The Assassin’s Creed franchise is a purely love/hate relationship for a lot of fans these days. We love how amazingly well it started off back in 2007 with the release of the first game. Sure, it had its downfalls, but the premise of playing as a hooded Assassin, hiding amongst the city’s populous as we hunt down our elusive targets in a setting not typically seen in video games was truly awe-inspiring. Not to mention the story, the confusion, the plot twists and the lore. It, and the sequels that followed, quickly became one of the most unique series of games seen in the gaming industry and rapidly propped itself up as Ubisoft’s flagship franchise.

Then Assassin’s Creed: Unity happened.

Unity, while ambitious in intention, completely failed to hit the mark, and really put a dent in the franchise’s popularity. Aside from the fact that fans may have been suffering from franchise fatigue from the annual release of every title, Unity‘s protagonist, Arno, was a cardboard cut out of Ezio from AC2, and half as charismatic. The story was bland, the characters uninspiring and the game itself was completely unrefined, with bug after bug making the game nigh-unplayable until Ubisoft patched what they could. Unfortunately by then, the damage was done, with Syndicate not being able to recover the franchise and the result being Ubisoft taking a year out to readjust.

But you know all of this already. What you also know is that in that year gap and the year that followed, Ubisoft were hard at work making sure their next instalment would put the Assassin’s Creed franchise back on the path of success.

And, arguably, Origins managed that feat. Somehow… Read More