E3 2015 Hands On — Assassin’s Creed Syndicate

Assassin's Creed Syndicate

While At E3 I Was Able To See Assassin’s Creed Syndicate In A More Intimate Setting Than Just The Trailer. Here’s My Take On It

Another year and another Assassin’s Creed and this year it is Assassin’s Creed Syndicate for only the PS4, Xbox One and PC. It looks like Ubisoft is moving right along with jumping into the next/current gen hardware and they are bringing with it some new features for the franchise. Quite a few new features given the fact that Assassin’s Creed Syndicate takes place in an era were the traditional warfare and weapons used to fight the Templar would get one arrested before walking out the door of their home. At least more so then given all of the advancement that the human race has made. This also means that besides just weapons we will be getting a few new non-stabby items into the mix and I just happened to get some hands on time with them during E3.

I’ll dig into the new weapons and gear that were on the show floor for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate to start things off with a bang. Yes the two new assassins will have firearms but they are just as we’ve come to love in past Assassin’s Creed title s so we’ll move right along to the new close range weapons needed. I’m talking about the new sword cane that houses another hidden blade in Assassin’s Creed Syndicate as we can’t be flashing swords everywhere in London. During the demo I had we didn’t get to use much of it outside of some pretty cool take downs and finishers in hand to hand combat but it was explained that it will have other functions in the mix. None the less it flowed rather well as the dual hidden blades have in the past and at least looks like a cool new addition for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate.

It also looks like Ubisoft has changed up a bit of the throwing of stealth weapons for silent kills in Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. Having not played Unity I am not sure if this is completely new but there is a bit of aiming required now to land a killing blow. It also looks like enemies will take hits and react based on location a bit more than I have seen in any past Assassin’s Creed titles which was a nice touch to the game and made me feel like landing a death blow in one hit was a true sign of skill and not some assisted affair. Given the time and demo on the floor we only had a small section to test this out and none of the other stealth items we’ve already seen in Assassin’s Creed Syndicate but they all are stated to handle the same way just with different effects when hitting an enemy.

From here we moved on to the new traversal features in Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. This was both shown with the new grapple line and the carriages to show off the building traversals as well as the city roaming respectfully. When it comes to the new grappling hook feature it really feels like every game is trying to get to be like Batman. It is a great feature for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, so don’t get me wrong, but it didn’t feel original to instantly get to a ledge, kill a dude, grapple to another ledge, kill two dudes, then zip-line to another ledge and kill the last dude. Outside of the killing aspect it was very Arkham-like but I guess we’ll see how it pays off in Assassin’s Creed Syndicate as it makes perfect sense for the assassins to have this kind of gear after all.

Moving right along, pun intended, I also had a nice LONG look at the carriages for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. When not in any kind of combat or chase it handles just as you would assume; like a car with a very poor turning radius and weird center of gravity allowing it not to flip no matter how fast you are going. I don’t think I’ll get past that they carriages won’t flip when taking a tight corner in Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. Where it does shine is giving us some amazing combat scenes and options while atop the carriage or chasing an enemy/target. It seems odd since it is pretty much the same close combat we can experience while not on top of a speeding carriage but this just seemed to make things much more intense. Not to mention that you can hijack the enemies carriage to keep the flow of things going. I don’t think I’ve felt like that much of a badass since the original Assassin’s Creed so many points earner here Assassin’s Creed Syndicate.

The last little bit that I was able to experience in Assassin’s Creed Syndicate while on guided tour with Ubisoft was the new gang fights. This is where you lead the Rooks into fights to control the city’s crime syndicates, hence part of the game’s title. Sadly this just felt like a mass combat that still required me to handle everything on my own. Almost exactly like in past Assassin’s Creed titles where you hire mercenaries to follow you and they throw a punch or two and wait for you to come and perform the final kill. This wasn’t much more than a scheduled mass combat instead of one that I set off by accidentally, or on purpose, caused too much hell in the city and the guards come rushing in. I know there is some kind of gameplay mechanic and bonus to winning all of these fights but they didn’t fell much more than the usually mass combats for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. Maybe we’ll see how they differ soon.

Thankfully Ubisoft still has some more time to iron out some things in Assassin’s Creed Syndicate before the October 23^rd release date but I have a feeling some of these things are going to be nothing more than damage tweaks. I enjoyed my experience with Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and am actually more excited for it than I was for Unity but I have a feeling certain aspects are being overplayed to ramp up some of that excitement. I guess we’ll see as we have more information leading up to the release. Until then keep your eyes glued here as we will have more on Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and you won’t want to miss a thing; I am sure of that.