Places of Future Past

Ranking first 5 Assassin's Creed games by memory alone

Another June, another dog and pony show in the book. 2024 seems particularly funny. As the life support was unplugged on Big Boy E3 2.0 at the beginning of the year, yet all the big three decided to come out and play by June: Sony’s State of Play did not have much to show; Microsoft pulled its usual-for-the-last-decade parade of potential vaporware and probably bullshots; and Nintendo Direct got a couple of surprises up it sleeves, you just cannot beat “Available right after this direct” and new top-down Zelda game in my book. Seeing this sure made me want to do retrospective on 2 series that benefits hugely from Big Boy E3, with very different metrics.

First with the relatively “new” kid on the block: Assassin’s Creed. The last one I saw credits roll in came out in 2012. In many ways the series is in a similar place in 2024 as it was in 2012, namely Ubisoft might find er, “replacement” for it. E3 2012 was Watch Dog’s debut onto the scene, wet fart as that trilogy turned out to be. The 2012 also saw the relatively low-key launch of Far Cry 3, sequels to which did become one of Ubisoft’s pillars. Fast forward to 2024, the French publisher can be seen trying to merge their to-do list open world design with the Star Wars brand and Prince of Persia became relevant again. So even if Shadow did not meet those greedy fucks’ exception, at least not all their eggs were in the same place for this year.

This list and the one after have nothing to do with “nostalgia” nor “fondness”. Personally, I find that N word trickier than the one insulting black people and the F word dirtier than the one degrading homosexuals especially when it’s used for big brands. This list also looks like in order of release, but it’s more in terms of how well those are in my memory. So, from the relatively worst to the relatively best, here we go.

Number Five Assassin’s Creed III

To a faceless and nameless “you lot on the bloody internet”: why got up Mass Effect 3’s ass while this much more dampened wet fart came out the same year? You honestly thought they are going to fix it with sequels?

Well, to be honest, I did not play 2013’s Black Flag not only for how much this one was a letdown. With my Steam account set up earlier that year, I very much went back to PC gaming. U-Play became one mind block I could not get over. (At least not for an Assassin’s Creed game. Bought Far Cry 4 but gave up soon enough when I remembered that one had to craft gun holsters in those games.) Assassin’s Creed III is a “cut scene game” that would make Hideo Kojima and crew blush. One cannot push the left stick forward too much before a cut scene that got much to speak but little to say hit. The so-called plot twist early in the game is the least of its problems.

December, 2012 was a time this series had been aiming for since the 2007 original. One would think they had something nice planned for the time point, but after meandering through one historical period after another, all hopes for that were lost. The series always serves 2 masters: historical myth and science fiction set in near future. As that near future became current days then past, those 2 masters did directly clash in this so-called final chapter of the trilogy. Cannot say I got much thought about the North American colonies setting since the developers did not either.

Number Four Assassin’s Creed Revelations

On one episode of the History of Byzantium podcast he appeared in, Professors Anthony Kaldelliss said that he got student who took his course on Byzantine history because of Assassin’s Creed. And for the life of me I can only think of 2011’s Revelations even though it’s set a couple of centuries after the Byzantium state was gone.

The 2007 original is about Crusade, something Byzantine had a part to play in. But the conflict was so reduced to “mighty whitey versus plucky browny” that the Christian state called those mighty whiteys was completely ignored. The Viking focused Valhalla might have something to do with Byzantine but without playing it I cannot be sure. Only Revelation’s Constantinople setting came closer, with its Byzantine faction marked as the most reactionary thugs in the city.

Compared to 2012’s Three feeling like a letdown, the lackluster Revelations still felt like a nice build-up to a grand final chapter. Covering the late lives about Two’s Ezio and the original’s Altair, the fictional history got a proper weight to it. Though I got to say the late game plot lost some impact after I realized that it’s just From Russia With Love: with the charming local helper of the dashing outsider butchered, so said outsider had to leg it with his lady love on a fast, but not that fast transportation, train in the movie, carriage in the game, with the McGuffin. Still, it would not be wrong to say that this is the last Assassin’s Creed game I genuinely enjoyed.

Number Three Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood

Like how the Italian city the game is set in had to be rebuilt once as the capital of an ancient republic, it took me two tries to get through Brotherhood due to a save file corruption. Oh how much less gaming that 20-year-old should have done. Anyway, as far as the beginning of annual release goes, Brotherhood was not too bad for Assassin’s Creed series. Most of people who played the 2009 sequel quite liked the player character Ezio, so had him going up again C Borgia was not too bad a choice after the inconclusive fist fight with Borgia Senior, aka the Pope at that time.

Number Two Assassin’s Creed II

I guess many of us began the series with Two. The game did show well on that year’s first Big Boy E3 2.0 across conferences of both Sony and Ubisoft. With the literal deserts in the 2007 original, Renaissance city states on the Italian Peninsula was just more interesting. The player character being a playboy living through a come-of-age mixed with revenge tale was just what the doctor ordered.

Number One Assassin’s Creed

By the end of day, I appreciate a sense of less bullshit plus more neatness and smoothness in my video games. And going back to the 2007 original after the 2009 sequel and 2010’s Brotherhood highlighted the sense of neat and smooth in the first game greatly. Back in 2006, this game had a guest appearance on Sony Conference during the last Big Boy E3 1.0. Hyped to be the next step of open world action adventure game, the final product’s procedural feeling could be seen as letdown. But when I played it in 2011, the hype had died down so the game could be judged more fairly.

As much as I enjoyed Ezio’s story, the trilogy he is in got extremely loosey goosey combat that is neither neat nor smooth. Altair’s count, kill, repeat routine is neater, and after one getting to the zone for it, very smooth. Of course, I would not have played this one without Revelation referring it during E3 2011. So well done Ubisoft’s marketing people back then, you lot sure got me!