Assassin's Creed: Unity stands in an awkward position between two generations. It's a 'next-gen' exclusive, but that doesn't change the fact that Unity has one foot set in the future whilst the other refuses to budge from its 'seventh-gen' origins. Ubisoft has explicitly marketed Unity as the 'next-gen' AC experience, and it is, in terms of looks at least. Revolutionary Paris is an extraordinarily stunning location. It's hard not to be impressed by the slightest details in the streets; from the casual chatter in the impressively sized crowds, to scale of its supposedly 1:1 digital interpretation of Notre Dame - I found myself totally absorbed by this mega-budget sequel. At least; that was my initial reaction to the game. I quickly found that Unity struggled to separate itself from age old issues that have plagued the series since its first outing in 2007.
Traversal has long been a bit of an issue in AC. The game was constantly trying to guess which part of the environment you wanted to climb - the small chair, or the tower leading to the sync point. Unity makes some strides in fixing this. New free run up and down buttons allow for smoother, less unpredictable, parkour and the slurry of new animations for our protagonist, Arno, add style and finesse. Combat has also been tweaked to reduce reliance on the much spammed counter button. It's gone! Whereas before it was a case of counter and win - we are now forced to be more reserved in our approach to combat. This fits in well to Unity’s increased focus on stealth. These improvements are fine to a point, but they don't solve anything. Arno gets confused at the sight of any furniture in his way - breaking the flow of many chase sequences and evasions from guards. Despite the counter button being gone for the first time, combat is still ridiculously one sided in your favour - and if it ever did get sticky, I just dropped a smoke bomb and made like the wind. It's not as 'next-gen' as Ubisoft would have you think.
On the story front, Unity does nothing but disappoint. Our new Assassin feels more like Ezio 2.0 than an original character. The same 'loveable rogue' with the same angsty revenge story. Except this time he's avenging the death of his adoptive Templar father. You'd think that kind of set-up would make for an interesting conflict of interests for Arno, who inexplicably joins the Assassin Order, probably because the title of the series demands he does. Perhaps Unity's biggest story misstep is in its treatment of the setting. I was hoping Unity would use the tumultuous French Revolution Unity to stretch its conspiracy fingers. Nope. Unity instead uses its lavish backdrop to show that the Assassins and Templars are still going at each other, except this time I never found out why. The Templar's plan is too nebulous and nondescript to make any sense at all. Maybe Ubisoft is attempting some kind of self-satire, but it falls completely flat. The modern setting has been dialled down to. So much in fact that it's basically non-existent. Previously I would have thought this was a good thing, but it removes a very important part of the AC story - context. Without the modern day setting, I had a constant feeling that the story just wasn't going anywhere. Overall, it was a pretty unengaging affair.
Ubisoft has also touted revamped assassination missions that allow the player to do it 'their way'. This amounts to putting a target somewhere in a complex and leaving the player up to his/her own devices to figure out a route. It's a nice concept, similar to that of Metal Gear Solid's latest release, but Ubisoft seems so intent in moving the player on the game practically lists everything you need to do in order complete the mission. Sure the assassinations are more open, but Ubi don't seem content with just letting the player explore. There's a coop mode too. I played a couple of missions and gave up. They were a stuttering mess that felt more like single player missions but with extra assassins. I can't provide much more detail than that.
Finally Unity reveals its ugliest traits - the companion app and, even worse, initiates. Ubisoft had the brilliant idea that some chests, with special content within them, should be locked until you've tried it out. Unfortunately for me Initiates was down for the entirety of my playtime. Why can't the games content be within the game and not within some other website? It's absurd and smashes through the already thin fourth wall. The same goes for the app too. It may not have been broken, but it was a bore to use so I just didn't bother. But, what if I wasn't fortunate enough to have a smartphone or tablet? Tough luck. I wish Ubisoft would appreciate that the money I paid for the game should grant me access to all it has to offer.
Unity is a soulless and vacuous release that seems to lack any of the spirit that previous entries had. For everything it does right in its efforts to be 'next-gen' it still suffers dearly from problems that have long plagued the series. Also, if you haven't noticed, I refuse to talk about the numerous bugs that plagued my playthrough even after four patches. They're so well documented that there's no point in trying to explain them. I can confidently say that even without those bugs- Unity is mind numbingly dull. Whilst it may be visually stunning, a lack of imagination is Unity's greatest flaw.