A return to what makes Assassin's Creed fun
It took AC: Syndicate to make me realize something: I enjoyed Black Flag for all the reasons it wasn't an Assassin's Creed game. I loved ship combat and customization, freeing slaves from plantations, and just in general exploring the world. On the other hand, story missions were mostly dull and forgettable, there were a number of unenjoyable side activities like chasing down shanties and bell diving, and the classic parkour Assassin's Creed is known for was kind of bland thanks to the patchwork smaller island towns as opposed to expansive European cities. What Syndicate does for the franchise for the first time really since Brotherhood all the way back in 2010 is advance the core of what makes these games so addicting.
If you've played an Assassin's Creed game in recent years, you have a good idea of what you're getting yourself into, so let's cover what is new. The chief new mechanic is the grappling hook. Picture the one from the Arkham series minus Batman's ability to launch him into the air. While this may sound like a small change, it refreshes the series in a major way. It essentially removes the biggest "chore" of AC's parkour and allows the player to instantly get back to moving from rooftop to rooftop. Meanwhile, it both quickens stealth combat while also giving players a bevy of new options on how to approach these scenarios. In addition, the Frye twins are given more weapon and tool options than any previous AC game. By the end of the game, you feel empowered both in straight up combat scenarios as well as stealth scenarios, actually to the point the game becomes a little too easy as it goes on. Jacob and Evie have separate upgrade trees, allowing the player to tailor them more toward their respective strengths. Jacob is a little more combat focused, while Evie's strength is her stealth. Each twin has three unique abilities toward the end of their respective upgrade trees.
In addition, Syndicate brings back Brotherhood's idea of you controlling your own gang. You can feel the influence of Saints Row the Third Director Scott Phillips here. The game starts with every district of London under the control of the Templars. You complete side activities to slowly take control of these sections of the city, eventually culminating in AC's version of a turf war for full control of a district. Gang members, identified in green and yellow attire, can be summoned any time you see them on the street. You can issue several basic commands to them such as creating distractions or attacking specified individuals. There is also a separate upgrade tree for your gang to improve their health and combat capabilities, as well as improve the rate you collect income. While it's a little basic, it's damn fun to sit back and watch the chaos you can cause with a full on gang war.
Where you can also feel the influence of Saints Row in this game is in the design of both story missions and side activities. Remember all those awful tailing missions Assassin's Creed games are usually rife with? There are only a handful of them here. Side activities feel like they are natural extensions of fun aspects of the game. You can partake in underground fight clubs, race horse carriages, free child workers from the bonds of their oppressors, and hunt down key Templar gang leaders, knock them out, then whisk them away via carriage to the police. There is a great deal of variety to these activities, and it wasn't until late in the game where fatigue finally began to set in from them being a little on the repetitious side.
Syndicate's plot is both a bit basic and silly and yet quite fun. Twin assassins Jacob and Evie Frye are easily the best protagonists introduced to this series since Ezio. While Jacob is a bit of more the typical puckish rogue the series has been known for, he has a zest for what he does that makes him a real joy. Meanwhile, Evie Frye is one of my favorite characters in a game this year. She's a more complex character, both cool and calculating and yet seemingly more brutal than Jacob can be. While for the most part you pick which you want to control, story missions are split down the middle for the pair. Jacob's arc tells the story of him retaking London and assassinating the heads of Templar crime lord Crawford Starrick's criminal empire, while Evie is mostly preoccupied with her quest to find a lost Piece of Eden hidden somewhere in London.
Speaking of Pieces of Eden, the "modern day" story finally returns to the whole main "First Civilization" storyline that hasn't been touched since AC 3 completely botched it After AC 4 went in its own direction, and Unity just flat out flipped a middle finger at players for ever being invested in anything the series was doing, Syndicate kind of dabs its toe in the proverbial water with getting things back on track. You never play any moment that takes place during modern day. Instead, there are maybe fifteen minutes of CG cutscenes sprinkled throughout the game that set things back in motion. Meanwhile, there is a rather clever section of the game that catches newcomers up on the basics of the whole First Civilization plot. It is by no means great, but I prefer them taking ownership of the mess they made rather than dismissing things all together, as AC 4's strategy just wasn't going to work for an annualized game series.
While this may not be the most technically impressive graphics showcase of the year, the way that 19th century London is realized in this game is astounding. Thanks to the game's new grappling hook mechanic, they are more free to create a scale and scope to the city that doesn't require buildings to be x big and in y proximity of one another to allow you to run from rooftop to rooftop. Even on the PS4 version, gameplay is so much smoother than the mess that was Unity. There is still a bit of open world jank (one side story mission in particular was painfully difficult to complete thanks to the behavior of NPCs), and on occasion you can feel the frame rate dipping, but this is not a repeat of the disaster that was Unity. Load times are a bit of a problem on consoles on the other hand. Any time you utilize fast travel or die and need to reload, you can experience load times in excess of 30-45 seconds.
I won't sit here and tell you that Syndicate is a revolutionary entry that somehow reinvents the series. What Syndicate represents is both an evolution of the AC formula and a back to basics approach. After four lukewarm to bad entries in the series (Revelations, 3, Rogue, and Unity), and a fifth that was really fun, but for different reasons (4), Syndicate has created a framework from which you can see a future for a series that was rapidly running out of steam. In my opinion, this is one of the top three entries in the series. If you in any way enjoyed AC: Brotherhood, Syndicate will be right up your alley.
