7 Popular Video Games That Ruined Everything

7. Assassin's Creed

It comes to something when a franchise identity has been so stretched and forced to fit a variety of moulds, it's literally changed genre entirely while maintaining a brand name, just to keep up with trends.

Because Assassin's Creed started with a lead creative mind Patrice Desilets backing what was sketched out to be a trilogy of titles, and a wider view to six potential games. Voice of Desmond, Nolan North, discussed this in 2015, saying the plan was having Desmond revisit various ancestors' memories, learning all their respective skillsets until at the close of the series we'd be in the modern day, with him now a master assassin, capable of anything.

You can feel that plan coming together across the first few games... until Ubisoft decided they'd rather make more money. Various other studios were put to work on Assassin's Creed sequels and spin-offs, leaving Desilets to either get with the program or find somewhere else to work.

Patrice promptly left Ubisoft, and the overwhelming success of Assassin's Creed lead to Desmond being killed, the original plan being scrapped as complete tire fire releases like Assassin's Creed Unity "had" to be made.

Today, Assassin's Creed is a nebulous open-world loot-snatching action RPG... and so's the vast majority of the competition because of it. It's totally solid and serviceable, but the distance from shadow-slinking Altair and Ezio to viking longboats and pillages as Eivor is kinda hilarious.

Even right now Ubisoft are planning "Assassin's Creed Infinity", a live-service continuation of the IP that will see even more campaigns, characters and time-bending plot revelations, for as long as they can possibly milk the footnotes of that original blueprint.