My adventures into catching up on the Assassins Creed universe continues as I made my through AC: Rogue. I think I would have liked this game more had I not played so much of AC 4: Black Flag or if they had actually made noticeable improvements to it. I literally did everything you could in Black Flag which made it difficult to go back into a world that basically just reuses the majority of assets, environments, and mechanics from it. Now this has been done before in previous AC game such as every AC2 game but in those the major story is always in a new city and has a major gameplay tweak (good or bad) in each one.

Not to say that this is a bad game but it feels rushed and incomplete compared to other entries in the franchise. First off there are only 6 major sequences in the game which makes it almost half the size of all of the previous entries. This forces Shay’s story to feel very rushed, especially early on, and incoherent at times as well as making it difficult to have any emotional connection to him early on.

First off the game doesn’t give you any upfront back history of Shay or his motivations of joining the Brotherhood. The only way to learn about Shay’s history is either Wiki entries or through the Animus Database. The game just starts you off as a care free assassin in training that we barley know anything about their connection to the brotherhood. The only tidbits that you get about him are in his continued conversations about the morality of the fight between the Brotherhood and the Templars.

Shay's descent from Assassin to Templar is sudden and so early (Sequence 2) that you've barely have had any interactions with the other characters that you neither feel betrayed by the brotherhood or feel sympathetic to Shay’s betrayal. There’s no real buildup of tension between Shay, Achilles, or the Brotherhood. As someone who has played every major game in the series you know the drastic actions that both parties are willing to take in their endless fight and it seems that someone who has actually been a member of either wouldn’t be so left to be so ignorant. In the end its one major mission that sends Shay down his dark path and ultimately where the game gets better.

In the last 4 acts they do a good job with Shay slowly becoming a Templar and it was this kind of pacing I wish they had used on the beginning of the story. As the game progressed Shay’s ideals and ambitions become clear and through this he garners a little sympathy but if you’ve played Assassins Creed 3 you know that the major characters of this game won’t get any real resolution in this game.

Speaking of which I really like the tie-ins of the characters between AC3 and 4 in this. This game does a nice job bridging the two games without it feeling cheesy. It was cool seeing Haytham in his role as Grand Master especially with his dialog with Adewale. It was a shame that you ultimately had to kill him though as he was great in Black Flag and Freedom’s Cry but I found it fitting that at least you as the player got to end him.

A big gripe with the game is the handling of the former brotherhood members. Every fight was essentially the same. Run into a camp, find the assassin, they’d run away, and you’d kill them. There was no finesse or interesting ways to get at them and the only one that was partially different was with Le Chasseur whose fight at least felt climatic albeit easy. I think this would have been pretty minor except I had just come off of a playing Unity where I thought the 100% sync assassinations were actually challenging and had a nice variety of things you can do to aid you.

Overall I liked Assassin’s Creed Rogue despite its flaws. I think the games lack of new content and reuse of previous assets ultimately are what brought the game down. I am curious if Ubisoft is going to do more Templar focused games to further blur the line of the Brotherhood and Templar war. I’m an assassin at heart so playing as a Templar leaves a sour taste in my mouth but I do find the other side of the story interesting. Anyways I’m looking forward to Syndicate and glad to be caught up with the series again. It is now on