I am one of the people who hated AC Unity. But after hearing about the no companion apps and lack of multiplayer gave me some hope that it it will be good. I will give the series one last chance to redeem itself after unity

I got tired of the series, but played Black Flag because of pirates. The new video has gotten me hyped because of the setting.

Looks like GTA Creed: 1887

None, AC doesn't make sense as a yearly franchise anymore. If the game is good that is awesome and great, I personally just don't care about the series anymore.

This series really needs to fucking die already.

I expect it to be broken at launch, contain no less than twenty towers to climb, consist of at least five missions where you follow a person without being seen, and one character close to the protagonists turning out to be a villain or turncoat. And I expect there to be another next year.

I expect it to be like every other Assassin's Creed game!

The only way I'll consider playing another Assassin's Creed game is if they go after their original goal. I don't like that assassinations are always scripted events. I want to investigate, learn the targets patterns, stalk them, and name the time and place that I'll assassinate them. Maybe it's at a scripted event, maybe it's not. The important thing is that it's done at my discretion.

I want combat to play out more like Thief rather than feeling like I'm a one-man army. I'd like to be given tools to escape and disguises to blend in. I also want guards to be smarter. Running away after you're spotted is effortless.

I don't want to say I want a total reboot. But yeah, maybe I do.

To be Assassin's Creed Unity 2.0 but with more bugs. I wish Ubisoft can just take this franchise into the forest and put a bullet in its head to stop its suffering.

As someone who thinks Unity wasn't all that awful, I've got absolutely no hype for this. I was falling asleep trying to watch the dev walkthough

Could they have possibly chose a more boring ass setting? London? Really?

I have very low expectations, I don't expect it to do anything revolutionary.

There's a ton of fans still, just seems like none of them are on this site. Also everytime someone declares a game "broken" there's almost guaranteed to be a gigantic and unwarranted bandwagon to follow (and how many of those bandwagoneers have actually played the game they're railing against?).

It will most likely be fine, have some issues at launch that will be ironed out, and not deviate too far from the formula. Tons of people will be happy, and it probably won't be up my alley.

My expectation is that It will release on time whether it's ready or not.

Doesn't look very good at all. Lots of choice quotes in that video too.

"We've added carriages. You can ride them around, or you can hide in them, or you can run people over! The possibilities are endless!"

"The throwing knife will take him out silently" Proceeds to throw a a huge fuckin knife into some dude's face, who collapses to the ground gasping loudly. A man two feet away is briefly startled and then stands around like an idiot.

The same bald dude get fought like 10 times. Terrible fighting animations. Enemies are blind and deaf.

Horse carriage just runs straight through iron street lamps like nothing.

No semblance of any kind of interesting story. Nonsense about gangs and rising up and various platitudes.

I've played all of the games except for Unity and Chronicles and I've enjoyed all of them. So I'll continue getting excited to play these games whenever I finally get around to it(usually the summer after release)

Yup! These games started to copy and paste themselves very early on and that will continue with this one.

That being said, I like the Assassin's Creed games, but I only like them enough for an under 20 bucks Steam sale price, which this one will go to eventually, they churn them out so fast that the older ones go really really cheap because they stop giving a shit about them as they are no longer main money makers.

I think the only Assassin's Creed game I've spent more then 20 dollars on was the very first game when it was new and exciting. Now I just wait for a low price, and they are always fun enough to justify a low price buy.

God, reading the responses to this thread is depressing. I remember playing the first Assassin's Creed and being blown away by it. Yes, the overall execution of the concept was less than ideal but I loved how the exploration into religion and other existential concepts that resulted from Altair's conversation with his targets were genuinely interesting. And this is coming from someone who considers Brutal Doom to be one of mankind's greatest achievements. It seemed like they were aiming for something that was thought provoking and still fun. I found the game to be both.

While the series focused less on heady issues with the Ezio trilogy, I still enjoyed the games that were released and found it to be great that Ubisoft was able to refine the gameplay of the series to be the enjoyable 3rd person action experience I had originally hoped for.

I was honestly hoping that the original three games would conclude with Desmond being the protagonist and the series moving into the modern world. I guess the ROI on the series was to great to allow a definite conclusion to occur. Maybe the series wouldn't be in the position it is in today if it hadn't been originally framed as having a beginning and end, and instead was an ongoing series about the war between the Assassins and Templars. It's weird because I have no problem checking out the yearly addition of Call of Duty, but the transformation of Assassin's Creed into an annual franchise just rubs me the wrong way. I hope Syndicate will bring the series back on track, but I'm not expecting that to occur.

@thesecondagent: wow that actually looks super cool

I have been playing Black Flag lately. The only one I played before that was 2, back in 2011. There's four years between them, originally. But playing Black Flag? It feels like I played 2 yesterday. In spite of huge innovations like the ship, a very different environment, and main characters that I enjoy more than Ezio and his companions, it feels like I came back to the series too soon. What was bad then is still bad. The similarities are way too much for me, because I don't think what they've got is good enough to just want more of the same. I think Syndicate looks all right, there's even some cool stuff like... Arkham Asylum's grappling hook/line. But if I'm gonna play it, I need to wait until 2030 or something.

I love that they finally went with London as a location but all in all it doesn't look that much different than previous AC games, it's still early days yet so it's hard to tell if it will be one of the better titles in the series. I'd personally only play it for the location and not pay too much attention to the story, I did think it was a little ridiculous when they said when it comes to carriages that the possibilities are endless.. also they need to stop making it an annual thing and spend a lot more time developing a truly brilliant game.

A hilariously beautiful world with with 200 boring missions.

I'm sour on this series because of how much I didn't enjoy Unity, and because I'm really disappointed that they burned the Chinese setting on that fucking side-scrolling thing from a few months ago. That really made me sad, as Qing Dynasty China has always been the number one setting I wanted to see in AC. and to compound that disappointment, they went with the most boring, obvious setting I can think of with London. like, can we get out of western Europe please? I'm so burned out.

also the mea culpa sort of attitude in that announcement video seemed pretty calculated and manipulative, so if anything im more wary about this series than ever.

There are so many quality open world games coming out this year that I think that Syndicate will look kind of bad and incredibly derivative by comparison. That pre-alpha gameplay didn't really make a good impression, in terms of them actually trying to push the series forward.

Edit: Rereading this post, derivative may be something of a misused word, seeing as Ubisoft is just referring to it's own products. Maybe lazy is a better term.

With Fallout 4, Arkham Knight, MGS5, and The Witcher all coming out this year (Deus Ex Mankind Divided potentially as well, but it's not really the same type of open world), Syndicate may perform poorly, and cause Ubisoft to really reassess the series and the direction it's been going the last few years. I'm not hoping for outright failure, because there is a core of a good idea in there somewhere, and a company with the resources of Ubisoft could release a really good video game with that idea. Syndicate is not going to be that game.

the horse and cart driving looked especially dreadful.

I like the franchise a lot more than most here --and in the right hands it could still become something special again-- but it's becoming increasingly hard to defend.

For me they've made three big mistakes they need to somehow try and undo.

One is not splitting the franchise into significantly distinct 'Boat Game' and 'City Game' right after the success of Black Flag and releasing them on alternate years.

The second mistake has been letting their shitty, Ubisoft brand of open-world Iconitis run rampant across almost every game they make. All Ubisoft games are now drowning in oceans of shit, padding-level content, at least 70% of which needs to be ruthlessly stripped out of any future game.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, they need to cut out that nickel and dime bullshit they tried to pull with the different coloured chests in Unity and never do anything like that again.

I wonder if they'll sidestep the present day stuff like they did in Unity.

A Brock Lesnar lawsuit.

This franchise needs to go. Bring back Prince of Persia.

There hasn't been an Assassin's Creed game that I enjoyed playing a lot. Black Flag was the best for me, and it was only 'ok'. Given how half of the games apparently even aren't considered good games by series fans, it's safe to say I expect AC Syndicate to be another game in the series I will easily pass on.

Peaky Blinders

They won't continue the main plot of the series (the stuff with the First Civilization and ancient aliens), which is the most interesting part of the series. There won't be any significant modern day segments that would push forward the main plot of the series.

I will be disappointed that they keep ignoring the coolest thing about Assassin's Creed, but will probably still have fun playing the game.

Dated gameplay and being fucked up at launch? Shitty pre-order bonuses and microtransactions are also a safe bet.

I expect the next one after Syndicate to be called Assassin's Creed: Corruptions. And all the broken-ness of the games is all just an elaborate hint at the future story arc stuff that they haven't left behind after all.

When this series has been good, it has been absolutely wonderful. Unfortunately it has been on a bit of a downward trajectory overall since the greatness that was Assassin's Creed 2 and Brotherhood.

I know that the premise *can* be great, and if the execution, characters, narrative, and gameplay systems come together well then Syndicate could be a surprise return to form.

Ubisoft have a *huge* ladder to climb after the failure that was Watch Dogs and the shit show that was Unity.... but they might

Increasingly comical fake British accents.

@adequatelyprepared: Woah wait, is Makind Divided also coming out this year?

RIP digital wallet ;_;

As for the AC games I eventually stopped buying one after Black Flag. Plus, Witcher 3 and MGS V coming out this year have all been master classes of the kind of open world gameplay they were doing. In addition, Fallout 4 being out this year in around the same time will pretty much nullify AC sales this year despite being in different genres and I'm sort of expecting that this might end up getting discounted sooner (like within a 40 days of it being released).

EDIT: Mankind Divided is still coming out next year. Phew.

I played Unity at around Christmas after almost all of the bugs were ironed out on PC - became one of my favorite games of the year and my favorite in the series; I certainly liked it more than Shadow of Mordor, which I thought was just a bad game. That said, I'll still probably wait for a price drop. I've played every Assassin's Creed game, with the exception of Rogue, and have yet to dislike one, but it still doesn't mean it'll be worth picking up over Halo 5, Tomb Raider, Battlefront, Fallout 4, Just Cause 3, or Xenoblade Chronicles...

Yet another Assassin's Creed game.

This series needs some serious reinvention before I consider buying another one of it's games.

I was genuinely deeply confused by the response to SoM. It wasn't a bad game but it was so far off being a great one that I have to assume that a lot of the love it got was simply a reflection of the low starting expectation that everyone had for it vs the fact that it turned out alright.

I think you might be on to something in terms of waiting for a price drop on Syndicate. Unless it reviews super-strong then there's likely going to be too much good quality alternative games to play at the same time.

I thought Unity was actually a great idea, but sadly on the consoles it was utterly ruined by a lot of technical issues. Even after all the patches (I played this game a month ago mind you) I was experiencing not only slowdowns which would be ok but a ton of input lag. This made lockpicking chests a complete guessing game as the "safe zone" would stop a few milliseconds after I actually pressed the button and parrying in combat would sometimes not register in time.

It was a shame because I thought Paris looked great. Some of the systems were also interesting but at the end of the day the whole thing just kind of felt in need of some serious polish. It's strange to say that they needed at least 4 more months of optimization on it when they themselves touted the game as being in development way longer than their typical AC release cycle allows with several big teams pitching in to help.

Syndicate looks merely OK, and absolutely nothing about it makes me want to play it. I've played every major AC game to date and London seems by far the most boring setting, not to mention the story to lacks a significant reason for the player to care or engage in it. There is always my personal issue of the assassins looking absolutely ridiculous with their garish wardrobe, but thats has been a problem for me since AC 2 basically.

I quite enjoyed Unity, so I am hoping this one improves on the ground work laid in Unity. I felt like that game had a narrower focus to it than Black Flag and ACIII did, which I appreciated. I haven't been keeping too close attention to Syndicate's PR machine, so I am not really sure what's known about it. And I think I'll keep it that way. The franchise has over the years earned my trust enough to feel pretty ok with going in a bit blind. At least once.

Not getting this game anywhere near its launch but I hope they fix some stuff because its this franchise needs to fail and go away if they cannot start getting it right.

I think that's definitely debatable when one considers the full suite of locations that have been chosen so far across all the AC games. North America with its underdeveloped architecture (during the period that AC3 was set in) made for a very poor world setting. The cultural and locational gravitas of AC3 was also an underwhelming platform upon which to construct a historical fiction, compared to say Italian renaissance cities in AC2 and characters like Leonardo Da Vinci. I think that if done right, London will provide richer pickings for fleshing out a narrative and building an interesting and diverse world to traverse.

Unity, and the misuse of the wonderful city of Paris means that it is by no means certain that they will use the potential... just that there definitely potential there to do it right and to do it well.

@extintor: I liked Paris in Unity so go figure. AC3 was all around an underwhelming game so no arguments here. Everything I've seen of Syndicates London appears kinda ehh, but then again I've heard real London dwellers remark on how well it's realized so obviously it's a matter of perspective.

I really enjoyed Unity and Rogue from last year so I am getting this. I expect it to be more Assassins Creed in a different setting with some game play changes and I'm totally down for that. I still enjoy these types of games. The setting seems cool and I still enjoy the game play so I'm pretty excited.

Terrible cockney accents and a cameo by Kingdom Isimbard Brunel who, according to Ubisoft, also invented Stephenson's Rocket.

I expect if to be yet another Assassin's Creed game. It will have underwhelming and simplistic combat, half baked stealth mechanics, an open world that is bloated with meaningless side activities and traveling anywhere will eventually feel like a chore, and the story will continue to go nowhere. I enjoyed these games at one point in time, but playing a new one year after year started to really highlight all of the flaws in their designs and now I can't even be bothered to really care anymore. Last year's Unity debacle was the final nail in the coffin. I think I'm done with the series and Ubisoft as well. The one-two punch of Unity and Watch Dogs was too much disappointment.

I expect to be disappointed by the gameplay and for it to have various bugs and glitches. The setting interests me a bit but after playing Black Flag and then Unity I think I cant handle anymore assassins creed. I did like the setting of unity because I studied French in school and that culture fascinates me . I haven't even played all the creed games, Im just tired of the same design of these games. I played the first 2 hours of assassins creed 1 and then the first couple of hours of 2, I do own the next two games as well but im not sure its worth it anymore.

- Also bring back Prince of Persia .... what are you waiting for Ubisoft!

More of the same formula that's probably fun if you don't play many open world games, and oodles of bugs.

Well, I expect it will probably be fine as a game, but as a series it's starting to fall off and people are bored of it. At some point it's going to die. In 10 years we'll look back on Assassin's Creed fondly as a whole and lament it's passing ("if only they didn't annualize it's releases!").

Then one day Ubisoft will hire another, mostly uknown, mostly not paid attention to developer to start making Assassin's creed mobile games and smaller games that are cute spin offs that are not worth playing and control really horribly and don't feel like AC at all. We'll ignore them, though, because they aren't "core" Assassin's creed. No one will really care or talk about it very much.

Then one day a new game will be announced. "Assassin's Creed 5." But it's sadly being made by that developer for some reason. Maybe they will pull it together and make the game great again just like we remember it. We've never really seen them tackle this before, so maybe they have it in them to do a project like this justice. Who knows?

Then the game will release some time later to some interest. The game will play little like the Assassin's Creed that we remember, the missions will be throw away straw collecting, several abilities will be missing (no towers for some reason, that's weird), all the quests will basically be the same thing with different terrible straw assets thrown onto them, the levels will be really tiny and have no other characters except you in them (the persons you assassinate are also placed in separate areas that you also have to load into and it still takes a hit to the frame rate when you do despite it generally just being the same room every time), and you'll have to connect to a hub world in and out of missions for no apparent reason (because there's no real interaction with those people beyond talking to them or maybe inviting them to a coop party to collect straw).

Thus is the the fate of Assassin's Creed Syndicate.

Sorry. Sometimes when I have a vision it just all writes itself down. Now I've spoiled the future for everyone.

Oh well. There's nothing I can do now but hit submit.