1 person found this review helpful
Not Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 25.0 hrs on record
Posted: 1 Sep, 2023 @ 9:32am

AC Syndicate is very underwhelming. I like its technological side - I think what Ubisoft's studios managed to achieve with London is still extremely impressive, even almost 8 years later. However, even on technical side it's far from perfect with occasional bugs that will kill your progress (especially when playing with grappling hook) and extremely unresponsive movement. What's worse - the whole implementation of RPG-like weapon stats and progression is just not fun, making every fight that is above your equipment or character level - a tedious grind.

Story wise - the game is a bit of a mess as well, stretched thin with its plot over 9 and half chapters of mostly uninspired quests that we have seen hundreds of times already in previous Assassin's Creed games. Consistently throwing famous people from history as the replacement for the lackluster plot and lacking overall objective. The split between 2 characters doesn't help much either, as their gameplay is near identical and none of them is really likable or written to have any depth. New additions like train system or horse carriages don't do enough to address all of the pacing and variety issues these games had from the very beginning.

Worse - with the whole cheesiness and ever increasing absurd setups, Ubisoft kind of killed the motivation for actually being an assassin and trying to be quiet (not that these games ever truly succeeded at it, with Ubisoft consistently being desperate to force players into combat scenarios). Finally there is a problem of essentially "nothing" happening in modern times, as pretty much everything that's happening is now restricted to a few seconds of pre-rendered cutscenes poorly tying them to actions of the player in the past.

It's a shame really that Ubisoft with its greed has gotten the series to a point, where everything is stretched to maximum, lacking motivation and grand goal, with the whole idea of overarching plot connecting the games being pretty much dead since Assassin's Creed 3. I don't know - if you want to see how Ubisoft recreated London - I guess you might check it - it's not an awful game... just a game with a content stretched incredibly thin that failed to address issues carried over pretty much from the first game in the series. But other than that - play something else... especially if you are in mood for a stealth game, as this is horrible as stealth game.
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