"Stay my blade from the flesh of the innocent. Hide in plain sight. Never compromise the Assassin Brotherhood. These are the tenets of the Creed. The principles I used to live by. I was a young man then. The Seven Years War was about to begin. I could not have imagined what the future had in store for me... Nor the cost I would choose to bear... My name is Shay Patrick Cormac. This is my story."
Rogue is definitely one of the most fascinating AC games. It's regarded as underrated by certain parts of the fanbase while other more vocal members vehemently despise it. The truth to me lies somewhere in the middle. There are aspects that are certainly extremely underrated while others are quite lackluster.
I think Rogue is pretty good but I don’t really have very complex feelings towards it so I think this one is gonna briefer than usual.
Let’s get gameplay out of the way. It’s Black Flag on ice with a satisfying amount of touch ups and improvements. Shay has a very cool toolset (sucks that his weapon is almost the same as Edward’s tho) and the Morrigan definitely has a more balanced and fun arsenal of weapons. There are a good number of additions that make the naval world more tangible like random events, getting boarded by the enemy, using icebergs to your advantage and stuff like that. Even minor stuff like the anchor hud symbol whenever you stop by an island with a contact point (which 4 lacked) are much appreciated. It’s all very fun and very good.
The world design is excellent. I love the setting of the Atlantic North with its frigid beauty and River Valley is very unique to traverse. NY feels distinct enough from AC3 as well so also cool. There’s a sense of verticality in all of these places that stood out as different from 4’s very ground level design. This game is like the one game in the series with a good PC port which is great because I could appreciate the beautiful visuals without unavoidable crashes and dumb shit like most of the previous ones. One knock against the world tho is that this game’s side content consists pretty much exclusively of fetch quests which is definitely due to the restrained development time. I’m biased with this one but playing the game is a blast so even with the WAAAAY too bloated spreading of collectibles (they got like 4 different armor sets like vro chill), it’s still a fun time if you’re up for it.
Story wise I think this game is very cute. There are certainly very controversial narrative decisions but by the end I think it all comes together very nicely. Shay is a really endearing protagonist, love him and his dumb cheesy catchphrase a lot. Honestly to me the biggest narrative blunder is the story’s length because I desperately needed more time with Mr. Cormac, learning more about his past and what led him to follow Liam into the Brotherhood, with a way beefier section working with the templars before he joins their cool kids club to boot. It’s all done way too fast which softens the impact of the narrative considerably but the key moments are always done EXCEDINGLY well which is why I think so many people leave this game with such a strong impression. Rogue starts strong and ends strong and I think that’s a really good breakdown of how most of its plot developments go, the setup is fantastic and the pay off is perfect but the middle chunk is always either messy or way too fast.
I feel like a broken record talking about the OSTs because honestly all of these games have impeccable scores but damn Elitsa’s score for Rogue is STUNNING. The main theme is striking as fuck and tracks like “The Hunter”, “Cityscape”, “I am Shay Patrick Cormac”, “David and Goliath” and many others just fucking hit different. Also, this game has by far my favorite synchronization themes and the main theme motif carrying from those all the way to the naval battle victory are 10/10.
Rogue is Black Flag on Ice but with a narrative that makes this one a really hard recommendation for those not up to speed with the series. While AC4 stands on its own, this game serves as a really cool chapter to close off the Kenway saga while transitioning straight into Unity (God I love the ending). It’s good as hell but very flawed in a lot of areas.
Rogue is definitely one of the most fascinating AC games. It's regarded as underrated by certain parts of the fanbase while other more vocal members vehemently despise it. The truth to me lies somewhere in the middle. There are aspects that are certainly extremely underrated while others are quite lackluster.
I think Rogue is pretty good but I don’t really have very complex feelings towards it so I think this one is gonna briefer than usual.
Let’s get gameplay out of the way. It’s Black Flag on ice with a satisfying amount of touch ups and improvements. Shay has a very cool toolset (sucks that his weapon is almost the same as Edward’s tho) and the Morrigan definitely has a more balanced and fun arsenal of weapons. There are a good number of additions that make the naval world more tangible like random events, getting boarded by the enemy, using icebergs to your advantage and stuff like that. Even minor stuff like the anchor hud symbol whenever you stop by an island with a contact point (which 4 lacked) are much appreciated. It’s all very fun and very good.
The world design is excellent. I love the setting of the Atlantic North with its frigid beauty and River Valley is very unique to traverse. NY feels distinct enough from AC3 as well so also cool. There’s a sense of verticality in all of these places that stood out as different from 4’s very ground level design. This game is like the one game in the series with a good PC port which is great because I could appreciate the beautiful visuals without unavoidable crashes and dumb shit like most of the previous ones. One knock against the world tho is that this game’s side content consists pretty much exclusively of fetch quests which is definitely due to the restrained development time. I’m biased with this one but playing the game is a blast so even with the WAAAAY too bloated spreading of collectibles (they got like 4 different armor sets like vro chill), it’s still a fun time if you’re up for it.
Story wise I think this game is very cute. There are certainly very controversial narrative decisions but by the end I think it all comes together very nicely. Shay is a really endearing protagonist, love him and his dumb cheesy catchphrase a lot. Honestly to me the biggest narrative blunder is the story’s length because I desperately needed more time with Mr. Cormac, learning more about his past and what led him to follow Liam into the Brotherhood, with a way beefier section working with the templars before he joins their cool kids club to boot. It’s all done way too fast which softens the impact of the narrative considerably but the key moments are always done EXCEDINGLY well which is why I think so many people leave this game with such a strong impression. Rogue starts strong and ends strong and I think that’s a really good breakdown of how most of its plot developments go, the setup is fantastic and the pay off is perfect but the middle chunk is always either messy or way too fast.
I feel like a broken record talking about the OSTs because honestly all of these games have impeccable scores but damn Elitsa’s score for Rogue is STUNNING. The main theme is striking as fuck and tracks like “The Hunter”, “Cityscape”, “I am Shay Patrick Cormac”, “David and Goliath” and many others just fucking hit different. Also, this game has by far my favorite synchronization themes and the main theme motif carrying from those all the way to the naval battle victory are 10/10.
Rogue is Black Flag on Ice but with a narrative that makes this one a really hard recommendation for those not up to speed with the series. While AC4 stands on its own, this game serves as a really cool chapter to close off the Kenway saga while transitioning straight into Unity (God I love the ending). It’s good as hell but very flawed in a lot of areas.