Last updated on May 19th, 2015
Ubisoft just recently made the official reveal of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (Previously speculated as ‘Victory’). As, most of the fans have been already disappointed with Ubisoft since the release of AC Unity, they seem to be a bit pessimistic about the upcoming title. But there are still people out there who believe that Syndicate might bring a change to the series. Is that going to be true or will this title be also a disappointment like Unity? Don’t worry as we’ll sum up everything about the game that we know so far and speculate whether it will be a success or not. But before that we advise you to go through this compilation video that we have made on Syndicate. Hope you will like it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiD1JYygcPw
The setting
The storyline begins from the year 1868, thus introducing an era of prosperity and growth of London into a teeming metropolis. marking the zenith of industrial revolution. It exhibits a period of peace and no ‘major’ unrest. Now, in that time there was no ‘major-war’. If you consider the previous titles, each and every one of them had the inclusion of a ‘historical war’ into their story like the Renaissance, American Revolution, French Revolution, etc. AC Syndicate is an exception. Though there is no major war between different countries or any civil unrest, there are rather ‘gang-wars’ going on among different factions in London, thus leading to the birth of ‘organized crime’.
According to Marc-Alexis Cote, the Creative-Director of Syndicate,” When you look at most of the settings that we’ve explored, there’s a lot of war going on. One of the things that’s been clear to me since the beginning is that we wanted to recapture the essence of Assassin’s Creed II and the Renaissance. A lot of people have asked me the question, how are you going to do an Assassin’s Creed in a setting in which there is no war? Well, I think one of the best Assassin’s Creeds was done during a time with no war, which is another era of transformation for humanity. The reason we chose the year 1868 is because of the amount of historical characters that are so relevant to our world today that we can showcase in the game.”
So, to be frank this can be positive as well as negative. The positive side is, we are going to see and experience something new in the story- “A far more advanced world as compared to the previous Assassin Creed games”. In addition to that it will give you the similar filling that you would experience watching “Gangs of New-York”. So, what’s the limitation then? You can call that lack of ‘punch’. French Revolution added some punch to the events of AC Unity. It felt rather more historical. Similarly, the American Revolution completely defined the ‘tension’ in AC 3 itself. Connor caught in the turmoil of the battle for his motherland, the war between America and Britain and the silent-war between Assassins and Templars… Now that defines something which you are going to miss in AC Syndicate . To be frank, Ubisoft has chosen an interesting gamble this time. This decision may be very rewarding or the opposite for Ubisoft. Only time will tell that.
The story will revolve around two playable characters. And surprisingly they are siblings- Jacob and Evie Frye. That sounds something unique as we haven’t experienced anything similar in an AC game so far. This can add a new sort of ‘spice’ to the story, as till now we haven’t seen a Brother-Sister duo supporting each other side by side in any of the franchise’s previous titles.
The Graphics
This time Ubisoft has removed the multiplayer feature and instead wants to concentrate more on the single-player campaign. According to the company, “This time we want to focus on creating the biggest city based open-world that we’ve ever had for an Assassin’s Creed game”. The map of Syndicate London will be around 30% larger than that of Unity. The teeming metropolis will be subdivided into six major divisions called boroughs namely the City of London, Southwark, Whitechapel, the Strand , Westminster and Lambeth. We are also going to see the river popularly known as, “Thames”, that will add more beauty to the world of Syndicate. The game features some eye-candy graphics like Unity. The world-premiere footage exhibits that perfectly.
Well, no doubt that… larger the map is more interesting will be the game. Considering Unity, Ubisoft was so much hooked to defining Paris that it almost became difficult for the dev team to render an optimized product or you could say that was due to neglect. The company in collaboration with Nvidia declared demanding specs for PC users which was a kind of marketing monopoly. Not only were the low-end system users affected but also gamers with heavy rigs. In fact, the console users were also affected. In short there was too much marketing hype about the game but in the end we got to see an undesirable result by Ubisoft.
This time also, the company wants to develop a perfect master-piece describing each and every historical architecture and environmental detail of London and its suburbs using the same Anvil engine like it did last time. Will Syndicate share the same fate as that of Unity? Well, in the reveal…Ubisoft deeply apologized for the problems people had to face playing Unity. Syndicate may correct the mistakes of its predecessor but please don’t be assured that the game will be effectively optimized for all the platforms properly. You need to be patient and wait for a while. We’ve just seen the reveal.
The Gameplay
The stealth has been revamped and you could say it’s the 2.0 version of the stealth used in Unity. Now, you can use the environment to your advantage and eliminate your targets or distract your enemies. If you have seen our video, then you will definitely understand the point that we are trying to describe here. Let’s say you are in cover and enemies are in your surroundings. You can cut down hanging objects like barrels or crates bound together by nets by throwing ‘knives’, such that they fall into fire sources thus creating an ‘explosion’. Hence, it gives you the ability to create multiple distractions among enemies.
Previously, you had to press a button repeatedly in Unity to enter and exit cover. In Syndicate, you don’t need to do that. You can move fluidly from stealth to navigation by just tapping a single button.
The gear has been heavily modified and looks ‘badass’ and for your surprise, you don’t have to be a hooded assassin always. Jacob, the central character, normally wears a ‘hat’. So, you can switch to a hooded Jacob whenever stealth is required in the game. Jacob with a hat, fighting in the streets (with background music) feels a bit like our old Sherlock, Robert Downey Jr. dancing with the enemies.
Syndicate, will be the first AC game to feature dual-character playability. You can switch to Jacob or Evie anytime you want. Doesn’t that feel like the character swapping feature used in GTA V? Definitely, this sounds interesting. In addition to that, you can drive horse-carriages, use them for parkour and stealth, hijack them, etc. It exhibits a complete Grand-Theft Auto style implemented in the mid-18th cent. Oh yes, trains!!! How can we forget about them? The Creative-Director did mention the use of trains in Syndicate for transportation purposes, though there wasn’t any display of something like that in the reveal footage.
Jacob wears a multi-purpose gauntlet that has a set of tools in your disposal like the hidden-blade, hallucinogenic darts and a rope launcher. The rope launcher is a new baby and you will almost get a ‘Batman-like’ feeling while using it to climb over buildings. Finally, ziplines have returned and we saw them last in Revelations. This sounds cool. Scaling into rooftops and travelling to the next building in just a matter of seconds, would be awesome, all thanks to the grappling hook. In addition to that you get to use a new tool called ‘Brass-Knuckle’ to deliver explosive and deadly punches to your enemies.
The AI implemented in combat has been revamped. If you are surrounded by enemies, then they won’t be taking turns to hit you. Instead multiple foes will barge into you simultaneously. This means the combat will be a bit difficult and interesting as compared to the previous AC games. Recruitment feature is back. You can recruit followers to join your group and hence use them to participate in gang-wars, take over the territory of Templars and thus control a part of the ‘Underground London’.
For the first time, side-missions form an integral part of the story because every side-mission you complete will be little by little contributing to your control over underground London.
Conclusion
Now let’s come to the most important question-“Will Syndicate bring back the lost glory of Assassin’s Creed?” Let’s go back with time. What was the last major title in the franchise that received a huge critical acclaim? You know the answer –“Black Flag”. That game was completely innovative delivering a master-piece gameplay incorporated into a rich and diversified world. The successor of the game was good enough but it failed to be a breakthrough in the series, all thanks to the performance issues. Talking about Syndicate, whatever we have seen so far is just a mere introduction of its world, gameplay and story. The gameplay elements of Syndicate seem to be a fusion of games like GTA and Batman. The stealth mechanics have been upgraded to a far better version. The story may not be that interesting but from the looks of it, an off the hook storyline was needed to be implemented one day or the other in an AC game.
But then again, Syndicate gives kind of a bad deja-vu if Unity comes into our mind. If Ubisoft manages to clear that off, Syndicate might be the perfect successor to Unity. Whether the game will be a breakthrough and an example in the series or not, is something that only time can answer. It would be better for you not to be very excited about it and rather pre-order the game after a couple of months.
Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate will be out for Xbox One, PS4 and PC on October 23, this year. Stay tuned with us for more updates on Syndicate.
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You may also like another funny video that we have made on GTA V:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6DDvYD9UWM
