9. A Great Character Story Arc
For the most part, aside from the arbitrary deaths of main characters that come alongside an AC campaign, every hero since Altair and Ezio have essentially emerged at the close of their respective games the same as when they went in. Edward Kenway seemingly took on the abilities of the assassin whose clothes he stole just for the sake of it, and whilst AC III let you play as Connor from child to adult, the earlier sections were over way too soon - not to mention misjudged pacing-wise thanks to a lengthy stint as Templar Haytham Kenway - conveniently putting him into the standard assassin mould and never wavering for the duration. The problem with multiple Assassin's Creeds releasing so close to each other is the general pace of gameplay is very much engrained in the cultural psyche - which is to say people want to pick up from where they left off, without having to do all the training and preamble beforehand. However, that's completely anathema to the idea of telling a new story with a new protagonist each and every time, as you need the appropriate time dedicated to build people and events up for both the character and player. Something has to give, and until they can really dedicate the time to each character's training, stumbles and the overcoming of each struggle in real time, there's always going to be a big clash of story versus action.