Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate

The jump between seventh to eight generation consoles did not bode well for Ubisoft. Whereas a lot of developers found their footing, they seemed to struggle either because of hardware or the fact they were trying to manage multiple projects across different studios. These were no longer the people making simple games like Prince of Persia or Rayman. These were the folks making high class Triple A titles like Far Cry, Rainbow Six, and of course Assassin’s Creed. At least we can try to call them ‘high class’as their first batch of 8th generation releases at the time faced technical issues. Watch Dogs was them trying to make a big budget open world in a city setting similar to their competitors like Grand Theft Auto 5 and Saints Row 4. It was not only a mess that took multiple months to fix, but received multiple downgrades across development as what was previously shown during E3 wasn’t possible with the engine and tools the team were working with. Far Cry saw a pretty smooth transition with a solid fourth mainline entry. Then you have Assassin’s Creed and how the series lost all good faith within seven years.

I’ve talked about Assassin’s Creed: Unity before and how despite being a ten year old game the whole thing still feels unfinished. Plagued with many rough edges, poor execution of ideas, and the aforementioned technical issues brought by struggling to get to grips with 8th gen consoles. There was also the fact Ubisoft were still trying to appease their players stuck on previous tech. As not every gamer could afford a PlayStation 4 or Xbox One at the time. They still wanted to make games for these people, and I can respect them for doing so. In the same way developers still release games for the PlayStation 4 due to shortages during release and now ever increasing prices. Ubisoft made two Assassin’s Creed games in 2014 to not only please players with either consoles of choice, but still meet the yearly release schedule this franchise was following. In the end both releases were unpolished as it turns out making two games simultaneously for a yearly franchise is a bad idea.  Ubisoft were obviously going through a downfall. They had lost some player respect with Assassin’s Creed 3, regained it with Black Flag, and then lost it again with these two games. Consistency with their titles was vanishing, and they had to play their cards safe or else they’d be facing these back and forth inconsistencies for the rest of their prolonged existence.

Unfortunately that is what happened in the long term, but let’s just focus on what happened back in 2015. Yet another Assassin’s Creed was approaching and instead of tasking the overworked & tired Montreal team they instead asked Ubisoft Quebec to do it. This was their first major entry in the series, and they really tried despite the mess they were given beforehand. This game would take the ideas Unity conjured, refine them, and create what they believed is the most traditional entry to date. However, tradition doesn’t mean much when the identity of a franchise is always changing. Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate released in 2015 and didn’t sell as fantastic as Ubisoft had hoped. Being one of the worst selling entries to date. The recent Black Flag Resynced has sold five million copies since launch. This is actually pretty good for a game that came out just a few weeks ago. Syndicate has sold that much too, and it being eleven years old and put through a ton of discounts you’d think they’d sell more with time. These low sales are mainly because of how disappointing Unity was a year before, and people being tired of Assassin’s Creed. You have to remember that this is the same year Bloodborne, Undertale, Metal Gear Solid V, Soma, and The Witcher 3 came out. Some of the greatest games of all time that are still praised due to their uniqueness and what they said.

Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate didn’t make the mark it wanted to…. And it’s a shame, because for the last week I’ve been playing this game nonstop and really enjoyed my time with it. I thought I was getting tired of this series, because the last two entries I played were disappointing in my opinion. I’m often warned Syndicate is a title you either love or hate with a majority of opinions being on the second side. I remember Yahtzee Croshaw labeling Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate his second blandest game of 2015. Saying, “This is the laziest Assassin’s Creed game to date.” This is the entry often rated lowest on a lot of series rankings, and I can see why. There is stuff in the game that could’ve been nailed better, and the shift from a serious to lighthearted tone will not be for everyone. Despite all those statements I liked Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate. It might've been the most fun since Black Flag, so today let’s talk about why I surprisingly loved it.

Story

The British have been villains across two Assassin’s Creed entries now. Those being the third & Black Flag, so why not make a game set in their home turf? It’s the late 1800s, the industry saw a massive boom thanks to the invention of steam machines, and people are being worked to death. The Templars are attempting to take control of different departments of London whether it be in trade, travel, politics, or one of the Templars being a gang leader. Sending goons and cronies to overrun the streets and set up stations. All of whom are led by headmaster Crawfordx Starrick, a mustache twirling self loving gentleman who wants nothing more than power. London is a mess and the people are getting ready to revolt against the companies that control them. Poor working conditions, unhealthy work hours, or children forcibly being told to work in factories. Not just to keep their families fed, but to keep them well staffed and running. This leads us to the protag of Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate or should I should protagonist plural? Jacob and Evie Frye, twins to a well renowned and now deceased assassin. Both siblings try to follow in the footsteps of their father well enough, and serve dutifully to the Order of Assassins. A creed which has existed for hundreds of years now, but are fading due to the world not needing them as much. You know Avatar? Not the blue cat one, the Avatar that's actually good. It's kinda like The Legend of Korra, but now Assassin's Creed.

Jacob and Evie stop by London to assassinate two Templars they were ordered to kill, but see the chaos happening around them. An advisor says they must leave soon for their next job, but the siblings choose to stay behind. London has become a stronghold for Templars and they wish to liberate both the city and the people. Jacob wishes to form a gang as it’s the only way to counter the gangs swarming the streets, and Evie wants to assist remaining city assassin Henry Greene in finding a Piece of Eden he believes is hidden somewhere within. Through both their actions they will kickstart the revolution between working class and ruling figures, kill every Templar in the way, and show to the whole world what the Frye name stands for. One battle after another. That’s not even a reference to a movie. I just felt like writing that as a sentence because why not.

Gameplay

Much of Syndicate builds off the ideas that previous mainline entry Unity did. A lot of folks have criticisms on Ubisoft creating an open world formula that has become repetitive and overused. I don’t like praising big companies, but one thing I can commemorate their studios for is knowing how to iterate on small choices. Syndicate is like Unity again, but if ideas were better executed. It follows the usual formula of running around the world, taking on missions, and trying not to get bludgeoned so much while doing so. You can parkour and scale the environment for advantage points. See what lies ahead, the problem you’re about to run into, or mentally map how you want to tackle a problem. Unity innovated on the series by adding proper stealth mechanics, and while I wouldn’t say stealth in Assassin’s Creed is great especially compared to games like Dishonored or Ghost of Tsushima it is nice for them to incorporate. Unity had stealth that was punishing and Syndicate makes stealth more flexible. You can hide in places, duck behind cover, perform ledge takedowns, whip out gadgets, or enter interior spaces to get away. Again, not all of this is new by video game standards but it’s nice to see Syndicate dabble into this stuff. Be wary that once you get caught enemies will try to fight you, and this is another iteration these two games made.

Combat in Unity much like stealth was punishing and for the wrong reasons. Syndicate attempts to smoothen out the rough edges by giving you a chance and refining mechanics. The combat is similar to how the brawler fights of the Batman: Arkham series worked. You fight a multitude of enemies and counter any that attempt to attack. When their health bar is yellow their attack needs to be blocked, and if it’s white then they will block anything you throw. However, the white bar can be broken using defense break and you can get some free hits in. New to this game is a meter for combos. The more hits you land without getting hit the higher this combo meter goes. Unlike in Batman: Arkham where hitting certain thresholds lets you knock out an enemy instantly, here in Syndicate you deal more damage per hit. Allowing chaotic fights to end more quickly if you play well. Unity was about precision, and Syndicate about being aggressive and assertive. It’s a change I welcome, because even though combat isn’t great it’s a more enjoyable time.

The same can be said about optional activities, which I indulged in a lot. The more activities you do the more experience points you gain. Earn enough and you gain skill points, but some story missions will just give you them downright. Spending skill points unlock abilities and perks that allow future missions to be easier. Some are exclusive to each twin. Jacob is a combat focused character, so his exclusive perks focus on damage and ferocity. Evie is a stealth focused character so she has skills for staying hidden and getting the job done quietly. Syndicate has leveling, but it works differently compared to the recent RPG entries. Where earning enough skills is what leads to level increasing rather than traditional leveling. It’s a nice way of handling player progression without it making it look like regular grinding. Anyways, skill points are earned from doing the many activities in the world and there are quite a few of them. Your side task is liberating all of London, and different liberation missions please different people. Freeing child workers, killing minor Templars, kidnapping criminals and bringing them in, or clearing out strongholds. Every mission has optional objectives, and pursuing them leads to higher rewards. Further increasing your character relationships and unlocking blueprints and gear for future use. You can even reattempt missions to earn missed objectives.

The biggest addition to Syndicate is your gang, the Rooks. Walking among the streets are gang members and the ones wearing green are on your side. You can recruit them to follow you, help in fights, or cause distractions. They may even run in to assist you if you are in a random fight. The gang is a whole separate category you can level up, and each upgrade allows your gang to be more efficient. Whether it be strength, different gang member types, or letting them make money for you while you’re out and about in the world. Unlike the skills/perks, the gangs are upgraded using cash and materials. Similar to the gear you can forge and upgrade. It’s good to dabble into gang upgrades every now and then, because they’re needed to help fight in gang war. London is divided into different sectors, and when a sector is cleared out you can participate in a gang war. Here you’ll fight a numbered amount on the opposite side as well as face their leader if you haven’t killed them while out in the field. It’s a nice payoff for working your way through each region, A fun frenetic brawl that allows you to beat some blokes. Other than that I don’t have much else to say. Syndicate is just a good old time in my opinion, and I hope anyone who is at least slightly interested in what I’ve described check it.

Thoughts

There’s a lot to criticize about Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate. I don’t think this game is perfect and I can see why the majority opinion is rather mixed on what to think about Syndicate. Most of the ideas are flawed or have been done better in other games, but I couldn’t help enjoying it despite all the issues. Syndicate is probably one of the more fun Assassin’s Creed games I’ve played. It takes the ideas of the past specifically from Unity, refines them, and turns it into a more flexible and functional video game. The stealth feels much better to work with. I remember having a hard time performing plans in Unity, but Syndicate gives you enough room to work with. Whether it be the terrain you’re slithering along. Enemies are placed well enough so you think how to go pick them off one by one, but not so far apart that they can’t spot you performing bad actions. I found myself using tools more often whereas previous Assassin’s Creed failed to get me to test them out. There’s enough restrictions to get you to play wisely, but not so many that challenges turn into punishment. Stealth is solid enough. It’s not the best stealth in the world. Dishonored, Ghost of Tsushima, Metal Gear Solid V, and many more have better stealth than this. That & the one flaw that holds the stealth back from being great is what happens when you get seen. What happens when you are forced into a fight.

Combat in Syndicate, much like stealth, is well done. Again, it’s challenging without being too frustrating. Attacks and blocks register, your character executes action with graceful animation, and I like the new inclusion of the combo meter. Making you think about each button press rather than button mashing, so you can deal more damage per hit. I don’t prefer it as much as Arkham where hitting thresholds lets you eliminate enemies. Making you decide what enemy types to get rid of first. I think Arkham was both challenging and thoughtful whereas Syndicate is challenging and that’s it. The reason why I bring combat up after saying stealth has a flaw is that while it can be hard especially when you’re under-leveled it is the easier option. Just cut a bunch of dudes up and still be able to reach the end goal. Some story missions force you to stay hidden, but these are very few compared to the ones where f*Backing up is allowed and carries no punishment. I counteract this point by saying that optional goals and rewards in Syndicate are handled well. In previous Assassin’s Creed games pursuing extra goals gives you full synchronization. It doesn’t do anything aside from unlock a trophy if you hit one hundred percent, and that sucks. In this game you gain extra experience points, schematics, and weapons. Not to mention increase your bond with allies who may give you stuff. So in some way you’re pushed to pursue them. I like how they reworked this system.

It’s fun clearing optional areas and objectives at the same time. For example, saving children and not raising an alarm. The alarms can be disabled eliminating any occurrence of it happening, but you can still stealthily do this without disablement. One activity I’m not fond of but love the idea of is kidnapping criminals. I forgot to mention kidnapping earlier, but it’s similar to disguising. If you successfully ‘kidnap’ an enemy you press a blade against their back and have them march alongside you. Allowing you to glaze past other foes without alerting them as long as you keep a far enough distance. Then you can knock the person out, or push them into a carriage for these kidnap missions when you are done. Netting you larger rewards for bringing them in alive. Just like earlier you gain more rewards by taking a stealthy approach. Every skill and upgrade feels meaningful. It’s not like some games where they give you stuff that’s situational or never used. Every investment is you making your character stronger and more efficient. I will say that even though both characters have their own unique perks they do kinda play similar by the end. You can still brawl large groups with enemies, or sneak with Jacob. One will obviously be better, but either works. Which does suck, because I like the idea of the dual protagonist system here. Two different playstyles you can swap between.

My biggest critique with the gameplay though has to be how blackbox missions were handled. It was an idea handled in Unity, and on paper they’re really good. Syndicate does them much better with you having multiple options on how to assassinate your target. You could run up to ‘em, but it leads to more ensuing chaos or getting killed instantly by a large group. You can use stealth by using a multitude of paths. Seek assistance from NPCs who can help you get closer, or locate unique opportunities. They are similar to how the recent Hitman games have unique story kills. I love the black box missions. What I hate is that you don’t get a choice on which sibling you use, and what’s worse is that a majority of them are done with Jacob. The combat focused character. I don’t know why Evie only gets two. There’s a content creator I follow named So Says Jay who writes lengthy coverages on the Assassin’s Creed series. In his review he states that it may be due to how back then Ubisoft weren’t confident with having female characters take the lead. Telling their studios to hold back on femininity in their games, and seeing how they got exposed & sued for massive sexual harassment in the workplace back in 2022 it makes a lot of senese. This was an issue building up within the company, and in some way Syndicate kinda exposed this.  By showing their inability to accept women as lead roles in video games. Kind of makes you glad the Quebec team made Kassandra. A character that since her conception made incels lose their minds, and expose said incels for being losers. What the f*ck am I even saying anymore!? Aaah! AAAAAAA-

However, I do praise Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate for being the first mainline entry to have two representative characters. Not an expansion, spinoff title, or release made for a lesser console. It is a mainline game that gives you the choice to play as a female assassin, and bisexual male. The Quebec team was silently pushing for representation in a company that didn’t prefer it, and that is cool in my opinion. This does lead me to having to talk about the overall story, and it’s alright. I don’t think it’s the strongest narrative Assassin’s Creed has told and it’s due to how they wanted to explore lighthearted themes and presentation. Leading to the villains being more cartoonishly evil than villains of the past, and more jokes than usual. Jacob and Evie don’t give the player a backstory on why they’re Assassins. They don’t have anything traumatic to build off of, so they may be two of the most shallow protagonists depending on who you are. Yet, I really liked both of them as characters. I’m tired of Assassin’s Creed having to spend two hours explaining why I should care. Especially having gone through the slow burn that was Assassin’s Creed 3. I like how they just got to the point, and from there you get to watch the twins react with each character. Their witty or charismatic responses.

Their joyous personalities and willingness to express themselves in a setting that should be a bit depressing. I found London to be rather enjoyable even though London in real life from what I heard kinda sucks. The streets are always bustling with people traveling about via horse. There’s work around every corner, and if you gaze well enough you can see the dismay. Poverty, abuse in the workplace, and grime dripping from the ceilings. This city full of life and colors is gray when you walk down the wrong alleyway. The world does a good job conveying the main theme and that is how the hyperfocus on the means of production led to the mistreatment of others. So the story is enjoyable despite not having the strongest writing ever. The last remark is that I don’t like how the protagonists just run into historical figures. It’s the game going, “Hey do you know this person from history class? That was pretty cool huh!?” You meet Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens, Carl Marx, Alexander Graham Bell whose basically the magic mickguffin fixer similar to Leonardo Devinci in the Ezio trilogy. You run into Florence Nightingale at some point, do a favor, and then never reappear. Hey another reminder of Ubisoft’s past sexism.

To wrap up my ramblings, I really liked Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate. By the way the music was done by Austin Winstory who also did the soundtrack for Sword of The Sea and a few tracks for Hades 2. Nice to see why Syndicate's music was more memorable than the other entries. To get back on track, there are numerous things to nitpick about and all of which are justifiably understandable. This game does things good but not greatly like it could, but I had a fun time nonetheless. It takes fifteen hours to beat if you blow through the main story, but for me who did all liberation activities it should take close to twenty. Pretty good runtime for a game and right before they all become thirty to fifty hour long action RPGs. If I were to rank Syndicate among the nine entries I’ve played thus far I’d say it’s probably in my top five. We’ll see where it lands when eventually I go through the original and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. The second game Assassin’s Creed by Ubisoft Quebec, and oh boy do people have a lot to say about that one. (That or I might take a short break from my series binge and check out some indie games. Offer some variety. I don't know. Do you guys want to see more Assassin's Creed stuff? Let me know.) In some ways I recommend this. I give Assassin's Creed: Syndicate an 8.5/10 for pretty good. 

8.5/10, Pretty Good