Assassin's Creed Unity is the first game in the series to be released for the next generation of hardware. Thus you would expect some sort of improvement, whether it is the graphics, gameplay or even just how well it runs. First things first, Unity was a technical disaster at launch, with a huge amount of glitches. It is pretty much mandatory to download the patches in order to get rid of the worst of the glitches. You'll still get some here and there but it is a lot more playable now.
The improvement in graphics is noticeable as the textures for buildings are a lot better than the flatness from the PS3 games. That being said, the graphics aren't stellar and has aged by now since the character models looks a bit devoid of details. The number of NPCs on the streets is one of the most impressive aspects of the game. It is visually striking when you are just walking in the city and so many people are out and about. It loses its appeal fairly quickly though once you realize that it means Arno cannot free-run along the streets without bumping into people and slowing down.
The story is a revenge plot and overall fairly forgettable. Arno's father dies when he was young and from then on, he was pulled into the Templars vs Assassins conflict. The story takes place in France during the French Revolution (but no one speaks with a French accent). As expected, Arno ends up being inducted as an Assassin; this origin story ends up being very familiar. Arno shows promise in the beginning with witty remarks and charming attitude but quickly loses that once he becomes an Assassin.
Unfortunately, the game's story becomes bland and boring very quickly; in the end, it ultimately becomes inconsequential. All the characters are unlikable and the Assassin's Creed is depicted once again as being overly restrictive and set in their ways. It actually makes the Templars look better... The game is set in 18th century Paris. The city has a denser cluster of buildings, as well as taller ones, feeling like a return of what it was like during the Ezio trilogy. This is good news since scaling tall buildings was always what made Assassin's Creed fun.
After the simplified controls of the last few games, Unity brings back the two button approach to free-running. You press the trigger the run but X to ascend and O to descent. Having two buttons for ascending and descending is confusing at first but once you are used to it, the descending option works really well as you don't accidentally fall to your death now. Despite that, there are still a lot of the existing issues to the series where your character, Arno, does not go where you want him to go. One of the most annoying situation has to be when you have carefully set up a distraction and then tried to climb something and Arno DOES NOT GET ONTO THE THING YOU WANTED. He'll end up getting detected and swarmed with guards.
There are also situations where to lessen frustration, Arno is able to make massive jumps. There are accompanied by awkward animation where Arno initially starts to make a short jump but then the game realizes it needs extra distance and forces Arno across. This can break the immersion at times. Arno runs super slow too and coupled with escape sequences where he DOES NOT climb to where you want, and it is a recipe for more frustration (that's the theme of the game, frustration, frustration, frustration).
The combat system is somewhat familiar and still heavily skewed towards countering but the biggest difference is that Arno is weak as all else. He will die in a few hits, enemies are damage sponges and the game heavily discouraged fighting. The developers added in dedicated buttons for parrying and dodging based on timing, which you then use to your advantage to counter strike. Unlike previous games where you could counter kill, fights drag on for far too long and is extremely aggravating. There are a variety of weapons and tools at your disposal to aid you. It is still as awesome as ever seeing the various attaching animations of your swords, pistols and axes as Arno completes the final strike on the enemy.
What made previous games awesome was how overpowered you are, now, it is just plain annoying and frustrating in the early parts of the game when Arno cannot hold out on his own at all. Dying in two hits is NOT fun when the stealth mechanics are so shoddy already. Enemies are a lot more aggressive, everyone carries firearms and they will never miss. When it forces you to go into combat situations with more than three enemies, it is frustrating. It wouldn't have been so bad if the guards were not so FREAKING overpowered, even with your armor upgraded, they can kill you in two hits, so what is the point?!
To be fair, the end game where you can afford better equipment, the game is a lot better. Playing missions again when you know where to go and what to do also makes it more bearable and actually more fun as you are not so lost anymore. There are a lot of difficult missions in the game. For some reason, you are forced into scenarios where it is out in the open teeming with guards. You are supposed to spend a lot of time trying to find ways to stealthily get there but if you are even detected, ten guards will swarm you. It can get frustrating particularly since if you die, all your progress is undone and you have to restart from the very beginning. It can feel poorly designed and is a huge deterrent to finishing the game.
The missions are supposed to be sandboxed but this is also its major flaw. You have no idea what to do, and in the case of enemies that are situated inside buildings, how the hell you are supposed to get in. Unity has a high focus on character customization with heaps of different components to the outfits that he can wear. The clothing has various effects such as improving health and stealth abilities. Arno himself has skills that you can unlock. However, the decision to lock basic assassin abilities like double assassination, blending in crowds and using guns behind the skill tree is a poor decision.
Arno wouldn't be much of an Assassin if he doesn't have an arsenal of stealth abilities up his sleeve. You'll be tasked with secretly assassinating certain targets and to aid this, Arno can climb various structures and kill unaware enemies from cover, ledges and above. It is satisfying when you can pull off a kill and then escape without alerting anyone.
As the games goes on, the modern day story aspect becomes more and more irrelevant. Unity's take on the modern day portion significantly hampers the flow of the story. You are forcefully pulled away from France into "rifts", where Arno runs through other time periods of France. The main story doesn't take too long to complete. To compensate, there are swathes of side activities from sidequests to upgrading buildings to, of course, collectibles. Like any Ubisoft open world game, there is an absurd amount of collectibles, 400+ this time. There are 500 icons on the map at the same time, this is just overkill.
On top of horrible designs, if you have the free DLC Dead Kings installed, then its placement is prime target for you to accidentally selecting it to fast travel instead of the icon right next to it. The DLC is accessible very early on and once you enter it, you have to finish the first mission before you can exit, which is a terrible design decision. It doesn't even give you a warning before you enter it. This just serves to further infuriate you about Unity.
On a slightly more positive note, due to the disastrous launch with the numerous crippling bugs, Ubisoft made the story DLC Dead Kings free for all players. The Dead Kings DLC tries to add in some new elements to keep things fresh. However, nearly everything it adds fails. You get a guillotine gun which acts as an overpowered ranged weapons a slow-ish melee. Then there is the lantern which you have to keep refilling with oil and uses it to light up ways or solve puzzles. This is an annoying gimmick and the puzzles make no sense.
The DLC takes place in a new separate area, which is similar in size to Versailles. Despite that, Ubisoft still managed to pack in 50+ collectibles. It only takes around 2-3 hours to complete and the missions aren't too bad but they are the exact same structure as the main game. The story isn't too much to write about either, as it is Arno collecting a relic. As it is more content for free, you can't complain about it too much. Overall, Assassin's Creed Unity really feels like it took 50 steps back in terms of features and gameplay. It stripped out what made the series fun and made everything else a tedious chore. It is at its core, not fun to play, easily the worst Assassin's Creed game and just one of the worst games in general.
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