5. Counter-Branching Attacks
Speaking again of counters, Unity seemed to take a massive step-back in reducing your options in-fight, as no longer when you blocked an attack could you then choose to do things like disarm someone, throw them aside or kill them, instead you'll deflect the blade and keep going. Put simply, this is a bad design choice, as it deliberately limits some previously fleshed-out combat options that were essential to manage groups of guards, but were also immensely fun to try out. Many will remember even in the first Assassin's Creed you could throw guards into the weak wooden structures on the sides of buildings for an easy kill, and over time the implementation of a brief slow-motion filter when you countered someone let you implement this too. For the sake of the player this sort of thing was essential to surviving large encounters, and as mentioned gave a great sense of fun and tactics as you planned out who to watch out for, who to steal what weapon from and who to throw into what. It's an immediately noticeable omission from Unity, and although you can parry and then kill enemies, it's nowhere near as satisfying as turning a fight around at the last second.