Is this the least hyped AAA release of all time?

Well the embargo drop the day before release, perhaps there's hope yet?

Also, here's the first forty minutes.

I've only glanced through it, since whoever's playing is clearly doing so using his feet, but it certainly doesn't look bad. The combat looks...slippery, though.

Well they're starting to advertise on TV at least. Have seen ads during football today. I think they are just kind of bypassing the regular video game channels for ads with this game (websites, pushing preview coverage to game sites, etc) and just going the movie route of advertising a lot right before and at release on TV.

It looks like a return to form of sorts, but it's a bummer that Syndicate is basically shaping up to be proof that they can still actually make a competent videogame rather than moving the series forward in any meaningful direction.

Just like with Unity I'll probably pick this up somewhere down the road when it's on sale and there is nothing else to play. I still enjoy the formula, but not enough to pay full fare anymore, at least not until they dramatically shake things up for the better.

Man, this game just looks boring, just the same old shit we've been doing for almost a decade. I wish they would at least take it back to interesting settings, either do true modern day or just go back to the sword and shield days.

I admit, the talk about how class-warfare works into this game got me from not-at-all interested to very-slightly interested. Not saying I have faith that it'll be executed super well, I just like the idea of more big-budget games tackling political issues.

(I wrote this post on the duplicate thread but it got locked before i posted it, so here it is)

If you didn't know about the release date of a certain game then unless the publisher/developer have been vague about the release date of said game, you definitely don't care about the game at all.

This is my case with ACS. The same it had been with AC3, AC4 and ACU.

I had the exact opposite feeling. The absolute last thing I want from a video game is people shoehorning in their personal politics.

you can't put a thing out every year and expect people to get excited.

Danny and Ty are playing it on GameSpot right now. The city looks nice. Shame it's a fucking Assassin's Creed game.

Watching it right now. Does look pretty good.

Danny is seeing the accuracy of the world to areas he has been drunk at a lot of times (seems to be pretty accurate).

To answer the title, no. I was burnt so bad by 3 I never played one since and I was a die hard fan. I think there's been enough time that if this gets good reviews I'll check it out.

Halo 5 might the real unanticipated stinker.

If it's decent I might buy it used later on. No point in giving ubi money anyways when next years AC is probably gonna be the down year if this one isn't.

I know others have been saying this for years but I feel like the bubble burst, at least for me it did. The first Assassins Creed game is still one of my favourites of all time. I love stealth and climbing around in games, and those gameplay mechanics of social stealth and parkour were revolutionary at the time. Ever since then I've loved the series. 2 and BH are masterpieces to me, rev was a bit boring, 3 was very disappointing and I didn't even finish Unity. As a die hard fan even I've lost all my steam, I just don't care about syndicate, it looks bad.

It's time to take a long break, if not permanent.

If this game isn't the best one yet (or at least as good as Black Flag), they'd better be working on a reboot for next year. Or better yet, give it a damn year off to get its shit together.

Man, remember the director guy shitting on everyone saying people have boring ideas for settings in these games? And then they did England? Yeah super original dude

It pains me. I wanted a Victorian AC since AC2 came out. But man... I can barely slog my way through AC4, and that's one of the best ones! Sucks that we got three big, promising Victorian games this year (and one is even steampunk! Joy of joys!) and the only one that appeals to me at this point is Bloodborne, a game in a series that I am irredeemably awful at and will probably never see more than 10% of on my own.

Sigh... it reminds me of the "Two And A Half Men" conundrum: While a ton of people clearly do, I have yet to meet somebody who says "Fuck yeah, new Assassin's Creed!".

I dunno, my roomate thinks it looks pretty sick (might be paraphrasing here)

Me, i just want an open world that actually feels like an open, living world, like things that go on despite your lack of influence. Have a timed quest where if you miss the window it has reprecussions on other parts of the game/world. Or at least you read/hear about it later. There might be something already like this but it escapes my memory.

I can't see Ubisoft giving Assassin's Creed a year off anytime soon. There has been at least one major Assassin's Creed game ever year since the franchise started. And much more often than not, it's two Assassins' Creed games every year. Either a main game and a spinoff, or a browser game, or something in addition to the big console release.

The only conclusion I can draw from Ubisoft's AC release schedule is that the franchise still makes them way too much money to consider giving it time off.

The story just isn't interesting anymore. The first three games were good, and they ended wanting you getting to know more about the story of Assassins versus Templars and the fate of Desmond. Assassins Creed 3 ended his story arc so poorly, and by now the games just feel like we are randomly timetravelling to somewhat interesting time periods in human history with a bland narrative hook. I will probably give this one a shot if the reviews are good. But I truly feel that this game series glory days are over.

@mike: Oh yeah that's clearly not going to happen, and it's also clear Assassin's Creed is not being made for me anymore. It's Ubisoft's CoD.

I didn't realize it was coming out on a Friday. I was looking for reviews because I thought it was releasing tomorrow.

seems the ubisoft marketing machine is in full spring this week, TV ads and long form playthoughts on youtube.I really hope it turns out to be a good game, I've had some fun times in past assassin creed games. but I'm skeptical after unity.

You expect a video game set in industrial revolution era London not to have class tension? It's kind of the defining aspect of the entire time period. It's like saying you don't want people to talk about communism in a game set during the Cold War.

Anything "personal" is devoid from an Assassin's Creed game because the game has changed hands through thousands of Ubisoft employees and they don't have a single visionary (like a Kojima) to guide them. I have no doubt that this game will talk about poverty and wealth inequality, but it's going to be about as political as Robin Hood. Very safe, unoffending and diluted.

I've owned every single ac game... Except for unity. And I'm not at all hyped about this game. Reviews might change that, but until then Im not interested in it at all

Did you play Unity? Not that the changes were major, but combat was changed significantly (counters weren't one-hit kills, no more chaining 15 kills together without getting hit) and the parkour is the best in the series (one button to parkour upwards in elevation, on button to parkour downwards in elevation). I agree with you about the map, though.

Unity got a bad rap because it was broken upon release, and for the most part deservedly so. Companies shouldn't release broken games, and there's no chance in hell with the manpower behind that game that Ubisoft didn't know it was broken. That being said, it was one of the best playing AC games in my opinion (and I've played ALL of em). The story was a bit bland, but I mostly enjoyed it until the ending (good god that ending, fuck you Ubisoft). And the city was absolutely gorgeous, half the fun in these games is becoming the tour that you take through Ubisoft's vision of the game's specific era. I definitely don't regret my purchase, and I believe I paid a full $60 (and it went to $40 like 3 weeks later).

I will do with Syndicate what I did with Unity. Sure as hell not purchase day one, and wait until I'm very much in the mood for an AC game before I end up purchasing it, because the games are at the very least competent in offering their formula year after year.

I played through the whole Unity story, the DLC, and a very large portion of the side quests and got a lot of enjoyment out of it. The game froze maybe one time during all of that. It sucks that day one players had so many issues, but Unisoft did smooth things out pretty shortly after release, and gave away the DLC for free. I expect Syndicate will be a more refined version of that, and will hopefully have less issues day one. The engine they're using is beautiful and Unity was one game I kept coming back to simply because it was so pretty.

TLDR - I preordered Syndicate gold edition with BB's gamers club unlocked because I'm optimistic

The Ubisoft marketing engine has been full steam ahead with this game like with all their other past big games...it's just that people are giving less of a shit after getting burned bad by the last game

I haven't played any AC game since Black Flag, and while I would have loved a London game in the past, it's difficult to get interested in this.

Ubisoft is in a ditch for me, their games have become so formulaic and predictable and nothing about this one is interesting to me at all. As an Assassins Creed fan I wanted Unity and it did not meet my expectations, too much quantity over quality in their games in the recent years. They screwed up the Animus, the franchise and it's gameplay is very played out by now.

Games that I mean could've been better: Far Cry 4, Trials Fusion, The Crew, Watch_Dogs.
Ubisoft games I'm hoping turn out great: Far Cry Primal (fix the damn fall damage), Trackmania Turbo, Hoping for a new Driver, new Trials, Ghost Recon Wild Cocaine something.

I didn't even know it was out so soon but I won't be buying it. I'm very careful now when buying Ubisoft games because they seem to have lost credibility with every gamer I know. Even friends who are hardcore AC fans didn't pre-order and they are waiting for the reviews first. Watch Dogs felt like a huge rip-off and bored me so much that I still haven't finished the game. I did like Far Cry 4 a lot because of the freedom and open world design but I'll be skipping Primal. The Crew was a mixed bag, it along with Watch Dogs and Far Cry 4 were first day buys for me but I'd played the beta and had a blast so I expected the same experience from the full game, it had it's moments when playing with friends but the story was boring and the challenges dull and repetitive. I loved Trials Fusion, it drove me crazy but was extremely rewarding when finally getting past a troublesome section of the track. I'm looking forward to the next Ghost Recon and The Division but at the same time I'm concerned that they might just mess them up before the games even have a chance. I'd absolutely love to play a new AC game that works and makes you care about the characters but everything I've seen so far of Syndicate makes me think it's going to fail epically.

As a Londoner I am super hyped for this game, despite myself. Like most people I haven't enjoyed the series in years and have barely thought about Syndicate until this week, but I was walking past St Paul's Cathedral on the weekend and man do I want to climb all over that sucker.

Saw commercials during football on Sunday, that's all I've caught. Haven't been interested in the series in years so don't care. Hope it is at least good for the fans, they deserved better after last year.

with how bad the internet hardcores reacted not surprised they are only focusing on mainstream adverts.

Been watching a PS4 streamer on Twitch. To be honest, it looks great. IF you like AC games, it looks like they've got their shiz together on this one. Looks good, plays quick. Combat looks solid. Grappling hook looks great. Love the music, VO and setting. Doesn't seem to have as much wonk as Unity did. Everything seems to just work. And none of that multiplayer garbage. Skill and equipment upgrades seem more sensical and manageable. We'll see if things are locked behind broken systems again this year, though.

I'm pumped for Friday.

I've been watching miscellaneous playthroughs as well and I certainly agree, this one may just come out okay!

I'm very curious to know what Alex thinks of it.

Kinda off topic but I just watched some gameplay and this game has like crafting and leveling and shit? I even saw numbers above enemies heads??? Huh.....colour me intrigued. Interested in seeing the reviews now.

I just want to say I've been getting pre-roll trailers for ACS before Youtube videos for months.

Their is no hype among our demographic. The type who listen to podcasts read articles etc. I've seen ads for this on buses etc tho. For lack of a better word, the more casual audience that annualised franchisees are targeted at are probs looking forward to it. We're just too far up our own arses to notice

After already agreeing that this was the least hyped AAA game earlier, someone reminded me that NFS is coming out the 3rd of November. That game is so off my radar and I've not seen any hype for it that I thought it was coming out in 2016.

@sirazalot: Speak for yourself, I get my copy any day now and I'm looking forward to playing it. But then, AC is one of my "through thick and thin" franchises that I'll play no matter what as long as it's of passable quality because I enjoy the gameplay loop.

I am actually looking forward if the PC version is stellar, just bummed I need to way a month and by that time Fallout 4 is out... so yeah.

It's awful quiet about the fact this game is coming out, it's just kind of turned up and gone "oh hey I'm a Assassins Creed game I guess". It's especially pants considering I think a lot of people have wanted an AC game with a Victorian style to it.

I do hope that this game has the Assassins Creed foundation whilst building on top a fresh take on gadgets / ways to get around the city whilst also allowing you to employ a multitude of different ways to take out a target or complete an objective(be it turning a building into a hacky-slashy-maim-a-thon or sneaky quiet gutter runner-esque strategy). I suppose I might be expecting a bit much when the previous renditions of AC have been selling well enough for them to put out one a year but one can always dream they might try something genuinely new.

the second people stop talking about this game I forget about its existence. It's like the silence from Doctor Who.

i blame it on 2 things, one that unity was the best idea they had for this series and was terribly excecuted and that they've been going with the infomercial aproach with some of the promotional material of the game, the only videos i've seen of this are basically "super fans" of the series telling an interviewer how much better this game is compared to the others in the series

@steadying: whoa what? Not that that stuff interests me but what intrigues me is that the approach to the game must be radical if that stuff is present. Will have to actually peak at this game.

EDIT: ...maybe.

I'm kinda ignoring it on the basis of "You won't fool me again" but if it's ok I would consider it in a few months.

It really does feel like this game is just being sent to die. The way they handled what should have been such an incredible setting with revolutionary France is unforgivable. Big picture, this franchise has been in the toilet since 3, they just took a detour with Black Flag. Such a waste.

If they hadn't try to cram in so much garbage and broken systems into Unity, it would have been an ok game. But gating gear/chests behind broken AC Initiates website, broken companion apps, broken pre-order codes, broken co-op that requires co-op, etc. Nearly every system was broken at launch. Insane. Hopefully, AC Syndicate is a "smaller" game in the sense that they stripped out some garbage and built a game you can play stem to stern with the systems not getting in your way.

Yes and that should tell you everything you need to know.

Watched some of Gameinformer playing it. The combat looks...worse than ever? The enemies just stand around motionless waiting for their turn to attack. At least in past games they kind of shuffled around I thought. Also, he didn't have any weapons so he was just fist fighting so maybe that made it look worse because there were no neat looking sword kills. The grappling hook thing didn't look great either. I had no interest after the past two games and now I feel like I completely don't care about this franchise anymore.

Yeah it seems like the early impressions of this game are not good, it could end up being worse than Unity. Which is good in my opinion since this is a tired franchise that needs to go. Start something new Ubisoft.