During the 2000s, Ubisoft's specialty was making extremely good first introductions to a game. The first 1-2 hours of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood is still some of the most exciting I've played in a video game. Unfortunately, after this the world opens up and the game drags to a screeching halt.

I've been replaying these Assassin's Creed games from the beginning over the past few months and I can confidently say that every one of these games would be so much better if they either got rid of the open world entirely, or just reduced the amount of "content" within the open world.

And another thing - these games are now nearly unplayable on PC/Steam Deck thanks to the spectre of Uplay. Ubisoft really needs to invest in the preservation of their own games. It's depressing that they don't, and an indictment of how they view their own products.