Release Date: 11/11/2014
Played On: PS4
Available On: PS4 / Win / XBO
Time Played: 49h 41m
Progress: Completed / 57% Overall Synchronisation
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher: Ubisoft
I have to admit that I was apprehensive about trying out what is commonly considered to be the worst entry in the Assassin's Creed franchise. This is the game that was so poorly received, Ubisoft had to eventually rethink its release schedule and get itself together. I knew going in that this might be the game that finally ends my enjoyment of the series.
Like everyone else, I remember reading about the horror stories around Unity that caused a public outcry from gamers. In short, the game was so broken on release day that it was virtually unplayable. At least that's the narrative I picked up at the time, supported by many screenshots of bugged out character models and gameplay.
There are a few amusing videos online of players running through crowds in the streets, faster than they could load into the game. You can noticeably witness the transition from default character model to randomly clothed individual, which is a little off-putting to say the least. Not to mention the hilarious screenshots of NPC faces melting during cut scenes, as their facial mesh goes haywire, leaving a pair of disembodied eye-balls floating on screen.
At the time there seemed to be no end to the bugs in Unity, some of which were actually game breaking. The trailers and marketing promoted a seamless co-operative experience featuring a brotherhood of real players coming together for epic assassinations. Although, that would be great if the net-code worked well and players were able to find their friends online. Not to mention the fact that co-op generally deteriorated into a mess of random assassin's running around like mad, instead of a well-coordinated assassination.
On top of that, it seemed like nobody enjoyed the story either, which is kind of par for the course these days. I can't remember the last time I read some positive press about an Assassin's Creed story, which is always an interesting contention for me. After all, the zeitgeist loves to complain about the parkour mechanics, or the 'modern day' parts of the story. There's never been a lot of love expressed over any part of the series, other than the ship combat from Black Flag.
It strikes me as disingenuous from the start, as there has always been a large player base for Assassin's Creed, no matter how poorly reviewed each entry might be. It's one of the big boys of triple A game franchises, but the narrative is often too concerned with what's wrong in each game, rather than the many things they get right.
Sure, I can understand how these games are not for everyone, as they basically created the overused template for open world games that we all tire from today. The dreaded tower-climbing system to unlock map visibility has undoubtedly been use gratuitously in other franchises.
However, I would argue that it still has a place in Assassin's Creed, as it makes sense within the context of the games. Within the sprawling cities of each setting, the idea of reaching a high point to survey the area fits perfectly. What's more, it ties in with one of the main aspects of the entire series, which is the ability to go anywhere and climb anything. It felt natural in the first game, and it feels appropriate to this day. Of course it's out of place in games like Far Cry, but I've always enjoyed climbing buildings in Assassin's Creed, so it always felt authentic.
Thus, when Unity launched to a barrage of bad press and reports of game breaking bugs and unacceptable performance issues, I took it with a grain of salt. Of course I didn't pick it up on release day, but I didn't write it off immediately. I don't mind waiting for a game to come down in price and fix its launch issues, so when I eventually picked it up, Unity was patched and discounted to a point that felt worth the risk.
Thankfully, my apprehension soon dissipated after a couple of hours in Unity, as it didn't seem to be all that different to the rest of the series. Over time I encountered a few bugs and odd gameplay glitches, but nothing that broke the game entirely. I'm not about to say that all is forgiven because it's not as bad as it used to be, but I'm happy to report that the game is in a playable state.
In fact the worst bug I encountered was during a side mission where I had to free a captive NPC, then escort them to another location. Of course I deftly infiltrated the target location and dispatched every enemy, eventually untying my ally to complete the first part of the mission. Unfortunately though, my new friend was having a bit of an issue at the time and refused to go anywhere after I'd granted him his autonomy. I ran away, came back, killed some more bad guys, even took a few swings at him, but he wouldn't move from his original spot. It was only after abandoning the side mission and replaying it much later in the game, that his rescue state was triggered and the mission advanced.
While it didn't break my game entirely, this bug was frustrating enough that I was annoyed to have my time wasted. Of course there were many minor bugs throughout my time with Unity, but I often don't mind small glitches when they don't impeded my progress.
For example, just about every time I ran at someone and assassinated them mid-stride, my animation for the kill would take place about three meters to the side of my target. Often, the target would vanish from existence as soon as my blade hit them, or they'd fall into the ground instead of collapsing upon it.
I mention these as a way to show that your mileage may vary, and these bugs and glitches might still be a problem for some players. Ultimately I consider myself lucky to have avoided anything major, as I can't deny that it felt like the game was held together with string in parts. There's loads of pop-in and screen tearing, as well as animations breaking and bizarre NPC behaviour. Run around Paris for a short amount of time and you'll realise that Unity is lacking a lot of quality control and polish.
Thankfully, this is where my real criticism ends, as Unity features a lot of key systems from the franchise that I thoroughly enjoy. Before I get positive though, I can't stress enough that this is perhaps the buggiest game I've played in the series, which is a big red mark against its name. I might have been lucky to avoid anything game-breaking, but it wouldn't surprise me if those issues still exist. It warrants noting, as I don't want you to think I'm saying it's all good and worthy of your cash. That's something you'll have to decide based on your own interest in the franchise.
With that in mind, one of my favourite Assassin's Creed games is Syndicate, as it completes some important iterations on core franchise-wide systems. As Unity was its direct predecessor, there are some of these iterations that raise their head in this game, but are still not quite mastered.
For instance, the parkour system that is perhaps the most important part of the entire series. Being able to traverse any building on the map, with fluid animations and seamless transitions had never been done as well before. Although, going back to the original now reveals how limited and archaic the system was, as each subsequent game has iterated and improved on that original system.
With Syndicate being one of the most recent Assassin's Creed games, it's not surprising that it features some drastic improvements to the parkour system. I was happy to discover that many of the changes that made Syndicate so much better, were first introduced in Unity.
One of the key changed to movement and climbing is that you now use a modifier to direct the player character up or down. Previously you would hold a button to enter 'high profile' mode, which made you climb any surface you hit. Now after entering high profile mode, you add a modifier to say whether you want to ascend or descend. It sounds simplistic when put that way, but it turns out to be a huge quality of life change that makes running around a city much more enjoyable.
The problem with the old system was that there were times when the flow of running across rooftops would end abruptly. Usually when you reached a surface that the game didn't know how to approach, like the sheer edge of a building. In these scenarios, you would have to stop running, then hit a button to drop, followed by more inputs to safely navigate your way to the ground.
It was the reason behind many mistaken leaps off the edge of tall buildings, because the game began an animation before I pressed the right buttons. I remember how frustrating it would be to think you'll drop to a ledge below, only to find that it wasn't one you can grab, so you end up falling to your death.
These limitation often made moving around the city feel clumsy and counter-intuitive. As much as I enjoyed the original games, the introduction of the ascend/descend modifier is one of the best developments to happen throughout the entire series. Now when you run at full speed toward the edge of a rooftop, you can hold the descend command and you'll gracefully drop to the ground with speed and accuracy. What's more, if you still want to try and leap to another building, you can hold the ascend modifier and you're character will launch themselves into the air.
Again, this might sound like a simplistic system that takes away a lot of the previous inputs required, but it's an overall improvement. In these more recent games, I've spent much less time battling the parkour controls, like I've had to do in the past. It's the kind of system that doesn't need to be complex for authenticity, as the simplified version is far more enjoyable.
Hence, when I learned that Unity used this modifier system it went a long way to alleviate my apprehension. It might not be as smoothly integrated as it was in Syndicate, but having these improvements available, went a long way to making Paris one of the locations I'll remember.
You might be aware that one of the reasons I love Assassin's Creed games, is because of the locations. The scale and detail of each city you're free to explore is breathtaking at times, and I adore how authentic and beautiful each location becomes. It's what draws me to big budget games, as creating a replica of 18th century Paris, or even 12th century Jerusalem is not for the faint hearted.
I suppose this is why I don't have a problem with all the open world tropes that exist in Assassin's Creed games. Hunting down collectibles and side missions are a joy, as they give you an excuse to explore all the nooks and crannies of the city. Collectibles are often placed at specific points of interest, so it's a good way to drive you to small alleyways and corners that you might have otherwise missed.
It doesn't surprise me that Origins has a mode dedicated entirely to exploring ancient Egypt and learning about the location. It's one of Assassin's Creed's greatest strengths, as their art team does a fantastic job of creating these exotic and fascinating locations.
As a direct connection to the physical environment; the time period and political setting is just as important. Unity takes place during the French revolution, which is inescapable in the streets of Paris. There are buildings being ransacked, carts overturned in the streets, and huge crowds of protesting citizens. In fact, I was thrilled to find that the exceptional crowd mechanics of the first game have made something of a comeback in Unity, even though they never really went away.
While the parkour movement was exciting and new in the first game, the crowd mechanics where considered something of a technical marvel. I remember reading review after review that applauded Assassin's Creed for figuring out how to render believable crowds of people that filled the streets and acted as a constantly moving obstacle. The sequels never removed the crowd systems entirely, but they were definitely diluted into oblivion. I imagine this is mostly because of changing locations, where it doesn't make sense to have massive crowds occupying frontier towns in the America of Assassin's Creed 3.
However, crowds are back in force with Unity and they are a joy to behold. As you move through Paris, the feeling of revolution and political upheaval is hard to miss. Outside every public building are hundreds of citizens shouting and yelling at the guards who gingerly keep them at bay. Empty palaces have been looted, and sparse crowds of the impoverished masses pick at the remnants of the fallen bourgeoisie. The city feels alive, dangerous, and buzzing, just as you would expect it to have felt at the time of the revolution.
The crowds in Paris go a long way toward making you feel like you're not the centre the of the universe, which is something I welcome whole heartedly. Even Syndicate ended up feeling like you were the only way for the unfortunates of London to prosper. In Unity though, there's a constant feeling of everything happening around you.
I was always pleasantly surprised to be taken out of my current mission parameters, because I ran into a crowd of people in the streets. I soon figured out that Paris didn't care if I was chasing down some Templar enemy, as it was in the midst of its own battles that were larger than my secret little endeavours. I can see how some might not enjoy being insignificant in the environment, but as someone who loves these games because of their locations, I loved every minute of it.
Additionally, there are only a few sequences where you're reminded that the whole thing is a simulation. I always enjoyed the modern day story line of Desmond and the gods and all that good stuff, but I also don't mind it when that sort of thing is left out entirely. The premise in Unity is something so loose that I now forget why I was in the Animus, or why I was in Paris during the revolution. If it weren't for a few unzippable missions, I might have forgotten about the whole simulation thing entirely.
At certain times throughout the main story, you get directed to find and enter a portal that's appeared in the simulation. It has something to do with the fact that you're hacking into Abstergo or something along those lines, so you need to go through portals to leave an unstable simulation and find a new one. It's pretty contrived, but it ends up being an excuse to shunt you through some other time periods in French history like the Crusades and World War 2.
Maybe it's just an excuse to throw in a mission where you climb the Eiffel Tower, as it didn't exist yet in the main game, but these sections are short and relatively enjoyable. It's nice to change things up a bit and see a different environment, but it's also kind of jarring to be sword-fighting one minute and manning a machine gun turret the next. Either way though, it's the one part of the story I remember, so it was no doubt enjoyable enough, even if the rest of the plot left no impression on me at all.
There's also the usual gallery of famous historical characters to interact with along the way. It's not surprising that you run into Napoleon Bonaparte and Marquis de Sade, and their side missions are some of the more entertaining in the game.
Along with the usual collectibles and side missions, Unity introduces 'investigations' which require a little more problem solving. Basically you find a murdered body at a location, then study the surrounding areas for clues to what happened and who the culprit could be. After reading clues and talking to witnesses, you then accuse someone of the crime and are rewarded with a weapon upgrade for being correct.
It's a neat variation on the traditional side quests, as it asks you to actually think about what you're doing instead of mindlessly following waypoints on the HUD. Some of the more difficult ones can be difficult to decipher and require a lot of reading and interpretation. These missions reminded me of the treasure maps you'd find in Black Flag, which encouraged you to explore and find a location without any clues to go on. I'd love to see more of these kind of missions in future titles, but I doubt they'll ever be main missions given the opportunity for failure.
Just about everything else in Unity is what you would expect from the series. There are a number of weapons and outfits to unlock and upgrade, each providing different buffs and gameplay styles. There are skills to acquire as you progress, and the usual economy system of buying businesses and upgrading them. Unfortunately for fans of Black Flag and Rogue, there's a distinct lack of ship gameplay, but aside from the fact I don't mind anyway, it would be quite out of place in Paris.
The only other big difference for the series is the inclusion of co-operative multiplayer missions that I was actually able to try out with others online. I wasn't expecting there to be any player base for Unity at all, so I was pleasantly surprised to always find a co-op partner within a matter of minutes.
In game there are co-op missions littered around the map in the form of brotherhood assassins who will ask for your help. You can choose to either accept a particular mission or just open yourself up for anything, at which point he game will match you with other players and warp you to the starting area.
I only tried it a few times, but I always found a game and never had to wait very long at all. What's more, every now and then in the single player world, a glitched out player model will approach you, asking you to help them. This is basically how the game asks you to join a multiplayer session because someone else is looking to play, but it works well and feels authentic.
Aside from being surprised that there were other players in the game, these co-op missions might as well have been single player. Every time I started a mission with three other players, it ended up being the messy chaos that I was expecting. The only difference it made in the game was that instead of running to kill a target on my own, I was doing it while three other assassin's darted around me.
I imagine it would be cool if you had a coordinated posse of friends who were communicating with each other, but the pickup groups I played with were chaotic and silly. I actually don't mind this, because it's what I expect from multiplayer with random people. The problem was that there are certain weapons and outfits that only unlock after you play certain co-op missions. It's a problem that exists in many games where I feel forced to endure the sub-par gameplay of random multiplayer, but it's not bad enough to put me off. I suppose I just prefer open world games where I feel like I can complete everything without having to slog through multiplayer.
At the end of the day though, Unity surprised me with how much substance it had to offer and how much I enjoyed playing it. The setting of revolutionary Paris is well realised and the return of impressive crowd systems really helped me soak in the world around me. Even though the main plot was forgettable and insignificant, I constantly felt as though everything I did in the game was a small part of the overall political instability. I always enjoy playing through alternate history settings, and this one managed to deliver.
After such an abysmal launch period, it seems like Unity has finally patched its way into a relatively stable and playable state. The shadows of its broken launch are still present, and even though I didn't encounter anything game-breaking, I wouldn't be surprised if there were odd cases where it fell over completely. However, as someone who loaded it up with apprehension and an expectation to be disappointed, I'm happy to say that I enjoyed my time in Paris.
Aside from a few minor spin-offs, I'm just about up to date with the Assassin's Creed franchise, which is exciting as I get to dive into Origins next. I'm hoping that it continues with the welcomed improvements and innovations found in Unity and Syndicate, but that remains to be seen. For now though, if you find Unity on sale, it might be worth picking up.
I don't usually have a preference for what platform I play a game like this on, but given the spotty past and all the bugs in Unity, I'd suggest console over PC. Simply because the closed environment of a console system would suggest that it's easier to patch and fix the major bugs that players experience. This game was a bit spotty on PS4, so I'd hate to think what it would be like on PC where drivers and hardware are always a challenge to work with.
Despite all of this, I was pleasantly surprised with Unity and happy to have played it. It seems like Ubisoft have learned their lesson with shovelling out broken games, and I'd even say that the gaming industry as a whole has started to demand more from big budget production companies. I hope that gamers continue to get up in arms about publishers pushing games out too early and ripping everyone off so that launches like Unity's will cease to exist.
Remember that it's okay to wait a week or two after a game comes out to really get a feel for whether it's worth your hard earned money or not. The beauty about games is that they don't deteriorate, so waiting for a sale or for reviews to highlight problems is easy and comes with very little downside.
I'm trying not to rant on being a good consumer, but I'll finish up by saying that big companies are not your friend. There's no reason to trust publishers who have taken the piss and sold broken products in the past. The best way to stick it to the man is to not buy the lies they're selling.
Anyway, that's enough of that. At this moment in time, I feel like Unity is cheap enough and patched enough to be enjoyable. That's the basic gist.