Wow, it has been quite a long time since my last review. Lets crack these knuckles and jump right into this.

*With today's day and age long walls of text are often overlooked and ignored. I intend to be exact, concise, and brief with how I felt about this title. I hope it provides enough explanatory info to give you a good outlook on a potential purchase or pass.* 

Assassin's Creed Syndicate is Ubisoft's long running series rooted in world history that seemingly has no end in sight. They definitely had their ups and downs with the franchise, most notably Unity last year...oh god Unity...hours of my life gone.

Let me get this out of the way now, Syndicate is without a doubt much better than Unity. Now this may or may not persuade big fans of the series to purchase immediately but it does provide the gaming populace a common ground of judgement. Rest assured you won't be disappointed as Syndicate is a fundamentally solid entry into the Creed series.


Story:

 I will not touch on the story as it is typical Assassin's Creed affairs this time around...again. You are tasked with finding a specific item to keep it out of the hands of the Templars because they are evil, blah, stabby stabby, blah. Beat for beat the story of Syndicate is nothing new and doesn't hit any moments of awe or twist and turns as some in the past have revealed. As a result that is the biggest letdown in an overall competent game, the story never reaches an extravagant moment of tension or climax. You eventually come to the final mission with a decently interesting boss sequence followed by a lackluster cutscene that answers nothing about the series lore as a whole. Being a heavy story fan, my gaming soul was slapped.

Gameplay:

 Here is where things will either grab or push you away. Syndicate introduces a handful of new mechanics and gameplay tweaks that I feel make this the most fun in the series yet. First of there are two protagonists this time around, Jacob and Evie. They each have their own gameplay styles and combat (by combat I mean the way they kill enemies looks different even though the button presses are the same). Jacob plays much more as a brute in that he hits hard and has a commanding presence whereas Evie is methodical and stealthy in her approach. The best analogy for them I came up with was Jacob is to Ezio as Evie is to Altair. It goes deeper than that though in that they have their own skill trees you can upgrade that promotes your unique style of play.

What do you do in terms of movement when you up the size of the world in a game where you are a normal human being climbing up buildings, walls, fences, etc? You add a crazy ass zip line thats what!!

I apologize, I hyped that up ten times more than necessary. Its a zip line that you can use to scurry across a fairly decent distance as well as a grappling hook to scale vertically. This speeds up traversal is such a drastic way that I found myself rarely climbing unless it was to get into a window. It changes the way you navigate the world so much that it is interesting this wasn't introduced sooner into the series.

Now there are smaller things they've added and fixed such as climbing up and down, tailing missions being bearable, and less mind numbingly useless collectibles, that I greatly appreciate. Overall these changes were for the better and without a doubt make this an upward turn in a now annualized series.

FINAL SUMMATION 

  • Story: Nothing new or interesting here. Interesting elements scattered here or there but not something that should be focused on.
  • Characters: Unique enough to want to see what happens to them but not enough to be emotionally invested.
  • Gameplay: Added elements that make it a blast to be in London. Combat is more fun and less tedious compared to Unity. Grappling hook changes the gameplay flow for the better.
  • Sound and Graphics: Both superb. Orchestral highs and lows add vast amounts of depth that only accentuate the beautiful vistas of both high class and grungy low class London. 
If you are a large Assassin's Creed fan feel safe in that this is ten times better than Unity ever will be and pick it up. For those that have a mild interest in the series and like that they did for the most part in the past, wait until there is a sale and grab it. It isn't something that you should feel the need to play right this moment but it is a title that is simply fun to play with.

If you are one of those fellow readers that want to grab Syndicate, don't forget to use our Amazon links either through our mini store on the link to the left or through the full Amazon store link on the right. Anything you buy through those pages (even if you don't pick up what we talk about) helps us fund this content for you beautiful people without any extra cost to you! We thank you and hope to see you in that there Amazon store soon <3