How would everyone rank the core assassins creed series? I'm not going to include Rogue, or Liberation since I consider them spinoffs...

Ranking from best to worst I would go:

1. Brotherhood (Best Combat/Mechanics)

2. AC2 (Best Story/Location)

3. Unity

4. Black Flag

5. AC1 (Fantastic concept, flawed execution)

6. AC3 (Too long, boring characters)

7. Revelations (Terrible)

I've been playing a bunch of Unity lately, and i'm actually really enjoying it, which is why I rank it so highly. I like the sense of verticality in the climbing, which I felt was missing in Black Flag.

1. AC2

2. Brotherhood

3. Black Flag

4. AC1

5. Revelations

6. AC3

Never played Unity

1. AC2

2. AC1

Haven't played the other games yet, but I've got Black Flag waiting for me thanks to Games with Gold and the other games sitting here waiting to be played.

IV (story was the best, imo, even though it's the start of the garbage modern story =/) > Brotherhood > Unity (best gameplay mechanics, worst stories) > III > Rogue (love it, to short though. Ending to modern day made me excited for a decent one again though!) > Revelations > II > AC > Liberation

Think that's all of them.

1. AC2
2. Brotherhood
3. Black Flag
4. AC3
5. AC1
6. Revelations
7. Unity

I seem to like all the ones people hate so here we go:

1. Brotherhood(not much of a question here I think), added in tons of stuff from 2 and yet didn't feel too bloated and still felt like an important entry in the franchise

2. Unity, gonna take some flak here but I think the changes they made to the core systems are make the game the most fun to play yet. This is of course with the big caveat of most fun....when it is working

3. AC 2, Was just a massive improvement over 1 and showed what the franchise could be

4. Black Flag, most lighthearted entry and the ship stuff was fun for the most part

5. AC 3, Connor's personality is brutal and the main story sucks, I still think the game is pretty damn fun

6. Rogue, just felt lazy to me. They didn't do anything wrong really but like 90% of the game was recycled assets and Shay's story could have been much more interesting

7. AC 1, I wanted to like it but it just never let me actually have much fun

8. Revelations, Every addition to the game felt unnecessary, Constantinople felt really boring, those dumb tower defense missions were awful

1. AC2

2. AC: Brotherhood

3. Black Flag

4. AC1

5. Revelations

6. AC3 (I really was bored by 3. I liked how it started but it didn't develop)

I haven't played Unity - waiting til another lull period with no games

Black Flag was fun except for all the eavesdropping and follow-these-people-with-being-detected missions.

1. AC II
2. Brotherhood
3. AC III
4. Black Flag
5. Revelations
6. AC I

I haven't played Unity yet and I probably won't even bother with Rogue. I really grew tired of the boat stuff.

1. Brotherhood
2. AC: 2
3. AC: 1
4. Revelations

These are the only ones I've played. Also, I'll defend to the grave that Revelations was not a bad game!

2/5

I hate, hate, hate what Assassin's Creed has done to platforming. No longer can you walk off a ledge. Your character stops and you have to press the cancel button to climb down. Characters now climb anything they run into and the games auto-target platforms for you. The directionless counter system it has standardized isn't that good either. These things carried over to the Batman series, Shadow of Mordor and probably many more. What a piece of shit. Trying to replay AC2 recently, I found the combat totally unintuitive due to its automation and streamlining.

Ubisoft makes monotonous games, asking you to repeat the same dull activities fifty times. I don't remember how it is in AC, but most of the NPCs in FC3, even those in sidequests, have the same voices and even the same faces. AC and Watch_Dogs pretend to have alternate costumes, but they're exactly the same except in color. It's as if they spend most of their money on graphics and marketing and then cheap out on everything else, copying it all over and over. I also don't like how they rely on the countless hub towers and unlocked maps instead of making more organic open world gameplay.

Ubisoft's games have too many interruptions for mediocre/bad stories. It takes forever for their games to really get started. You can't have conversations with the locals, like in The Witcher, Dark Souls, Elder Scrolls, Zelda and many other open world games. Any time you can interact with a character it's only to activate a mission of some kind or load a cutscene. As a result the gameplay feels disconnected from the story.

The assassins have some of the worst costumes in gaming. They look totally unfashionable and conspicuous and the hoods cut off their fields of view. The new one with the English setting is funny. The main character takes off his hat only to put on a hood during stealth.

1. AC 2- Easily the pinnacle of the series for me. I took a total shot in the dark back when this came out and spent $60 on it. Was really pleasantly surprised and had quite a bit of fun with it.
2. AC 4- If it wasn't for all the "tail this dude while eavesdropping, kill the dude" missions this wouldn't feel much like an Assassin's Creed game.
3. AC Revelations- I dunno, I kinda liked Revelations if you ignore the dreadful tower defense crap. I did think it was really fucking stupid you had to watch that animated movie to see what happens to Ezio though.
4. AC Brotherhood- Felt like a big expansion to AC 2. It was great and all but I literally can't remember anything about the game other than it introduced multiplayer, haha.

Haven't played III, Rogue, Unity, or the that new 2D one, and I don't plan on playing any future installments unless they can somehow hype me into it. (Oh, I did play one of the DS AC games but that was a piece of shit so I didn't place it)

1. Black Flag
2. Everything else

They all have really clumsy feeling gameplay, and despite all the streamlining/iterations (aka press one button to do everything), they still feel really unpolished and honestly pretty amateurish. The only reason I liked Black Flag was because it had pirates and sailing. Also, they really need to do something to spice up the maps in those games. Having a big map isn't impressive anymore, and when the act of getting around the world consists of holding down one button and awkwardly clambering up and down buildings until you get arbitrarily stuck and have to move slightly to the left to continue climbing is hot garbage.

Then again, plenty of people like them the way they are so I accept they're just not for me. Unless they have pirates.

Pretty easy list for me.

1. AC 2

2. Black Flag

3. AC 1

4. Unity

5. Revelations/Brotherhood

6. AC 3

@ezekiel: What are you doing?

Single Player

1. Black Flag

2. Brotherhood

3. AC2

4. AC3

5. Revelations

6. AC

Multiplayer

1. AC3

2. Brotherhood

3. Revelations

4. Black Flag

I'm not a crazy person so I haven't touched Unity, mildly interested in the Black Flag rehash but it could come on PS+ so I'll wait. Brotherhood and Revelations are extremely close to one another in terms of multiplayer; both have their share of issues but also improvements. Also both have Castel Gandolfo which is probably the best multiplayer map in anything ever. Assassinate was good in Brotherhood to start with then the community gradually devolved it into the most boring shit imaginable, but that's not really the fault of the games. AC3 Wanted is very unlikely to be topped by anything for a long time as far as excellent competitive multiplayer experiences go.

Black Flag is probably on my top 5 for last generation, the multiplayer (mostly) sucks but the singleplayer just blows everything comparable out of the water. That's right, out of the water. Blackbeard yo.

Seems like the delusional AC 1 defenders are absent from this thread so far, but yeah that game's not good.

1. AC2
2. Brotherhood
3. Everything else
4. AC

1. Black Flag

2. Brotherhood

3. AC1

4. AC2

5. Revelations

6. AC3

Haven't finished the others

1. AC2

Set the standard for the series. Introduced Ezio and gave him a incredible story arch even in a single game.

2. Brotherhood

Added and improved a lot of stuff. Ezio continues to evolve in an interesting way and even Desmond and co manage to have some cool development.

3. Black Flag

Pirates. Edward is a completely different protag who barely interacts with traditional Assassin stuff and instead spends his time being a scurvy dog. The story stuff outside of the animus changes up a lot and I love how it came together.

4. AC3

There's a lot of ways this game deserves criticism, but I can't hate it. I love the outdoorsy areas, the time period, and I think Connor gets too much hate. Black Flag does the sailing stuff better but it was novel when 3 introduced it.

5. AC1

Kind of hard to go back to now, but it still stands as a milestone of sorts. Altair was a cool character and the actual assassining has it's own charm.

6. Unity

Lots and lots of problems. Still, it does tweak some of the core mechanics in interesting ways. The setting is kind of fun as well.

7. Revelations

The setting is cool, and saying goodbye to Ezio was emotional, but pretty much everything else was either forgettable or downright bad. The base defense minigame and the weird side stuff with subject 16 are the two worst offenders.

1. AC 2
2. Rogue
3. Brotherhood
4. AC 3
5. Revelations
6. Black Flag
7. AC 1
8. Unity* Have not finished so can't rank this on properly

AC Brotherhood

AC2

AC Black Flag

AC Revelations

AC

AC Unity

AC3

The way I look at it though is that I'd bunch the Ezio trilogy together as the best, then Black Flag being second best, the first AC was okay; I prefer and am interested in the Desmond story started there, but it lacked content I wanted to play, and the story itself was extremely short. It's better than Unity though because it had a more interesting story I suppose. Unity was okay, but pretty uninteresting, and after it was finished, it didn't stick in my mind as it was kind of 'meh' and one experience to shrug off and move on to something else directly after. AC3 bordered on poor, with only a couple of aspects I'd consider great, and even the strengths have issues. AC Brotherhood is only a bit better than two because it had a bit more going for it, and I enjoyed the setting. Revelations is only slightly worse to me because of the same reason, a less interesting, and exciting setting. I don't quite remember other issues I had, but there were some other minor issues that made it not quite as good as the previous two, but it was still great to me. Black Flag was superb to me; I really enjoyed the experience, but contrary to what many think (I think), is that I largely disliked every boat part of the game. I loved exploring on foot. The sword fighting was serviceable; nothing special.

1. Brotherhood
2. AC II
3. AC

Ultimately the only ones I've played. As soon as they became annual I felt I had my fill. The first game had some ambition but ultimately couldn't follow up on any of it. A rigid, bland and empty experience. II improved on it immensely and the Ubi-blueprint was set in stone. It moves away from the "Oh, you could kill this guy X, Y & Z" nonsense which ultimately coloured the first title incorrectly and just went out of its way to give you an adventure.

Brotherhood was more of the same and now the combat was just tourism. It also started to feel a little bloated. The fun was still there but its not as focused.

Just the ones I've played to completion:

1. AC 1 (was such a cool game back in 07 and I still love the set up even though it was repetitive. I actually felt like an assassin which the other games got away from)
2. Revelations (underrated game. Better playing game than both 2 and Brotherhood and outside of the stupid tower defense shit, the rest of the game was a lot of fun to pay. I did take a 2 year break inbetween Brotherhood and Rev so that could explain why I loved it and others hate it)
3. 2 (ending is the only thing I hate about the game)
4. Brotherhood (find this to be overrated but still a fun playing game)
5. 3 (haven't finished but the few hours I put into it ended up with me hating every moment so far. Want to give it another chance eventually but not for another year or so)

I must have read it as "rate". Well, they all range from mediocre to bad, so no point in ranking them.

AC 1 was awesome. It's the only one where you are an assassin. I still enjoy it the most out of any AC game. It's the only one where it focuses more on the setup, the kill, and the get away over anything else. It's the only one where the collectibles are simple, and not really necessary. Despite them saying they understood collectibles were bad in this game, they've only gone on to make them 100x worse with each game. If you went back, and played this it'd seem so much better now. Other than obtuse collectible locations (which didn't bother me that much in this one- this and 4 are the only ones I got all the collectibles in because fuck collectibles) it's not nearly as bad. Some probably have a problem with the combat, although in this one I found combat to be a last resort and more often it was about getting away than actually fighting which should be the point if you're an assassin.

AC 4 was alright, it did nail the feeling of being a pirate in a pretty cool way. The boat stuff (from 3 actually) isn't as new as people think it is. It was in Curse of Monkey Island 18 years ago. Down to type of ammo you used to take boats down, and the insult sword fighting. Still it's a cool mechanic, and I thought they did it justice. The big glaring problem with this game (and all AC games since 1- despite the fact that they said they understood it was a problem in 1) is the filler. There's so many collectibles. And don't tell me you don't have to get it. Yes, you do. Maybe not all of it, but if you don't get most of it you're gimping yourself later in the game. This is true of all AC games since AC2.

AC 2 was alright, but not worth finishing. I never liked Ezio, or going back to the villa or whatever to get money from your bank box thing. Expanding the little town was cool, but not really what AC is about. The only thing AC2 retains from AC1 is parkour, but you're not really an assassin anymore. You won't be for what appears to be the rest of the series. This would be fine except the game is called Assassin's Creed and it's supposed to be about Assassins. Maybe you could argue they are assassins just not very interesting ones. Whatever you want to say, AC1 is the best for me, and nails what I like about the games more than any AC game since. Giving a wrist blade to everybody doesn't make them assassin's.

AC 3 is a broken mess of a game. It's awful. The story is lame (and tricks you early so at least you know the more interesting character isn't the one you'll be playing), and actually is the reason I figured out AC is Ubisoft's Metal Gear Solid. IT TOTALLY IS! It's an insane story, with characters who at least half heartedly try to use stealth to accomplish missions, and it has Sci Fi nonsense mixed in with it. The combat is so bad in this game. It's seriously the worst of any of the AC games- at times it even breaks. I have nothing but bad things to say about this game which are publically documented on a GiantBomb GOTY community podcast I was on. AC 3 is an awful awful mess.

I never played Unity. I never played any of the spin offs like Brotherhood, Revelations, Rogue or Liberation. One AC game every year or so is way too much as it is.

The series is really a dead horse and should probably be left alone. It won't be, but I'm pretty done with it. The only cool thing it ever does now is different historical eras to set a story in. The game play has cool moments, but is over all filler and so tedious.

Both EA and Ubisoft just seem to publish open world games full of padding these days. I'm done with games like that. There should be a padding scale for games so you know when it's just full of padding, because I'm so sick of it. Blame it on the whiny kids who think a 10 to 20 hour game is too short. Heh.

1. AC2

2. Brotherhood

3. AC1

4. Revelations

5. Revelations

6. AC3. God I hated this game. To me the series hit its peak with the Ezio Arc. Connor sucked as a character. I stopped playing the Assassin's Creed series after this, I didn't even finish this game.

1. Brotherhood

2. AC2

3. Black Flag

4. Unity

5. AC1

6. AC3

7. Revelations

Revelations has the best mechanics y'all are trippin. It's the culmination of all the games up to that point. Mechanically the series started moving backwards from Revelations onward.

Also Revelations has the best cinematic trailer.

Black Flag was the only one I had any fun with. Even then half of the story missions were aggressively un-fun. 1 and 2 did nothing for me. I still have to check out Unity (I have it, just never popped it in). Never tried Brotherhood or Revelations. I haven't tried AC3, because even people that like the series said it sucks. I never finished the story in Black Flag. Just played enough to unlock some stuff and I just ran around collecting things until I got bored. I don't care enough about the story in any of the games to push through more than a few tailing missions. I completed AC1 and AC2, but Black Flag still ranks above them. That makes my list:

Black Flag
AC2
AC1

i think everyone ranks unity too low imo. there were actual stealth mechanics! too bad about that botched release though...

1. Shadow of Mordor

2. Black Flag

3. ????

I kind of think Revelations was the best. The tower defense was dumb but most of the other parts were better than the previous gams. I just think that's when the fatigue of the AC formula started to kick in.

Man, yeah that trailer was great. I think it got me over-hyped for Revelations in a way that made it all the more disappointing when I actually played it.

Revelations is underrated, that's all I have to say.

Good tier

Brotherhood

II

Mediocre tier

Revelations

1

Shit tier

III

"I don't care about this series anymore" tier

Black Flag

Rogue

Unity

Multiplayer has a different tier system where Brotherhood is God tier though, and then Revelations, III and Black Flag are all Good tier. It's a shame they stopped putting multiplayer in those games because it's by far the best part. Single player was never that great.

1. AC2 / Revelations / Brotherhood were all great and I don't get the hate for Revelations other than fatigue/more of the same, it had some of the best moments in the franchise.

4. AC1, best modern day part of the story, bit rough to play now.

5. AC4, it's really just more AC3 with a bit better setting, completely failed on the story as far as I'm concerned

6. AC3, nothing good or bad to say

I haven't played Unity or Rogue

More of the same is exactly the problem. Revelations didn't actually add anything worthwhile, it was just Brotherhood again but in a new location. The hook amounted to "You can climb a little bit higher", the bomb crafting system was worthless, and the tower defense minigame sucked. In a vacuum where Brotherhood didn't exist Revelations would have been a pretty solid game, but Brotherhood did exist.

Best in Series: AC2/Brotherhood (I can't choose / please don't make me!)

Really good: AC Revelations , AC Black Flag

Playable but bad in some way: AC3 (Horrible characters, poor story, didn't hurt me to play it though!)

And Games I would consider crimes against humanity / that have caused me physical and mental pain: Assassins Creed 1.

...I'll probably play Rogue some day, probably when it hits $20 on sale or something. Looks like more Black Flag, so it's probably not terrible.

I don't know how it stinks when it expands on everything that Brotherhood did and makes it better. Brotherhood felt like you're playing AC2 all over again.

I actually like unity over Black Flag. The setting is just better. But when will the main character not be a douche bag?

@dudeglove: I won't even get into the story because it has been consistently terrible since AC2 but mechanically Revelations was a lot better than Brotherhood simply because it was the exact same formula except with even more mechanics. The hook blade was really great for both fighting and traversal and it added a ton to the core gameplay. It actually made climbing up tall structures a lot more fun and daring as you had to manually trigger it. Everything else you seem to have just brushed off is better as well. The multiplayer was the best it has ever been and largely improved on Brotherhoods systems, introducing a lot of perks and new modes.

The biggest problem Revelations faced was as you mentioned oversaturation. At that point people didn't want to see the core formula repeated with small refinements, they wanted sweeping change. Sadly everything after Revelations, i.e. AC3 and onward, seemed to concentrate on adding new world systems rather than direct gameplay mechanics like new moves or abilities. Up until that point everyone knew exactly what they were getting in each new AC game. There would be a new city and cool new abilities. First you had the double hidden blades, then you had helper assassins, chain kills, frenzy darts, bombs, the hook blade.. Then they started trying to put in new activities instead of evolving the core gameplay until eventually instead of creeping around like a stealthy assassin we were cruising on ships and hunting whales.

Sadly it doesn't seem like Syndicate is trying to change that either.

1. AC2
2. AC1 / Brotherhood
3. Who cares

Brotherhood, ACII and Black Flag. The rest don't need to be ranked, because their bad.

1) AC 1

2) AC 2

3) Chronicles China

4) The rest.

Victory or whatever its called now sounds really interesting and I am kind of excited for it.

1. AC:B
2. AC 1
3. AC 2

The rest don't matter.

1. AC Brotherhood
2. AC Black Flag
3. AC II
4. AC I
5. AC Liberation HD
6. AC Revalations
7. AC III

haven't played the rest

Brotherhood (All the goods of 2 and more) - 2 (insane jump in quality from 1) - Revelations (not great, but heavily underrated) - 1 (bad game with great promise)

Don't get all the hate towards Revelations, it was a normal AC game with just one badly designed sidequest type. I enjoyed the location plenty and it was nice to accompany Ezio through his life. Haven't felt the need to play an AC game after his trilogy.

Black Flag (Shanties, yo) > 2 > Brotherhood > Rev > Unity > 1

Can't rank 3, didn't play it.