5. Mini-Games And Under-Developed New Modes Ruin The Focus
Y'know why the first three Splinter Cells and 2013's Blacklist were such phenomenal games? They had a defined, singular focus on refining a stealth component that started out better than most in the first place. By the time Chaos Theory rolled around it was a well-oiled machine - something that thanks to the Ubisoft of old's mentality of then forcing a new direction on something, meant it went awry for the two following games, before Blacklist returned everything to hugging shadows and knifing everything in sight. For some reason, despite Ubi pushing more and more Assassin's Creed games out the door, they never do anything to perfect what endeared people to the franchise in the first place. Namely, the assassinations themselves. Instead, Revelations was the first to majorly deviate with a bizarre tower defence game, from which AC III then had a craft-heavy Homestead side-option and Black Flag essentially did away with having to stay quiet at all, ramping up the boat combat from III to give it a unique identity. At no point was the actual act of sneaking and feeling comfortable about enemy sight lines or awareness perfected, or even touched. The Eagle Vision is terrible at giving you an idea of proximity, and with no light sensor (as an Animus HUD icon or otherwise) you're forever without essential components to get in and out of places with ease. These are the first things that need to be overhauled before Ubi should even be thinking of adding anything else.