This review contains spoilers
Story and Characters
-Evie and Jacob Frye are the two main characters of the game and they are decent enough protagonists although they are both fairly one note. Evie is focused on getting the Isu artifact to stop the Templars and Jacob wants to grow his gang and fight the Templars more directly. They are both decent characters, but neither of them really stand out as being particularly interesting. They have some decent banter between the two of them, but they are separated for most of the game and rarely do missions together so we don’t get to see them interact enough.
-The story is quite basic and really just consists of the standard Assassin’s Creed format. There are Templars who are bad and they need to be taken care of which will inevitably lead to a lot of assassinations and a couple betrayals here and there. For the most part, it works fine and allows for the fun gameplay to shine, especially in the assassination missions, but the story never does anything particularly exciting or memorable. Most of the side characters who you meet throughout the game are rather basic as well and while it is fun to interact with some real historical figures, the villains and your allies are all kind of bland.
-The main villain in the game, a Templar named Crawford Starrick, is rarely in the game and just pops up at the end of each sequence to say something that is supposed to sound insightful or shoot one of his own men for interrupting his piano playing. By the time you get to the final battle, it doesn’t feel particularly earned because we have really never seen the protagonists interact with the main villain of the story. His motivations are also very unclear and he seems like he is bad just for the sake of being bad.
Gameplay
-The gameplay is the biggest strength of AC Syndicate as the stealth gameplay feels very good and works well and the combat is also fast paced and enjoyable. The addition of the grapple makes traversal even more enjoyable and also allows you to perform stealth takedowns from the air which is cool. The stealth is really helped also by the tools you have. Smoke bombs and knives were my favorites and I also really appreciated that when you get spotted by a guard, not everyone instantly knows where you are, which is a pet peeve of mine in some games.
-The assassination missions are definitely a highlight here and it seems they took the formula from Unity and improved upon it. The missions have several different ways to approach them and the locations are all very fun and different from one another. You go to an asylum, a train station, the Tower of London and a high-class theater and they were all a lot of fun.
-They added the ability to dodge when someone is about to shoot at you which is something I really appreciated as the lack of that was an issue I had with Unity.
-The parkour still feels really good and while I used the grapple a lot to get around, climbing was still a viable option. The addition of carriages was also another fun way to navigate the city as London is very large and it is nice to have more options for traveling the map. The carriages were also fun to use in missions as you could fight on top of them or ram enemy carriages to take out people who were chasing you.
-The game also has a very good skill tree that allows you to upgrade both Jacob and Evie separately. It works well because you feel like you are getting stronger as you play and it is fun to use the new skills as you unlock them.
Side Content
-The side content in this game is actually pretty good for the most part, if a little repetitive in certain areas. There are a lot of side quests you can do for your different companions in the city and they all have different types of missions. My favorites were doing missions with Charles Dickens that usually involved tracking down some sort of supposed supernatural phenomenon.
-There are also many map clearing objectives to help take control of the city from the enemy gang and these consist of missions where you assassinate a target, free children from factories and kidnap targets from enemy territory. They are all pretty fun and while they are very similar, I enjoyed clearing the map and doing the side content.
-There are also a lot of little collectibles like beer bottles and animus anomalies and I am less of a fan of those as they don’t really give any rewards besides some XP and maybe something if you collect all of them.
World/Level Design
-London is a really well designed city and a good size for an Assassin’s Creed game. The Victorian setting works very well and gives the game a unique feel from all of the previous titles. The landmarks in the game are recreated very well and were fun to explore. The Thames River was also a fun addition as a minor complaint I had with Unity was that the Seine River was very empty and lacked any boats sailing around. Syndicate definitely rectifies that by having the Thames loaded with boat traffic that was fun to navigate.
-A minor complaint as it fits the setting and the carriages, but London itself feels a bit less dense and lively than Unity’s Paris. That isn’t to say the game is empty as there are plenty of people traveling around the city and the parks have a lot of people engaged in a large variety of activities, but the city just doesn’t feel as cramped as Paris did. Part of this may also be that it feels there are less interiors to go inside of in this game. Not a large complaint, but I do feel like something about London is less enticing to explore than Unity’s Paris, but that is largely just personal preference.
Graphics, Music and Glitches
-The graphics still hold up very well for a game that came out in 2015. The environments are very detailed and at night especially, the lighting from the street lamps reflecting off of the puddled streets looks great. The facial animations also hold up very well and the character models all look very good.
-The music in the game, as with almost every Assassin’s Creed game, is phenomenal. The soundtrack really stood out to me in this game because it sounds so different from the other AC titles and they really were able to capture the Victorian era very well. It was cool to hear Christian hymns like “Abide with Me” used as synchronization music as it really suited the period and again, sounds very different from any other AC game. If you hear a track from Syndicate, you will likely be able to pick it out fairly quickly.
-Glitches were a slight negative towards this game as I encountered a few while I played that became rather frustrating. In one glitch, I had failed a mission because a carriage I was tailing got too far away. When I respawned, I was in an area that was surrounded by enemies and for some reason, I would keep instantly failing the mission even if I wasn’t spotted. So I had to restart the mission from the beginning to fix it. Another glitch I had was when I needed to clear a group of enemies to finish a mission, but the enemies didn’t spawn in so I had to restart the mission. So no major bugs, but a couple that were worth mentioning.
Main Positives of the Game
-The gameplay is some of the best in the series and has probably my favorite stealth sections in any AC game pre-Origins. It feels responsive, you have a good amount of tools and the missions are designed very well for stealth to be a lot of fun. The combat also works well and is challenging enough in big groups without becoming too difficult and it still looks quite cinematic. There are some great finishers for both Jacob and Evie and the different weapons that you can use.
-London is a cool setting and the Victorian era works very well for an Assassin’s Creed game. It is much more modern than the other games and honestly, probably as modern as I would want the series to go, but it is still a cool era in history and old enough that the gameplay works well in that world.
-I think the skill tree was a big improvement from Unity and I liked the way the two siblings had different strengths and could be upgraded separately. The gang upgrades were also very nice.
-The train being the hideout was sweet and something that is again very unique from the other AC games.
-Great soundtrack that matched the setting perfectly.
-Probably a hot take, but I much preferred this modern day to many of the other games. It is there enough to remind us that we are playing the game all in a simulation, but it isn’t constantly forcing us to walk around with a tablet or running around some tomb with characters that aren’t that interesting.
Main Negatives of the Game
-The story is rather weak and doesn’t ever do anything particularly surprising or interesting. There are no real surprises and everything plays out exactly as you think it would.
-The characters are fine for the most part, but they don’t really have any depth or any meaningful character arcs. The main villain probably gets the worst of it as he doesn’t even interact with the main characters until basically the last mission of the game. He is very one note and his motivations are kinda unclear.
-London is a cool city, but it feels less dense than Paris did and the districts don’t feel quite as distinct as I would have liked.
-Some minor complaints:
1) There are times when you accept a mission on the train and you then have to travel to where your objective is, which may be on the other side of the city and there is no fast travel.
2) The final boss fight is kinda silly, with Jacob and Evie taking turns being thrown away from the villain so they can crawl back to try and save their sibling.
3) Some bugs that forced me to restart the mission because I couldn't complete the objective.
Overall Score: 8/10
-Evie and Jacob Frye are the two main characters of the game and they are decent enough protagonists although they are both fairly one note. Evie is focused on getting the Isu artifact to stop the Templars and Jacob wants to grow his gang and fight the Templars more directly. They are both decent characters, but neither of them really stand out as being particularly interesting. They have some decent banter between the two of them, but they are separated for most of the game and rarely do missions together so we don’t get to see them interact enough.
-The story is quite basic and really just consists of the standard Assassin’s Creed format. There are Templars who are bad and they need to be taken care of which will inevitably lead to a lot of assassinations and a couple betrayals here and there. For the most part, it works fine and allows for the fun gameplay to shine, especially in the assassination missions, but the story never does anything particularly exciting or memorable. Most of the side characters who you meet throughout the game are rather basic as well and while it is fun to interact with some real historical figures, the villains and your allies are all kind of bland.
-The main villain in the game, a Templar named Crawford Starrick, is rarely in the game and just pops up at the end of each sequence to say something that is supposed to sound insightful or shoot one of his own men for interrupting his piano playing. By the time you get to the final battle, it doesn’t feel particularly earned because we have really never seen the protagonists interact with the main villain of the story. His motivations are also very unclear and he seems like he is bad just for the sake of being bad.
Gameplay
-The gameplay is the biggest strength of AC Syndicate as the stealth gameplay feels very good and works well and the combat is also fast paced and enjoyable. The addition of the grapple makes traversal even more enjoyable and also allows you to perform stealth takedowns from the air which is cool. The stealth is really helped also by the tools you have. Smoke bombs and knives were my favorites and I also really appreciated that when you get spotted by a guard, not everyone instantly knows where you are, which is a pet peeve of mine in some games.
-The assassination missions are definitely a highlight here and it seems they took the formula from Unity and improved upon it. The missions have several different ways to approach them and the locations are all very fun and different from one another. You go to an asylum, a train station, the Tower of London and a high-class theater and they were all a lot of fun.
-They added the ability to dodge when someone is about to shoot at you which is something I really appreciated as the lack of that was an issue I had with Unity.
-The parkour still feels really good and while I used the grapple a lot to get around, climbing was still a viable option. The addition of carriages was also another fun way to navigate the city as London is very large and it is nice to have more options for traveling the map. The carriages were also fun to use in missions as you could fight on top of them or ram enemy carriages to take out people who were chasing you.
-The game also has a very good skill tree that allows you to upgrade both Jacob and Evie separately. It works well because you feel like you are getting stronger as you play and it is fun to use the new skills as you unlock them.
Side Content
-The side content in this game is actually pretty good for the most part, if a little repetitive in certain areas. There are a lot of side quests you can do for your different companions in the city and they all have different types of missions. My favorites were doing missions with Charles Dickens that usually involved tracking down some sort of supposed supernatural phenomenon.
-There are also many map clearing objectives to help take control of the city from the enemy gang and these consist of missions where you assassinate a target, free children from factories and kidnap targets from enemy territory. They are all pretty fun and while they are very similar, I enjoyed clearing the map and doing the side content.
-There are also a lot of little collectibles like beer bottles and animus anomalies and I am less of a fan of those as they don’t really give any rewards besides some XP and maybe something if you collect all of them.
World/Level Design
-London is a really well designed city and a good size for an Assassin’s Creed game. The Victorian setting works very well and gives the game a unique feel from all of the previous titles. The landmarks in the game are recreated very well and were fun to explore. The Thames River was also a fun addition as a minor complaint I had with Unity was that the Seine River was very empty and lacked any boats sailing around. Syndicate definitely rectifies that by having the Thames loaded with boat traffic that was fun to navigate.
-A minor complaint as it fits the setting and the carriages, but London itself feels a bit less dense and lively than Unity’s Paris. That isn’t to say the game is empty as there are plenty of people traveling around the city and the parks have a lot of people engaged in a large variety of activities, but the city just doesn’t feel as cramped as Paris did. Part of this may also be that it feels there are less interiors to go inside of in this game. Not a large complaint, but I do feel like something about London is less enticing to explore than Unity’s Paris, but that is largely just personal preference.
Graphics, Music and Glitches
-The graphics still hold up very well for a game that came out in 2015. The environments are very detailed and at night especially, the lighting from the street lamps reflecting off of the puddled streets looks great. The facial animations also hold up very well and the character models all look very good.
-The music in the game, as with almost every Assassin’s Creed game, is phenomenal. The soundtrack really stood out to me in this game because it sounds so different from the other AC titles and they really were able to capture the Victorian era very well. It was cool to hear Christian hymns like “Abide with Me” used as synchronization music as it really suited the period and again, sounds very different from any other AC game. If you hear a track from Syndicate, you will likely be able to pick it out fairly quickly.
-Glitches were a slight negative towards this game as I encountered a few while I played that became rather frustrating. In one glitch, I had failed a mission because a carriage I was tailing got too far away. When I respawned, I was in an area that was surrounded by enemies and for some reason, I would keep instantly failing the mission even if I wasn’t spotted. So I had to restart the mission from the beginning to fix it. Another glitch I had was when I needed to clear a group of enemies to finish a mission, but the enemies didn’t spawn in so I had to restart the mission. So no major bugs, but a couple that were worth mentioning.
Main Positives of the Game
-The gameplay is some of the best in the series and has probably my favorite stealth sections in any AC game pre-Origins. It feels responsive, you have a good amount of tools and the missions are designed very well for stealth to be a lot of fun. The combat also works well and is challenging enough in big groups without becoming too difficult and it still looks quite cinematic. There are some great finishers for both Jacob and Evie and the different weapons that you can use.
-London is a cool setting and the Victorian era works very well for an Assassin’s Creed game. It is much more modern than the other games and honestly, probably as modern as I would want the series to go, but it is still a cool era in history and old enough that the gameplay works well in that world.
-I think the skill tree was a big improvement from Unity and I liked the way the two siblings had different strengths and could be upgraded separately. The gang upgrades were also very nice.
-The train being the hideout was sweet and something that is again very unique from the other AC games.
-Great soundtrack that matched the setting perfectly.
-Probably a hot take, but I much preferred this modern day to many of the other games. It is there enough to remind us that we are playing the game all in a simulation, but it isn’t constantly forcing us to walk around with a tablet or running around some tomb with characters that aren’t that interesting.
Main Negatives of the Game
-The story is rather weak and doesn’t ever do anything particularly surprising or interesting. There are no real surprises and everything plays out exactly as you think it would.
-The characters are fine for the most part, but they don’t really have any depth or any meaningful character arcs. The main villain probably gets the worst of it as he doesn’t even interact with the main characters until basically the last mission of the game. He is very one note and his motivations are kinda unclear.
-London is a cool city, but it feels less dense than Paris did and the districts don’t feel quite as distinct as I would have liked.
-Some minor complaints:
1) There are times when you accept a mission on the train and you then have to travel to where your objective is, which may be on the other side of the city and there is no fast travel.
2) The final boss fight is kinda silly, with Jacob and Evie taking turns being thrown away from the villain so they can crawl back to try and save their sibling.
3) Some bugs that forced me to restart the mission because I couldn't complete the objective.
Overall Score: 8/10
6 Comments
Good review. Obviously I shared most of my agreements/disagreements on Reddit, so not gonna repeat myself here. I am curious what you thought of Roth - he's cited as one of the high points of the game, though you made no mention of him here.
Were the blackbox mission areas not diverse in Unity? I seem to recall a number of variants for them, from a ballroom party to a homeless shelter.
Did the skill tree really offer that much? I don't recall it making the siblings distinct outside of Evie getting that invisible chameleon ability lol
Agree entirely about the city feeling too empty minus the park areas. That was a strange decision given that they artificially-widened the streets.
The Thames River is amazing and lively.
That's funny about the glitches. I can't recall if I ever had any in Syndicate, but everyone's experience will always be different for better and for worse.
I actually did like Syndicate's MD better than Origin's lol. Seeing Shaun with that electric Hidden Blade was pretty cool.
Were the blackbox mission areas not diverse in Unity? I seem to recall a number of variants for them, from a ballroom party to a homeless shelter.
Did the skill tree really offer that much? I don't recall it making the siblings distinct outside of Evie getting that invisible chameleon ability lol
Agree entirely about the city feeling too empty minus the park areas. That was a strange decision given that they artificially-widened the streets.
The Thames River is amazing and lively.
That's funny about the glitches. I can't recall if I ever had any in Syndicate, but everyone's experience will always be different for better and for worse.
I actually did like Syndicate's MD better than Origin's lol. Seeing Shaun with that electric Hidden Blade was pretty cool.
@RedBackLoggd; it is pretty similar; I've always found bulleting to be helpful for organizing my thoughts in a review. I do like the separation of Story/Characters and Content (which I combine) as well as splitting up Gameplay and Design (also mashed together in my formatting) as it is here.
@Nightcaller58; very much enjoyed the review; been looking for new accounts to follow!
@Nightcaller58; very much enjoyed the review; been looking for new accounts to follow!
@RedBackLoggd I didn't really mention any of the side villains like Roth simply because I felt none of them were that memorable. I will say that I thought Roth was a more compelling character than Starrick and I almost wish that he had been the main villain instead, but he really didn't get enough screen time.
The black box missions in Unity were also very well done, but I found them to be even better in Syndicate. The locations were even better and they just felt more diverse to me. But I am not knocking on Unity, they were a highlight in that game as well.
I tend to really enjoy skill trees in games simply because I like that feeling of your character getting stronger. Unity was the first AC game to add one, and I felt that it didn't do a great job, but it was a decent first step. Syndicate had a much larger skill tree and I liked the skills that improved your fighting combos, made you stealthier and just made you tougher overall. I think future AC games would continue to improve upon it, but it worked well for this game.
Yeah I assume they widened the streets to allow for easier carriage riding, but it did come at the cost of the city feeling far less populated than Unity's Paris.
The glitches weren't drastic, but they were annoying enough I felt they should be mentioned. Overall, not a huge negative though.
Yeah, I prefer the modern day in Syndicate to most of the AC games honestly, simply because it does everything it needs to. It sets up that you are in a simulation and why you are there, but it doesn't waste the player's time by having you run around doing stuff that feels like it ultimately doesn't matter.
The black box missions in Unity were also very well done, but I found them to be even better in Syndicate. The locations were even better and they just felt more diverse to me. But I am not knocking on Unity, they were a highlight in that game as well.
I tend to really enjoy skill trees in games simply because I like that feeling of your character getting stronger. Unity was the first AC game to add one, and I felt that it didn't do a great job, but it was a decent first step. Syndicate had a much larger skill tree and I liked the skills that improved your fighting combos, made you stealthier and just made you tougher overall. I think future AC games would continue to improve upon it, but it worked well for this game.
Yeah I assume they widened the streets to allow for easier carriage riding, but it did come at the cost of the city feeling far less populated than Unity's Paris.
The glitches weren't drastic, but they were annoying enough I felt they should be mentioned. Overall, not a huge negative though.
Yeah, I prefer the modern day in Syndicate to most of the AC games honestly, simply because it does everything it needs to. It sets up that you are in a simulation and why you are there, but it doesn't waste the player's time by having you run around doing stuff that feels like it ultimately doesn't matter.
@duhnuhnuh Thank you! I am new to this site so I'm still figuring out how I want to best tackle game reviews and any comments or suggestions are much appreciated!
Really? He had an entire sequence dedicated to him, which is more than most! What's funny is he technically had more screen time than Vaas from FC3 haha (I YouTubed it).
I'll take your word for it, it's certainly been a minute since I played the games.
I actually forgot that Unity had a skill tree lol. It's funny how the RPG elements date back to it rather than Origins. For the record, I'm not saying it was bad, but I do think they could've done a better job distinguishing the twins with more personalized trees, especially when they wanted Evie to be more stealthy and Jacob the opposite.
No I'm saying it wasn't an either/or - they could've had people wandering the streets still. Certainly didn't hamper the horseback riding in prior ACs lol.
Interesting, wonder if I'll experience any when I replay it.
I can see that POV definitely.
I'll take your word for it, it's certainly been a minute since I played the games.
I actually forgot that Unity had a skill tree lol. It's funny how the RPG elements date back to it rather than Origins. For the record, I'm not saying it was bad, but I do think they could've done a better job distinguishing the twins with more personalized trees, especially when they wanted Evie to be more stealthy and Jacob the opposite.
No I'm saying it wasn't an either/or - they could've had people wandering the streets still. Certainly didn't hamper the horseback riding in prior ACs lol.
Interesting, wonder if I'll experience any when I replay it.
I can see that POV definitely.
RedBackLoggd
2 months ago