by Lucas Schmidt
Like all annualized series, Assassin’s Creed has struggled each year to improve itself while still retaining the trademark features that made it so popular to begin with. With this year’s precedent of launching two Assassin’s Creed on the same day, you can’t help but wonder if Ubisoft might have promised fans more than they can deliver. Unfortunately this is true. Assassin’s Creed: Rogue not only fails to improve on any of the series’ features, the entire experience is the most basic Assassin’s Creed game yet.
As usual, you are placed in the boots of an Assassin in the midst of a historical conflict. Rogue’s plot follows Shay Patrick Cormac, an Irishman who has joined the Brotherhood of the North Atlantic during the Seven Years’ War of the mid-eighteenth century. Shay’s story is the closest any aspect of Rogue comes to being noteworthy. After completing a mission for the Brotherhood that results in hundreds of innocent deaths, Shay denounces their creed and is left for dead by his former friends.
The turning point of Shay’s loyalty makes for one of the more interesting narratives of the entire series, but quickly stumbles after he forsakes the Brotherhood. He soon joins ranks with the local Templars, but you’ll never get an understanding of his motives for joining them, other than the simple fact that they are the arch enemies of the Brotherhood. The remainder of the story is a mundane series of hunting down former assassin companions and stopping them from carrying out their terroristic plans to kill large numbers of civilians. Details on the Brotherhood’s reasons for wanting to carry out these diabolical plans are also mysteriously absent.
I’ve never been able to grasp a firm understanding of what exactly the conflict is between the Assassins and Templars. There's a theme of freedom vs order, but it always boils down to the Assassins as the good guys and the Templars as the bad guys. Rogue demonstrates that their roles as heroes or villains, protectors or terrorists, can easily be reversed to fit whatever character and time period the series takes us to. The reasons for conflict between the two has never been clear, but now it makes less sense than ever before.
Outside of Shay’s dissent, everything about Rogue is either bland, frustrating, or poorly designed.
The freerunning gameplay has been simplified to a single hold of a button, but aside from that it isn’t as enjoyable as previous titles. There are instances where Shay fails to respond to natural player instinct, such as being unable to run up walls that appear low enough. During chase sequences, I often had to repeat the section several times because I would get clipped on walls, or unable to traverse terrain that appeared scalable. The forts and forested areas scattered around the world are significantly smaller than past environments, making for a setting that simply isn’t as fun to explore.
Since the second installment, there have been over-the-top set pieces in every Assassin’s Creed game. From high-speed chases on chariots to large explosions, the series has developed the awful knack of trying to portray itself as a summer blockbuster, and Rogue is no different. Rapid fire cannons on your ship are historically out of place, and there are chemical weapons that have no logical place in eighteenth century North America. It’s all laughably out of place and makes the already mediocre action come across as even less authentic.
Combat has changed several times during the series’ life, and Rogue represents the most simplified version yet. You dodge, counter, and attack as usual, but your arsenal for hand-to-hand combat is limited to a sword and dagger. Animations are slow and repetitive. You’ll watch Shay eliminate enemy after enemy in only a small variety of manners. For example, every time you break an enemy’s defense, you throw them behind you, then stab them in the back with your dagger and sword. It’s the exact same animation every time and quickly becomes stagnant.
Naval combat has returned for the third consecutive year, and while it is an enjoyable inclusion, it never results in any memorable events. Sinking enemy ships and raiding them is a fun distraction while you’re traveling from point A to point B, but nothing more.
Oddly enough, the best inclusion in the game is a feedback survey at the end of every sequence. Using a five point scale, you can easily rate every portion of the game. Hopefully this will provide the developers with data that will help them better understand what features, events, and types of gameplay players actually enjoy.
With it’s restrained scope and lack of series-arching improvements, Rogue proves to be one of the simpler and less grandiose entries in the Assassin’s Creed series. Shay’s story of dissent and betrayal is an interesting one, but it never culminates in any exhilarating scenes or memorable dialogue.
Now that fans can easily give feedback on sequences, hopefully future titles will be more polished and will expand on the series strong points rather than detracting from them. The series has always strived to improve itself, but Rogue is the first entry that feels like a step backwards. It not only fails to add any notable features, it also manages to constrain its existing ones, resulting in the most basic and mundane Assassin’s Creed yet. I rarely enjoyed my time playing it and found there were more nuisances and uninteresting events than there was invigorating gameplay.
