Oh, my. I never thought I'd enjoy an Assassin's Creed game this much ever again after playing the utter disaster that was Assassin's Creed Unity. I'm having so much fun with this game I literally just paused it right now and Alt+Tabbed into Steam to write this review.

To sum everything up really quickly: Combine the amazing ambiance and atmosphere of Assassin's Creed II with the sheer fun and satisfation of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and you get this game. It's that good. If you're a fan of the series, buy it right now and don't look back. Trust me.

For a bit more detail, read on.

Some background on me: I'm a monumental, long-time fan of this series. A history major in college, I reserved the first game on Xbox 360 and played it the day it came out in 2007, eager to see what a video game rendering of the Crusades would be like. Assassin's Creed II came along and struck me like Cupid's Arrow; the unrepentant love I have for that game still exists to this day and even motivated me to visit Florence and Venice multiple times in the past few years. I played AC3, didn't like it much, played Black Flag, loved it.

Then Assassin's Creed Unity happened, and pretty much drove a rusty dagger through the heart of my love for this series. What an absolute disaster. I hated every bit of it. It caused me to all but abandon the series... Until now, almost a year after Syndicate's release, when I decided to give it a try despite my hatred for Ubisoft and all of the bad will I still hold from being burned by Unity, which still doesn't run on my PC.

And boy, am I glad I tried Syndicate. I have almost no complaints about this game. In fact, it's the best Assassin's Creed game I've played since Brotherhood, and maybe even better than that. It stands up there with Assassin's Creed II as the best game of the series. Yes, better than Black Flag. It's that good.

The game is drop dead gorgeous. Ambient occlusion and bloom make the lighting utterly beautiful, and the rain and water effects are jaw-dropping. The character textures are good but not great, but the environment textures are wonderful. Graphical prowess is nothing new for this game, though. What is strikingly better than recent efforts is the sheer immersion of Victorian London. I haven't felt so immersed in an Assassin's Creed setting since Florence and Venice in Assassin's Creed II. The NPC interactions on the street, ambient noise, and weather effects are all amazing. Drunks will sing, people will get into fights, there will be random shakedowns in alleys.There are evocative bills posted everywhere outside and indoor areas have Holmesian decorations like old couches and oil lamps. It's just fantastic the way that good film sets are fantastic; it adds so much atmosphere without you ever really noticing where it comes from unless you stop and serious examine your surroundings. There's so much to talk about that I can't possibly touch it all, but it all combines to a sum greater than its parts and transports you straight into the era in a way that few others games have. Maybe just Dishonored -- And that game was a fantasy only inspired by Victorian London.

Black Flag was a great game, but to me it didn't really feel like an Assassin's Creed game. It was more of a pirate game inspired by Assassin's Creed. Edward doesn't even become an assassin until the very end! Yet people still loved it, myself included. Arno was admittedly dull in Unity (a somewhat lesser rehash of Ezio Auditore but without the motivating factor of vengeance and half the charm), so to solve the problem of where to go with this protagonist, the developers give us two playable characters: Evie, the quintessential no-nonsense assassin who is completely dedicated to the creed (a la Altair in the first game), and Jacob, the loose cannon, troublemaking, bar brawling Englishman who isn't a serious assassin, only joining because his parents raised him to be one (a la Edward Kenway from Black Flag). And the system works perfectly. The two characters, between whom you can switch at any time, are the most well fleshed out playable characters to appear in this game in a long time. They each have chemistry, their dialogue is written well, and their voice actors are excellent. Motion capture serves well as they each have unique mannerisms. The skill trees can be individualized between them both, creating a drive to continue on playing and customizing to your liking. And gang upgrades and skill trees ensure that you'll spend hours just gathering money and items, staying up until 2:00 AM because "I just want to unlock one more thing", something I haven't felt about these games since the Apprentice missions in Brotherhood.

The gameplay itself provides ample opportunity to play it as either a brawler, a pure stealth venture, or something in between. Whatever you want, it's here, and they blend seamlessly into one another. Past Creed games have overloaded the player with too many tools, effectively eliminating any challenge the game poses. This game fixes that by giving you just enough to keep it interesting, but not so much that you're easily able to breeze through everything once you have all of the unlocks. The stealth sequences give you just enough tools to remain challenging, and the combat is less Assassin's Creed, more Batman Arkham, which is a good thing in that it provides depth to the experience. And traversal is easier and more satisfying than ever thanks to the hookshot. This game is so. Much. Fun.

The soundtrack is also noticeably better than recent entries into the series thanks to Austin Wintory's superb score of both subtle ambient tracks and crashing woodwinds and strings for the battle scenes. Again, the best score in an Assassin's Creed game since Jesper Kyd's watermark score in Assassin's Creed II.

If I do have one complaint about this game, it's the control. The improved traversal from Unity is here, but for some reason the Frye twins seem to respond to change of direction a bit more slowly, and deciding when to free run up is sometimes clunky. Everything feels more muddy than in previous titles, which can adversely affect some stealth sequences.

In order to assuage any worried about Ubisoft's bad PC ports in the past, I will say that this game runs superbly on my rig. This is the best running Assassin's Creed game I've played since Brotherhood. Even Black Flag was a bit more shaky. Unity ran around 50 FPS on high settings on my machine, this game is locked at 60 FPS with all settings maxed and I've seen very few bugs outside of normal fare for open world games.

Another plus is that, while they're still there (unfortunately), Ubisoft has greatly toned down the in-game microtransactions from Unity. Instead of popping up all over the map like in Unity, now they are relegated to being only an option in the menu, easily ignored. As a completionist I still get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ off thinking about how annoying those microtransaction icons were in Unity. Despicable.

To sum it up: This is a ♥♥♥♥ing great game. It absolutely breaks my heart that this title was completely overlooked and did poorly financially upon release all due to Ubisoft's screwing the pooch and releasing Unity as a broken mess when it honestly could have been a good game with another year of development.

If you're a fan of the series and you're in the mood for some face and neck stabbing then you have to purchase this immediately. Don't wait like I did. It's worth an immediate buy. If you aren't a huge fan of the Assassin's Creed series and you just like open world action games like the Batman Arkham series, give Syndicate a whirl. I bet you'll like it.

Gameplay: https://youtu.be/EaWGrYyKHJA

I hate ubisoft! I hate uplay! I'm going to downvote this game just to be cool like everyone else!

Nah, no thanks. I enjoy this game. I realize this review will be unpopular, oh well.

You will see more of Buckingham palace in the game then standing outside the gate in real life, that's definitely something.

Just finished the game at around 100% completion. Great game compared to Unity. The graphics aren't better, but they optimized it. The story is certainly not the best compared to AC II and Black Flag, but it's great...

The story was so good in my opinion, it introduced us to Evie and Jacob Frye (twin Assassins), I also like the different personalities between the two of them. The story then continues in London where Crawford Starrick and his Blighters has taken over and God damn it is huge. As to character progression, we get to see little progress with bigger impacts. For example, Evie who at first was faithful to Ethan's quotes and teachings began to see them only as quotes which although has meanings but that doesn't mean she has to live by them. A better example for me would be Jacob who became more rational and realize his mistakes. Modern day story continues in this and has more... depth.. than Unity did, I really liked it. Both Modern and Historical endings were different in their own way yet satisfying if you think like me...

+ Graphics and animations are top quality
+ Environment detail, London looks beautiful and feels alive
+ Characters are well-written and feel more alive than ever
+ New mission types and especially racing with the horse carriages is surprisingly fun

- Overall lack of polish in many areas. Dead NPCs twitching on the floor or floating around, animations or movement bugging or out of place and once HUD disappearead and I ended up having to reboot the game. These kind of break immersion, but nothing game-breaking
- System requirements are high because of the new game engine, and there is still some texture-popping and some silly things such as cloth physics being locked to 30fps...
- There are some improvements to the parkour system, but you still sometimes get frustrated when trying to simply get through a window and you end out launching yourself on top of a tower with the grappling hook

If you are a fan of Assassin's Creed games you wont be disappointed, the gameplay is still the same (whether you think it's good or bad) and the story and characters are well-written. London is tons of fun to explore and the main characters are one of the best in the series. If I had to give it a score it would get a solid 9/10. It’s absolutely worth a buy!

is 2015’s entry to the popular Assassin’s Creed franchise. With claims that the franchise is growing stale and 2014’s Assassin’s Creed Unity, the franchise needs to win its fans back. Does it, though? As a huge fan of the series who detested ACIII and Unity, I think it did.
TL;DR version at the bottom of the review.

STORY: Set in 19th century industrial London, the story follows the twins Jacob and Evie Frye on their quest to take a mega baddie Templar whose name I totally forgot. Does that say enough about the story? Not really. The story of Assassin’s vs. Templars is getting a bit stale by the 9th entry in the series and the game does not offer anything new in that regard. What it does though is throw us right into the action of that conflict without dragging out the first part of the game by giving us how the twins joined the creed or any backstory. I personally found that a bit refreshing.

Jacob and Evie’s personalities and methods are different. He likes to use brute force and go out with style while she likes to plan ahead and do things discreetly and stealthily. Their banter is one of the highlights of the game’s narrative, I just loved watching the two of them go at it on screen. Their journey to take down the Templars in London makes them cross paths with historical figures such as queen Victoria, Charles Dickens, and Charles Darwin. The two also form a street gang called the Rooks in hopes of battling the Templars’ gang which controls the city.
The game does nothing to progress the modern day story just like Assassin’s Creed titles since Black Flag.
Overall, the story was nothing groundbreaking yet fun to experience with a slightly disappointing ending.

GAMEPLAY: For the first time in the series, you control two characters that you can be switchable at almost any time. Their differences are stark since Jacob is more of a brute that can sustain a great deal of damage while Evie is better suited for stealth missions. The Assassination missions are a highlight in the game. They are grand in scale with a number of ways to achieve the end goal. I think that they can be compared to Hitman Blood Money’s missions though a bit smaller.

Out of all the missions that I played, only one of them was a boring tailing mission! Outside the game’s main missions, there are a plethora of side missions including the 7 districts to liberate from Templar influence. Each district has 4 different kinds of side missions you need to complete in order to liberate said district with a finale consisting of an epic gang war.

As for the movement, the parkour mechanics improve upon those of Unity and they do a great job at it. Free running has two dedicated buttons now; one takes you up while the other one takes you in the opposite direction. This new system is great, but only when it works. I found myself having to climb all the way down a building and climbing back up just get over a small gap thanks to the lack of a jump feature. Yes, you cannot jump since there isn’t a dedicated command to do so. The new rope launcher is a welcome addition to the series and is actually one of my favorite gadgets. It makes traversing the streets of London faster and more fun. Think of yourself as a 19th century Spiderman. Drivable carriages were also a welcome addition since the city is so large (30% larger than Unity’s Paris). I did find one odd thing about climbing, though, it feels as if the player can only move in a grid because sometimes I would try to climb certain objects that were normally climbable in previous AC games but couldn’t as Jacob (or Evie) would just skip them and go over them.
Combat is finally fun to play and not only to watch! Much needed improvements were made to the combat which makes it fast, fluid, and most importantly, fun. The brutal combat animations make Jacob and Evie look as badass as they dress.

It is important to note that the game is the first Assassin’s Creed title not to feature any form of multiplayer since Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. To be honest, I don’t really miss it.

GRAPHICS: The game is beautiful to gawk at. The busy streets of London feel alive with carriages, workers, children, merchants and all sorts of people roaming around. Gang wars also come to life with two dozens of NPCs battling it out while you mow them down with great combat animations and executions. Facial animations were also great except the weird and quirky facial animations of gang members. Location wise, London itself is a good location for an Assassin’s Creed title, but I feel that the European locations are growing a bit stale since I feel that they are mostly the same.

AUDIO: Voice acting is superb that, especially Jacob and Evie’s which makes their banter even more enjoyable. Music is atmospheric and fits the game. Other than that it isn’t as memorable as ACII’s or Revelations’.

TL;DR:
Pros:

• Great characters
  
• Great assassination missions
  
• Fun self-contained story
  
• Fun, exciting combat
  
• Good parkour mechanics
  
• The rope launcher
  
• Beautiful city

Cons:

• Disappointing ending
  
• A few weird choices with the parkour system
  
• Forgettable villain
  
• Zero advancements in the modern day story

Overall, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is a solid new entry in the franchise that is better treated as an individual game since it does nothing to advance the overall Assassin’s Creed story arc. The game features improved combat and parkour and a fun, self-contained story.

I just completed the main story for this so about time I did a review.

Pro's:
Great story with a intresting past plot.
Brutal yet satisfying combat.
New combo and multikill system for dispatching enemies.
Incredible open map portraying London very well.
Grapple hook... (It's in every AAA game now, don't act suprised)
Character switching.
Spot on voice acting and portrayl of historic figures.
Interesting villains with some having strange yet sophisticated morals and aims.

After running this game on two systems, One with a 750ti and one with a GTX 1080 I can tell you that they both run the game well. I found that on a lower card you are much safer lowering your resolution to 720p to get a very well deserved solid 60fps on medium graphical settings which still looks good. With a higher end card you're gonna be able to run this game incredibly well. Overall it is well very well optimised.

Cons:
Some recycled animations from previous games.
Future/Current story lacks depth, insight and any kind of interesting aspects.
At least one story mission is a tail or listen mission which can be ended by silly NPC design paths.
Very lost plot path in the beginning previous tutor/assassin never checks up that you went to london throughout the whole story.
Ubisoft AI system... (You should know that every ubisoft game runs with AI that thinks like a mildly autistic frog with no legs)
Side mission very dull and repetitive
Ability to buy ingame money with a microtransaction store.

Overall the whole game was great, I enjoyed the main story, I found the side missions rather boring so I decided to leave them for now, It is definitely a game I will return to to maybe do some of the side quests. Great experience for anybody with a well optimised engine which will run well on budget cards. Well worth a buy if you're looking for stealth or rough and tumble gameplay.

-This is a review of the game leading up to the end of the main story. Any missions or equipment that is unlocked after the final act is not in my opinion whatsoever that must be judged yourself or with others reviews.

"Together? Together...."

great graphics, great story, loved the gameplay. you will like this game if you're a fan of the series.

8/10 overall

Next big thing after Assassin's Creed II. Recommend.

Assassin's Creed Syndicate follows the AC formula but in a much more refined way than ever before.

I think I can best explain what I mean by giving an example: a mission tasks me with assassinating the foreman of a sweat shop. I enter through a window on the top story and hide up in the rafters to examine the situation. I see the foreman on one side of the floor below me and two enemies on the other side. There are some barrels hanging from the rafters that I'm on top of that I can drop on an unsuspecting enemy (or foreman in particular). Now as a long time AC fan I expect the foreman's patrol route to take him right under those barrels (very convenient). So I wait there for him to walk under me, but he never does. His patrol route takes him very close to assassination range, but not quite close enough. So for the first time in an AC game I have to use my brain. I shoot his henchmen on the other side of the room with a hallucination dart that sends him into a rage against the other enemies and the foreman comes to check him out. Before he can get all the way across the room, I cut the ropes on the barrels and complete the mission. This assassination "puzzle" isn't a huge difference but it makes the game so much more enjoyable. In the other games each mission was like a connect-the-dots picture where they already connected most of the dots and let you put in the last one or two. I'm not saying the system in Syndicate is perfect: it's not too hard to figure out how to get the foreman under the barrels, but at least it's not like I'm waiting in some bush for the target to walk into that specific bush right when no one is looking. The system can be improved upon but it does make every assassination feel more like a puzzle and if Ubisoft continues with that pattern I think we can expect some much better games in the future.

It would've been nice to get something new and exciting in Syndicate like sailing in Black Flag, hunting in AC3, or the brotherhood from Brotherhood. The grappling hook makes getting collectibles feel more like a puzzle but other than that it's really only useful for getting up tall buildings or crossing alleys faster. Driving feels good but with fast travel and the grappling hook you're really only going to be driving if a mission tells you to do so.

Combat feels fantastic, but it seems like combos and multikills decide when they do or don't want to work (that could be my own fault if I missed a tutorial somewhere). The outfits and weapons have different stats to suit your playstyle, but I found that the bonuses they provide weren't really big enough to notice, even with the late game items.

Having two playable assassin's sounds like a really cool idea on paper. In practice it works but it's not as game-changing as the designers probably hoped it would be. Evie has bonuses to stealth and Jacob has bonuses to combat. They also have their own unique active and passive skills. I might be alone on this opinion but I found that the combat is way too easy to ever need a bonus and ended up only playing Evie unless a mission required me to be Jacob. What I think was a HUGE missed oppurtunity was that while playing as one character, the other character is completely absent. What would have been awesome is if you could use the twin that you aren't playing as some sort of super brotherhood member that you could call in to take out or distract a guard. Maybe you could both be in combat and you could set up crazy cooperative moves with each other. Now, they're mostly separated because of narrative but you really shouldn't let the story get in the way of good gameplay.

The world design isn't the best or the worst of the series. The different areas of the city have their own general character and charm to them but when it comes down to the smaller details of the world everything starts to blend together. The artistic direction is nice, especially in the more colorful areas. and the graphics are pretty nice.

The story is slow and boring in the middle but the beggining is alright and the end is great. There's nothing super special about any of the characters, most of them feel like ripoffs of other AC characters but they're still mostly enjoyable and the main villain is great. The modern day portion hasn't been good since Black Flag and that hasn't changed with Syndicate. Unless they bring back a larger story arc like Desmond's they should really just get rid of the modern story entirely: it doesn't add to the game and it's confusing. The 1800's story is okay.

I've pre-ordered every AC game since Brotherhood. Revelations was a low point. Unity was a lower point. After playing Unity and hearing that Syndicate would have similar mechanics I decided for the first time not to pre-order. I waited for a sale and bought it at half price. It would've been worth it at 3/4 price. Syndicate hasn't brought the series all the way back to it's glory but it's a step in the right derection. I hear a lot of people say that AC games are rushed. I can see how that's true, but I can also see that Ubisoft is getting better at rushing them. Practice makes perfect I guess. Also I hear that they're working on a new AC game and instead of rushing it, they'll be working on it for a lot longer than usual and giving it the attention it deserves. I'm sticking to what I said before, Syndicate is essentially a much better version of the exact same game that Ubisoft makes every year. If you're new to the franchise, Black Flag is still a better place to start but if you want more after that, Syndicate is worth your money.

P.S.
Is the town/villa building mechanic just gone now? I loved it in AC2 and it felt like they perfected it in AC3 but ever since then it's felt like they've been putting less effort into the mechanic. In Unity they had the cabaret or whatever but that wasn't fun to upgrade at all and in Syndicate you have a gang that you can upgrade but I loved having a whole community that did different things for you as you built it up. I mean, having an upgradable base isn't criteria for a good game but I really liked it and I felt like other people liked it too. Maybe there was a demand to get rid of it that I didn't notice. Whatever. Makes me sad.

[Edit]
I didn't play Rogue for various reasons and I realize that some of the arguments made here might be made obsolete by that fact, i.e. "for the first time in an AC game I have to use my brain." I do apologize if this is the case but based on the reviews for Rogue I'm willing to bet that it isn't.

Nice game

A great game overall for me. The game keeps you immersed with a great number of side quest, a good main sequence, great environment, great voice acting. The fight scenes and animation are great. If you think it will be repeatitive, you're playing it wrong!