This review contains spoilers
Biggest missed opportunity in Assassins Creed
Assassins Creed: Rogue is a direct sequel to Black Flag and even though this is more of a spin off it sort of wraps up the Kenway saga as a whole. The in-animus story of Rogue is a sequel to black flag but a prequel to 3 but the present-day story is a sequel to black flag (I know confusing) gameplay wise it is also a sequel to black flag only building on the gameplay preset from 4. This all sounds great on paper but its honestly not that great of a game, I’ll explain
Gameplay: The gameplay plays out almost identically to black flag, the game is filled with naval combat and has 2 major Naval maps with loads of islands and river stops in Canada and northern USA and it has a big New York map similar to the one in AC3. It plays very smooth and only expands on that smoothness from Black Flag. The human combat is almost identical to Black flag with a few extra moves and instead of having a sleep dart straw you have a sleep gun/ grenade launcher. So, a lot of this game is reskinned black flag almost like a giant DLC which isn't crazy bad, it’s still fun to play.
Graphics/ Voice Acting/ Music: The graphics are only slightly better than black flag obviously this remaster improves that even more, but the voice acting isn't amazing. Some people’s voices feel like they don't fit the characters that they are and the music in this game is ok with the main theme once again being a remix of Ezio's family. We get a few new sea shanties but none that I'm too crazy about.
Story/ Some Spoilers: Honestly the story of this game is where it hurts the most so I'm going to have to spoil some stuff to explain why, if you really want to know nothing skip this part of the review.
Okay so, Rogue takes place some many years before the events of 3 we play as a young assassin who is part of the colonial brotherhood under a younger achilleas, Adewale is also in this game for some reason. The young Assassins you play as is Shay Cormack and he decides to go rogue and join the Templars when the Assassins send him on a mission to get an artifact in Spain and it causes a catastrophic earth quack that kills thousands of people. So, this is where this game gets dumb, instead of portraying a different side of the conflict this game kinda just makes the assassins evil for no reason. The Assassins use orange mercenaries that also behave like assassins sometimes and have flags all over the colonies and Canada with full strongholds for some reason and this feels ridiculous for a few reasons. One, because since when did Assassins use evil mercenaries and two, because well aren't they are supposed to be a secret organization? wouldn't it be recorded in history books if they were a huge organization with mercs everywhere and loads of people would have seen them and the flags? Also, I couldn't tell you for the life of me why this whole earth quack thing turns Shay bad and motivates him to murder his friends like Anakin Skywalker. I mean I know the reason, but it just doesn't feel compelling enough or realistic. This game is also only 6 SEQUENCES LONG, how many was the last few games like 12-14? This game is crazy short, and you'll end up beating the story and being left with a boat load of side content to do which is mostly just collecting stuff. Ultimately, they should have made this a full length game and either fleshed out Shay more or made this game about Haythem and why he's bad or hell, make it a 2 story game, 6 sequences for Haythem and 6 for Shay, This story is a hugely missed opportunity and doesn't really compel anything well about the other side of the conflict at all and why I should vote Templar and not Assassin. For the only Templar game its weak and should have had way more time put into it. The out of animus modern day story also sucks and is more cringe than the new new Saints Row reboot.
This game could have been one of the best ones and but it’s an average experience, also they released this game at the same time as Unity, if that doesn't tell you how confident Ubisoft is in this game then idk what will. The coolest part of this game is at the very end and how it connects to Unity but honestly the connection hurts unity a lot more than it helps it considering that plot thread gets dropped in that game. Anyways 6.5/10 from me.
Assassins Creed: Rogue is a direct sequel to Black Flag and even though this is more of a spin off it sort of wraps up the Kenway saga as a whole. The in-animus story of Rogue is a sequel to black flag but a prequel to 3 but the present-day story is a sequel to black flag (I know confusing) gameplay wise it is also a sequel to black flag only building on the gameplay preset from 4. This all sounds great on paper but its honestly not that great of a game, I’ll explain
Gameplay: The gameplay plays out almost identically to black flag, the game is filled with naval combat and has 2 major Naval maps with loads of islands and river stops in Canada and northern USA and it has a big New York map similar to the one in AC3. It plays very smooth and only expands on that smoothness from Black Flag. The human combat is almost identical to Black flag with a few extra moves and instead of having a sleep dart straw you have a sleep gun/ grenade launcher. So, a lot of this game is reskinned black flag almost like a giant DLC which isn't crazy bad, it’s still fun to play.
Graphics/ Voice Acting/ Music: The graphics are only slightly better than black flag obviously this remaster improves that even more, but the voice acting isn't amazing. Some people’s voices feel like they don't fit the characters that they are and the music in this game is ok with the main theme once again being a remix of Ezio's family. We get a few new sea shanties but none that I'm too crazy about.
Story/ Some Spoilers: Honestly the story of this game is where it hurts the most so I'm going to have to spoil some stuff to explain why, if you really want to know nothing skip this part of the review.
Okay so, Rogue takes place some many years before the events of 3 we play as a young assassin who is part of the colonial brotherhood under a younger achilleas, Adewale is also in this game for some reason. The young Assassins you play as is Shay Cormack and he decides to go rogue and join the Templars when the Assassins send him on a mission to get an artifact in Spain and it causes a catastrophic earth quack that kills thousands of people. So, this is where this game gets dumb, instead of portraying a different side of the conflict this game kinda just makes the assassins evil for no reason. The Assassins use orange mercenaries that also behave like assassins sometimes and have flags all over the colonies and Canada with full strongholds for some reason and this feels ridiculous for a few reasons. One, because since when did Assassins use evil mercenaries and two, because well aren't they are supposed to be a secret organization? wouldn't it be recorded in history books if they were a huge organization with mercs everywhere and loads of people would have seen them and the flags? Also, I couldn't tell you for the life of me why this whole earth quack thing turns Shay bad and motivates him to murder his friends like Anakin Skywalker. I mean I know the reason, but it just doesn't feel compelling enough or realistic. This game is also only 6 SEQUENCES LONG, how many was the last few games like 12-14? This game is crazy short, and you'll end up beating the story and being left with a boat load of side content to do which is mostly just collecting stuff. Ultimately, they should have made this a full length game and either fleshed out Shay more or made this game about Haythem and why he's bad or hell, make it a 2 story game, 6 sequences for Haythem and 6 for Shay, This story is a hugely missed opportunity and doesn't really compel anything well about the other side of the conflict at all and why I should vote Templar and not Assassin. For the only Templar game its weak and should have had way more time put into it. The out of animus modern day story also sucks and is more cringe than the new new Saints Row reboot.
This game could have been one of the best ones and but it’s an average experience, also they released this game at the same time as Unity, if that doesn't tell you how confident Ubisoft is in this game then idk what will. The coolest part of this game is at the very end and how it connects to Unity but honestly the connection hurts unity a lot more than it helps it considering that plot thread gets dropped in that game. Anyways 6.5/10 from me.