Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate - 8 Major Overhauls That Would Save The Franchise

We used to LOVE this series, and here's how to get it back on track.

By Scott Tailford /

Remember the close of Assassin's Creed 2, when it felt like Ubisoft were absolute geniuses? They'd just broke the fourth wall, addressed Desmond controlling Ezio - simultaneously talking to you, the player - and set up this weirdly mystical sci-fi style world where we couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next. Following that, original creator Patrice Desilets left the team some ways into the development of Brotherhood (the last truly great AC game), and it all - for lack of a better term - "Went to sh*t". Revelations tied up the narrative left behind in the original scripts by having one of the most emotional moments in gaming when Altair reconciled to his own old age, but also had a smattering of terrible mini-games and the core innovation of using, well, a hook, to traverse. AC III was marred with game-breaking bugs, pop-in and an entire subsection of quests (the Homestead stuff) that was utterly unnecessary, whilst Black Flag played far better despite endless sound cues missing in combat, and from there it was AC: Unity that truly proved narrative-based games shouldn't have yearly releases - not when game production budgets are bigger than ever. All in all, we're in a rut with Assassin's Creed, as not only has the story been thoroughly ruined by making you essentially play a person playing a game as you play the game (something Xzibit would love), it's also had the knock-on effect of making the new-age virtual reality stuff completely pointless. So, in the spirit of completely upending certain aspects of the series and getting it all back on track, here's some major overhauls I think would solve everything. Let me know what you think in the comments below, and what you'd change or keep the same for any future instalments.