We reviewed Assassin's Creed Unity

BlimBlim
Tuesday, November 11, 2014 | 11:35 PM
92 comments

GSY Review PC PS4 Xbox One

After two episodes in less civilized settings, Assasin’s Creed Unity is back to its roots in a European city, and not just any other city but nothing less than Paris during the French revolution. Many of us had dreamt of seeing the city of lights as the base for the adventures of an Assassin, and Ubisoft finally did it. But did they actually deliver? Your answer is inside!
Note: As usual our full review, and quite a long one at that, is only available in French, but we have translated our final thoughts.
Update 2: New PC gallery added.

Verdict

I’ve had a great time playing through Assassin’s Creed Unity. Even though Arno doesn’t have as much character development as Ezio, the game still handles this new hero and the story quite well, especially by integrating it with the French revolution without going too far (I’m looking at you, AC3). And even though the technical side struggled quite a bit to keep up with Ubisoft Montreal’s lofty ambitions, we still have a title here that without a doubt will be one of the graphical benchmarks of this generation. Add to this a rejuvenated gameplay and you get a great title, only tarnished by unacceptable loading times (on consoles).

On the up side
Paris, incredibly detailed and well used by the game
The lighting, nothing short of amazing.
Back to a European major city
Stealth finally works as it should
The missions are more open ended
15 hours to finish the main mission, with a lot of secondary content
The rifts are a nice addition

On the down side
The horrible loading times
The unacceptable loading times
Just a black loading screen, really?
Framerate can become problematic from time to time
We miss Jesper Kyd's ambient music
Some animations are looking a bit old
Lots of small visual bugs, a few more major one requiring mission restarts

GSY PC images (FXAA)

Commented on 2014-11-11 18:17:08

Thanks for the torrent of images and videos, and a great summary with pros and cons!

BlimBlim, about the first 11 videos, they were captured on PC or Xbox One? Just asking because they have the "x1" tag, but are 1080p@60fps.

In reply to

Loakum

Commented on 2014-11-11 18:19:01

black loading screens? *sigh* They should had delayed this game. I have it, but now weary about playing it. :( *looks at Jennifer Lawrence leaked pics instead*

BlimBlim

Commented on 2014-11-11 18:36:16 In reply to Sdarts

Posted by Sdarts

Yeah untagged videos are all from the x1 version. We always capture console games at 60 fps, due to potential frame pacing issues when converting to 30 fps. It would either make the game look worse (by removing one in every two frames, we could have potentially a doubly duplicated frame, or 66ms between 2 frames) or better (by showing a perfect 33 ms between two frames when in reality it could be 16, then 48). And especially with AC:U, frame pacing actually matters a lot.

Eamon

Commented on 2014-11-11 18:52:09 In reply to Loakum

Yeah, it seems the game needs another 3-4 months of polish.

Thankfully, I've preordered GTA5 along with it. I know which game I will be playing first while the other gets GBs of patches.

Commented on 2014-11-11 19:01:19 In reply to BlimBlim

Thanks a lot for the reply and the explanation!

I have read Miguel's explanation as well when he was talking with yippee123 in another thread, was in doubt because of the 1080p resolution, but I guess that's because of Xbox One or AC:Unity's internal scaling.

Either way, thanks once again!

PS. Do you guys plan on doing any future livestreams? Like one of Dragon Age: Inquisition on Xbox One (with EA Access). Yeah, I'm a big DA fan. ^_^

Driftwood

Commented on 2014-11-11 19:02:40 In reply to Sdarts

EA does not send us the games before they're released, so no. We're not even sure we'll get a copy with them. All I'm willing to do is to capture some footage of the X1 version when the game is available on EA Access (which I paid for myself). That being said, never say never, but well, can't say I'm really motivated.

andrewsqual

Commented on 2014-11-11 19:04:07

YES!!!!! THANK YOU for bringing up the lack of Jesper Kyd BlimBlim. For me it adds so much more to an Assassin Creed game making it even more memorable. I think it is Jesper Kyd's "Ezio themes" that made the entire character a favourite too.

Commented on 2014-11-11 19:04:47 In reply to Driftwood

Posted by Driftwood

We still could do a live stream of the EA Access version though ;)

Commented on 2014-11-11 19:05:15 In reply to BlimBlim

Motivation is lacking at the moment. :p

Sath

Commented on 2014-11-11 19:12:50 In reply to andrewsqual

Posted by andrewsqual

I thought Revelations had the best OST in the series, but then again you could hear some of the AC2/Brotherhood tracks in there as well.

Commented on 2014-11-11 19:13:30 In reply to Sath

Posted by Sath

Revelation was mostly recycled tracks from AC2/ACB.

b0vril

Commented on 2014-11-11 19:15:20

can't get enough of that rococo interior

Commented on 2014-11-11 19:32:55

It's mind-boggling why Ubisoft stopped hiring Jesper Kyd as composer.

Most likely once the franchise became such a cash-cow, they prioritized the yearly business model over everything else. Meaning Kyd would probably want a long period to create a soundtrack and also a decent pay, something Ubi was unwilling to allow.

Commented on 2014-11-11 19:35:15 In reply to Driftwood

Would 10 imaginary boxes of cookies and 3 imaginary bottles of the best French wine be enough to motivate you?! I can even throw an imaginary foot massage made by a Victoria's Secret model (you choose which one) as a bonus!

Commented on 2014-11-11 19:39:25 In reply to BlimBlim

Posted by BlimBlim

Hmm not so much. There are ALOT of tracks in Brotherhood that are very similar to tracks from II but are actually remixed or missing an instrument or two or a lady singing. Not the main tunes on the official soundtrack but music you hear in the game during missions or cutscenes. Take the flashbacks with Cristina in Brotherhood, they actually were cut together tracks used in AC II but for obvious reasons.

Now AC Revelations was in fact a very new soundtrack compared to II/Brotherhood with Lorne Balfe doing half of the tracks and, again like the entire III soundtrack that he did, his tracks were immensely forgettable.
Listen to the Kydness in this track :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYj4jD2-g9k I couldn't help playing parts of AC IV to this music.

Commented on 2014-11-11 19:49:05 In reply to andrewsqual

There are tracks in Darksiders 2 that are very similar to tracks from the AC series too. :D

ScarJack

Commented on 2014-11-11 19:54:06

So in short: How is the performance on the One? Merci for a reply in advance!

Commented on 2014-11-11 19:54:29 In reply to Driftwood

Not all of it, but yes there was recycled, which again, was by Jesper Kyd. But the new tracks was by Lorne Balfe which also did the best COD OSTs in the series, MW2.

*shivers* dont remind me lol
I hated the OST of Darksiders 2, the tracks felt like unused tracks from AC that slipped over to another franchise.

This track from Revelations is great <1937>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OExBnAVk3ho. Just alot of good tracks from Revelations.

Commented on 2014-11-11 19:55:36 In reply to ScarJack

Posted by ScarJack

Slowdowns especially when there's a big crowd around. From what we've been told, it's worse on PS4 for once.

digi_matrix

Commented on 2014-11-11 20:21:21

"+ Stealth finally works as it should"

Haha damning praise

Commented on 2014-11-11 20:22:21

Also, I'm surprised the framerate is as atrocious on final release as when I played it a convention. Guess Ubisoft missed the polish phase of development entirely :P

Shubhendu

Commented on 2014-11-11 20:27:56

They have more than 10 Assassins Creed experience under their belt with 10 Additional Ubisoft Devs helping Montreal.
How on earth they messed up the PC Port so bad ????

Commented on 2014-11-11 20:31:07 In reply to Shubhendu

Posted by Shubhendu

What's that? It's by far the least messed up AC PC release in years. :)

Now of course, if some people naively thought that a GTX 680 would allow 60 fps with max settings... ;p

sasanm

Commented on 2014-11-11 20:48:50 In reply to Driftwood

works fine on ps4 better than x1

Commented on 2014-11-11 20:49:28 In reply to sasanm

Nope, that's not what we've been told by a DF insider. :p