Assassin's Creed: Unity

 

I've had a bit of a love/hate relationship with the Assassin's Creed (AC) games. About half to two-thirds of the games I've played I've enjoyed, while the rest I didn't really care for. AC: Unity is a bit in the middle for me. I didn't love it, but I also didn't hate it. I liked it well enough to complete the game, though there were a couple of occasions during the campaign where I thought about quitting. I had read that starting with AC: Origins (or possibly Odyssey) the gameplay shifted from a stealth approach to more of an action approach. AC: Unity came out before these games and definitely has more of a stealth approach. I'm OK with either approach, although there were a few stages early in the game where if you were caught you failed the stage, without an option to fight off the enemies. I don't particularly like this situation, and this was one of the times I almost quit the game. Luckily, most of the time if you were caught you simply just fought off the enemies. A lot of the stages involved infiltrating heavily defended areas, and being stealthy was definitely an advantage, and I'm OK with that. Here is the plot summary from ChatGTP:

Assassin's Creed Unity takes place in late 18th-century Paris during the French Revolution. The story follows Arno Dorian, a young man caught between the centuries-old conflict between the Assassins and the Templars while France collapses into political violence.

As a child, Arno witnesses the murder of his father, an Assassin. He is later adopted by François de la Serre, the Grand Master of the French Templars, and grows up alongside de la Serre’s daughter, Élise, with whom he falls in love. Years later, Arno is blamed when de la Serre is assassinated during a party at Versailles. Imprisoned in the Bastille, he meets the Assassin Bellec, who recruits him into the Brotherhood after they escape during the storming of the Bastille in 1789.

Arno joins the French Assassins primarily to uncover who framed him and killed de la Serre. His investigation reveals that a radical faction within the Templar Order is responsible. These extremists, led by François-Thomas Germain, want to exploit the Revolution to gain power through chaos and terror. Germain manipulates key revolutionary figures and events from behind the scenes, worsening the bloodshed in Paris.

As the Revolution intensifies, Arno witnesses major historical events and figures, including the execution of King Louis XVI, the rise of Maximilien Robespierre, and the Reign of Terror.

The climax takes place in the Temple crypt beneath Paris. Germain possesses a powerful Sword of Eden, an ancient First Civilization artifact capable of unleashing destructive energy. During the confrontation, Élise ignores Arno’s warnings and attacks Germain directly. Germain kills her, but Arno manages to defeat him afterward.

I found 18th century Paris to be a bit drab. The city itself wasn't particularly interesting, and I found it a bit difficult to navigate due to the winding streets and surrounding tall buildings. However, I want to highlight the people and crowds. They were huge (seemingly in the 1,000s at times), and at times you had to navigate through these massive rioting crowds to accomplish your task. That part of the game was pretty neat, and impressive actually, because there were no noticeable frame rate drops. As usual, the modern day portions of the game did nothing for me. Luckily they were minimal in this game. The controls were a bit sluggish, something that plagues a lot of games from the 2010-era. I've listed my grievances with this game, but generally it was enjoyable.