Assassin’s Creed Unity Review
Ah Paris, the city of love. It’s been the star attraction of films, books and television shows through the ages, but games have never quite managed to capture its allure. Sure you’ve got the impressive Neo-Paris of Remember Me, the black and white occupied Paris of Saboteur and the amusing, stained glass window vandalism of Time Splitters 2, but none them, nor any other contender captured the true romantic essence of Paris. That is, until now.
Assassin’s Creed Unity sees the city of love burning under the midst of the French Revolution; bodies, barricades and bullets litter the streets, the fire of cannons and guns is the ever present background theme music of the revolt, with both Assassins and Templars desperate to get ahead of the situation. It might not be the romantic weekend getaway you and your partner have always wanted, but the passion is palpable, and very much fitting for the location and period.
Gamers finally get the chance to visit, and more importantly, clamber all over the famous landmarks of the day, from the Bastille to Notre Dame. With the addition of the newly modified parkour traversal system, you’ll be able to rocket up and down each structure at your leisure, in a more stylish and satisfying way than ever before.
But don’t worry, you won’t be alone in the most romantic city in the world; with Assassins Creed Unity’s heavy focus on co-operative play you can enjoy the scenery with family and friends, as you murder foes from the shadows. You can hunt out people to play with or let them come to you, with assassins jumping in and requesting help when you’re not sneaking across the beautifully realised tiled rooftops of Paris.
For the first time in Assassin’s Creed, the main character can actually lurk in the shadows. Rather than strutting around like someone who owns the town, the Assassins have finally realised the advantage of crouching. It’s by no means new to anything but the Creed, but it’s great to have this sorely missed mechanic. Luckily it doesn’t spoil the fluidity of movement synonymous with the series as a whole, with sneaking being just about as fast as jogging to keep you moving out of sight.
It might be a bit obvious, but the French Revolution was a rather turbulent time, which made life as an assassin all the more difficult. On top of the guards desperate to keep order amongst the chaos, there’s also extremists out sowing mayhem wherever they please, all ready to kill any hoodie they don’t like the look of. With revolutionaries flooding the streets, however, you might find an ally in the common people, to the point where your actions may spark a district wide riot.
That being said, combat is much harder in Unity then it has been in any Assassins Creed game before. It feels about the same, without the series trademarked counter kill move, but parrying and dodging is a lot trickier, and every hit is near fatal. One or two enemies is easy enough to deal with, but any more then that means a serious problem, probably resulting in spiriting through the streets and hoping not to catch a stray bullet in your fancy French jacket.
Like so many other Assassin’s Creed games you’re given the choice to dress up your killer in a variety of different outfits, though some are more pleasing to the eyes than others.
On top of that there’s upgrading and improving your arsenal, and while there is no hunting crocodiles to build that fashionable fourth gun holster, there is the newly included RPG style upgrades. You’ll be awarded skill points for successfully completing missions and optional objectives, that can be spent unlocking skills. Some of them are familiar (and a little surprising to be initially locked away) like double assassination or using your pistol. Others bring in features from the older multiplayer formats, such as disguise, while others still are new like lockpicking or cooperative boons.
Moreover, you can now customise your outfit further, choosing your hood, boots, gloves and torso each with their own buffs. It’s nice that playing online allows you to leave a unique impression on the world.
It’s safe to say that Assassin’s Creed Unity created a bit of controversy when it announced all these customisable features for male characters, while there are no female options at all. It is a shame that you can’t have a separate and unique multiplayer character, but the level of changes you can make on Arno is impressive. Unity does feature a prominent female character though, in the form of Arno’s unlikely campaign friend, Elise. She’s a childhood friend, and more importantly, a templar that drives a good portion of the game forward. The narrative is quite an interesting one, seeing the Assassins at quite a powerful phase of their history for once, while the Templars are embroiled in a bloody civil war. And unlike Black Flag, you’ll be recruited and working for the assassins from very early on.
As always, Assassin’s Creed Unity houses a collection of side missions to distract you from the main story, but without the naval combat of Black Flag they’ve had to get creative. There’s minor events akin to Watch_Dogs crime events, though you don’t lose out for killing the criminal before the harmful deed takes place, and the much more exciting murder mysteries. Here you’ll have to gather clues, interview witness and finally accuse the culprit. It feels like a simplified LA Noire, but I found putting all the pieces together to be surprisingly enjoyable. On top of that there’s parkour missions, side quests that normally involve assassinations, and a whole bunch of other stuff for completionists.
Assassin’s Creed Unity is a great game. Whether you’re exploring on the city street or stalking the rooftops, dispatching foes or solving mysteries, you’ll be having lots of fun. It doesn’t hurt that it has some truly stunning graphics, and Paris feels alive with hundreds of NPCs visible at a time, with skirmishes happening all around Arno Dorian. Despite some minor glitches (such as the incident in which I air assassinated someone through the floor and rode their body away) the game as a whole is so captivating, passionate and creative that it’s hard to put down; I’ve read of the frame rate issues cited by other reviewers, mind you, but my experience wasn’t impacted in a major way by frame drops on PlayStation 4.