Assassin's Creed Unity: One Year Later
written by Justin Prince (@prince_justin)
The next installment of the Assassin's Creed franchise launches tomorrow, but before we get that going let's take a second look at last Fall's Assassin's Creed Unity.
Looking back to a year ago, I’m reminded of how crappy the Assassin’s Creed Unity launch was. Riddled with bugs which at times made the game completely unplayable, this was a case of a game that desperately needed more development time. From textures not rendering in real time, incredibly choppy frame rates, and odd behavior among the AI denizens of revolution era France; it was a mess… this was reflected in the reviews, with Ubisoft even making reparations to players by offering the season pass for free while giving players who picked up the season pass a free game. But that was last year, last month I decided to hop back into AC Unity to give it the good ol one year once over.
WTF?!? This shit's terrifying!
Before I get into this, this isn’t an amendment to the original review as much as its an update to the state of the game. What a different a year makes, gone are the game breaking bugs which riddled the single player and multiplayer missions. Texture pop in renders much faster with more realistic physics to the ragdoll effects. Overall, the game is better and this is the product we should of had a year ago.
I get it that Assassin’s Creed is an annualized franchise, getting quite a bit of flack for churning out gameplay experiences that keep people wanting; but that should not excuse Ubisoft for building such a lackluster release. Triple A developers are notorious for majorly patching games at launch, but even with the patch the game was clearly a beta at best.
While not perfect, personally I would mark it up a cool 1/2 point to a solid 4 out of 5 (original review was given a 3.5/5).
This isn’t without its hiccups, the games frame rate still stutters during cutscenes and when the action gets frantic. Graphical pop in is still a major issue with AI NPCs just magically popping. The games mechanics weren’t dramatically improved from launch, the parkour is still pretty awkward and the combat continues to be derivative of previous games in the series, but that was to be expected.
In closing, Assassin’s Creed Unity is a much better game than it was at launch, get it on sale or pick it up used, it’s a worthwhile game and totally worth the play. I am a huge fan of the Assassin’s Creed series and despite all the issues I still loved AC Unity… now on to Assassin’s Creed Syndicate.
