well with Origins the argument can be made that you don't get full access to the ship because it cannot be customized. And even then, it's mostly with the Aya missions.
I think the reasons for all the bugs in Unity is because the devs focused too much on the quality and not the bugs.
Yep Ubisoft was really rolling with their high hype. QA wasn't exactly a focus alongside given recent events is not the best place to work at.
First time viewer and subscriber: I’m playing through rogue now. Shay did have some cool qualities, but imo he only exists to link to Unity. If they would’ve made AC3 entirely about Connor and then Rogue was about Haytham, then I think we would’ve had much better option.
u forget that until the end of the game no one realized or questioned how powerful thoes pieces, like how it stated in rouge and ac3.
I think it's nice to see the journey and how the character developed, there is definitely much deeper reasons that you haven't touched in the video
Who was in Paris - 12:49 easily my favourite part of the video😹
It always felt like Rogue was a secondary game. It was only on previous game systems and unity was only on the next gen consoles. It instantly came out feeling like it was already a side game or a spin off.
the IRONY of talking about a game being overrated because 3 people said its underrated WHILE sponsoring Wanted: Dead is BEYOND me lmao... ik u gotta make dat bag but u shouldve chosen another video cuz that threw me off too much
Shay actually makes his own luck. How did you expect him to survive everything? He may be the most powerful AC protagonist of the original AC games, and possibly of all time. How many times does he have to tell you? Shay makes his own luck.
...22:00...I thought the "I make my own luck" line was in reference to him being Irish...arent both Liam and Shay Irish?..."the luck of the Irish," right?...but the American Rite doesn't need luck...we make our own!...WOOOOOOOOO!!!...
I’m so glad he asked who was in Paris then I hear the beat creeping up
All in honesty, the memory tampering (which you mentioned) makes total sense. Although, the way it was pulled off does not. If they would have made a DLC for example, which would show that the memory was tampered with, it would be so much better.
It's funny cause Rogue is actually severely underrated and underappreciated, rather ironic video this is lol
@@hitori_4 yeah I thought as much especially seeing the "UNLEASH THE CHAOS IN WANTED: DEAD WITH UP TO 50% OFF NOW!" pinned comment along the title lmao
Why are people clicking on a video and then not even watching the introduction where he explains the difference between underrated and overlooked? Seriously, are people playing a game of how stupid they can make themselves look on the internet?
@@Modie The difference between underrated and overlooked going straight up to "the most overrated game in the franchise" you sure won the prize on that game of yours
@@discoalice
So the title is a bit of clickbait? Who would have guessed. My point still stands though. You are claiming it is underrated when you have no idea what underrated even means.
Lmao he just changed the title
One problem i have with rogue is why are you helping the british in the game im pretty sure the templers weren't helping either the british of french in the colonies especially in assassin's creed 3
I literally would make fun of Shay every time he said,"I make my own luck". It was just super cringy, and near the end of the game I just ended up busting up laughing and mocking him.
9 years? My god....For the first time ever I actually feel old
Now count to 10. Time running skyrocket.
I can see how you wouldn’t like it because being pulled out of the Animus to do modern day stuff has been a criticism since the first game, but I quite like the modern days for Black Flag and Rogue. Any protagonist immediately following Desmond would have huge shoes to fill, and having a modern day protagonist we know literally nothing about not even appearance is a good compromise (much better than Unity and Syndicate, where there aren’t even any playable modern day sequences). Being inside Abstergo is both a callback to the first game but also a change from II-III with seeing how Abstergo Entertainment operates and offering some fun fourth wall and production foreshadowing entries you can find. Black Flag used its modern day to include payoff for the Sage storyline in the Animus simulation, progressing Juno’s story from III’s conclusion and seeding the Instruments of the First Will (a storyline that would ultimately conclude in the comics).
I don't think is either underrated nor overrated i see lots of people saying good stuff about it but no one is so obsessed with the game and theres no army of people prepared to defend it so i don't see it as underrated or overrated i see it as a game lots of people didn't expected to enjoy since it was so overlooked when it came out.
I myself love Rogue alot and Shay is easily one of my fav main characters, though i understand your point, i also didnt like how assassin's were used in this game and the fact that you are a templar only by name since you got to liberate zones for some reason and the "assassin's" look like friggin guards like WHY THEY ARE ORANGE THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BLEND IN, i also agree about the fact that usually and for usually i mean always the templars are WINNING theres no reason to liberate zones those zones are supposed to be under the templar control already, also it make feels like templars are just the goody goods, my dream is a templar game where you are just a templar no assassin shit, you have to fight and discover assassins and your MC and allies are actually evil aka the actual POV of a templar even if the line is pretty gray theres no real good or bad usually templars are a little bit more evil.
Amazing video Aqua.
I like Rogue, but it could've been so much better, and I really wish it was. I don't mind the similar gameplay to Black Flag either, and I like the River Valley (minus the often-too-frequent wind that stops the shanties) and NYC regions. My main complaint is with the story and writing.
The whole Templar-Assassin philosophical debate wasn't really explored in the game. IMO, the main conflict was more about a macguffin (the Piece of Eden). At least in the earlier games, I thought AC1 and AC3 did the best job of presenting the complexities and nuisances of the arguments of freedom vs. control.
My other complaint was, in what I felt, a lack of connection and feeling with the historical setting of the French and Indian War. Every mission didn't have to focus on the war, but I wish there were a lot more and getting a sense of the conflict in the missions, regions, and free-roaming.
One fact Ik bout rogue is the absolutely short dev time as Ubisoft told the team they have 8 months to make this a game to go with the 360
And ps3. And one of the only pieces of marketing this game had was the voice actor for Shay going to a convention wearing a shirt he made of the game with just the title on it.
the(probably) most important assassin SHAY PATRICK CORMAC
I love this game so much
gotta love how you put a waternark on the shanty after what happened last time lmao
I 100% agree with so many things you said. At this point I feel like people are just calling it "underrated" without actually playing, its plot is usually praised like there's no tomorrow but it's literally one of the worst ones in AC
A lot of people forget how important execution is
@@ryanhowe5753it's like Unity, on paper it sounds insanely interesting but the execution is terrible
The story is insultingly bad is my heavyhanded opinion. The story is plagued by so much PIS that I thought I landed in ancient Rome.
Something that would be cool and a call back to a handheld game is if shay trained his own assassins, like the crows from ezios time. Shay could become a twisted version of a assassins mentor
I agree with the part about the gameplay being too "Assassin'y." I also expected to see much more Templar tomfoolery.
Less sneaking and backstabbing, more politics and metaphorical backstabbing.
Nevertheless, I love this game. We can only hope that Ubisoft takes another shot at creating a Templar story for us.
Shay is a former assassin, what did you expect? It was obvious that he would continue with the skills he acquired in assassin training, and Templar training was unnecessary. But that doesn't mean he couldn't use his assassination skills in a more creative way, in fact, narratively speaking it's very coherent and it interests Shay, as a former assassin, to explore the disadvantages of the brotherhood in favor of the templars.
I think the team making rogue only had around 8 months to put this game together(don't quote me on that), and I feel that if there was more time, the game would've reached much more of its potential. I still love it though
I like that the series as a whole has gone to shit so bad that people are doing 180s on the games they hated the most.
The North American locations, and the similarity with gameplay and controls to Rogue, made me like it.
Im sry, it is UNDERRATED