General Gaming What is the Best Assassin's Creed Game?

[AbsolutSurgen]

With the announcement of Assassin's Creed Valhalla -- I thought I would see what people's opinions are.  My personal ranking (I haven't played Rogue, so I excluded it from my list).

AC: Odyssey

ACIV: Black Flag

AC: Brotherhood

AC: Syndicate

AC2

AC: Origins

AC3

AC: Revelations

AC

AC: Unity

[Mr.Vic20]

I'm a fan of the new direction, but I get why "purists" of the original AC style feel II was when the series was at its best. I'm pretty excited for Valhalla! 

 

[Dre801]

Not sure.  To be honest, pre-Origins, I wasn't really a fan of the franchise.

[Captain Pickle]

I skipped a lot of them after the first three because I just don’t like franchises not giving time in between.  2 is probably my fave followed by origin.  I’m currently playing odyssey and have lost interest as I find it too damn big with too much filler crap.

[TwinIon]

I still have a really soft spot in my heart for the first AC game. All the other games improved on pretty much everything, but AC1 was both a transformational game and flawed one that was bad in all the right ways. The process of free running and the ability to climb and run around that city was unlike anything in games before that. It's one of those rare games that changed how I looked at every game since, and I'm still regularly frustrated when a new game fails to match either the availability of movement options or the fluidity of the animations. Even just playing FF7R, it's hard to reconcile that in combat I can jump 50 feet in the air and kill anything with my giant sword, but a chain link fence is an impenetrable barrier. AC1 was one of those games that showed that didn't have to be the case. 

 

I also really loved how much that game would let you fail. Even when it just came to movement, because you didn't have a set path and they couldn't predict where you'd travel, not everything was setup for a perfect jump distance. You would stumble and fall and there weren't many guide rails, and I kinda loved that. It really let you play however you wanted and felt almost uninterested in making you play "correctly." You could do the side missions and really prepare for an assassination, pulling off a perfectly silent kill, or you could just jump on in and cause a ruckus and as long as you got your target, it didn't matter.

 

It was rough in so many ways that the sequels polished up, but I found a lot of charm in those rough edges. The sequels had better combat and more to do, with bigger maps and better told stories with characters that were far more fully realized. But with everything they added, it also became much less of a sandbox, and I still miss some of that.

 

Edit: I also haven't really played all of them, and only put a few hours into Odyssey, so I can't really vote for it.

[Man_of_X]

2 hours ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

With the announcement of Assassin's Creed Valhalla -- I thought I would see what people's opinions are.  My personal ranking (I haven't played Rogue, so I excluded it from my list).

AC: Odyssey

ACIV: Black Flag

AC: Brotherhood

AC: Syndicate

AC2

AC: Origins

AC3

AC: Revelations

AC

AC: Unity

 

I think this is a pretty spot on list.  It feels weird to put Origins that far down, but that might be where it shakes out.  Maybe I'd switch Origins with Syndicate.

 

I wouldn't put Unity last though.  it gets a lot of shit, but all patched up, it's actually very good.  It had a horrendous technical launch though.

[NeoJoe]

2 hours ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

With the announcement of Assassin's Creed Valhalla -- I thought I would see what people's opinions are.  My personal ranking (I haven't played Rogue, so I excluded it from my list).

AC: Odyssey

ACIV: Black Flag

AC: Brotherhood

AC: Syndicate

AC2

AC: Origins

AC3

AC: Revelations

AC

AC: Unity

DUDE. How have you not played Rogue?!? It takes the best parts of 3 and BF, tightens them up and wraps them in an amazing story of an assassin gone templar. It's one of my favorite AC games ever. Plus the lead in to Unity was awesome.

[AbsolutSurgen]

28 minutes ago, Man_of_X said:

 

I think this is a pretty spot on list.  It feels weird to put Origins that far down, but that might be where it shakes out.  Maybe I'd switch Origins with Syndicate.

 

I wouldn't put Unity last though.  it gets a lot of shit, but all patched up, it's actually very good.  It had a horrendous technical launch though.

Those are fair comments, my opinion of Syndicate is probably higher than it should be, as it came directly after Unity (which I found very disappointing).

Unity was the only game on the list where I said "fuck it", and stopped playing it midway through.  I can see why some people may put it above AC or AC:Revelations.

11 minutes ago, NeoJoe said:

DUDE. How have you not played Rogue?!? It takes the best parts of 3 and BF, tightens them up and wraps them in an amazing story of an assassin gone templar. It's one of my favorite AC games ever. Plus the lead in to Unity was awesome.

You're right.  When it came out, it was only on prior-gen consoles, so I picked up Unity instead.  At the time, I was living in Brazil, so didn't have easy access to buying physical games.  My backlog is so big right now, that I don't think it would ever surface to the top of the "next game I want to play".

[Firewithin]

Best - Odyssey or Black Flag (i voted for Odyssey)

Worst - AC3

[XxEvil AshxX]

I voted for Odyssey as being the best, because it was more cohesive as a game.

 

That said, I think the most fun was Syndicate. The combat in that game was excellent, and the brother/sister dynamic worked really well. Both characters were <gasp> likeable!

 

The worst, in my opinion, is easily Assassin's Creed III. Not only did Connor have the personality of a wet log, but the combat and A.I. in that game was just broken. It was also stupid having to deal with the entire damn British army every time you raised an alarm. I went through the entire game without upgrading anything but his ax, and completely ignored anything on the homestead. I went through the trouble to do the Oak Island quest because it was the only thing that even remotely resembled AC, even if the artifact you get practically breaks the (already broken) game.

 

I actually didn't like Origins all that much either. I found Bayek's and Connor's motivations and personalities to be almost exactly the same, which was stupid because Connor had been pretty much universally hated by everyone for years before Origins came out.

[5timechamp]

I had to vote for Black Flag... so many mechanics and systems, all fun.

Kenway takes a little too long to become a assassin for my liking..

 

also like to agree on the original being truly special, it had one of my favorite settings... a revisit without the perfected refinements would be nice..

 

have not tried the “new style” creed games.. both settings are amazing, just need the time to play

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Best is probably Odyssey, though I prefer the setting of Ancient Egypt more. 
 

Worst is the first game. I was so excited to play it, especially for the setting and time period and it ended up being mediocre and boring. AC III is pretty close, though. 
 

I’ll always have a serious fondness for the Ezio trilogy, though. 

[Keyser_Soze]

I've only played up to Black Flag, and never even finished it but I would rank it

 

1. Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

2. Assassin's Creed

3. Assassin's Creed 2

4. Assassin's Creed: Revelation

5. Assassin's Creed: Black Flag

6. Assassin's Creed: Liberation

7. Assassin's Creed: 3

 

I think that's all of the ones I played.

 

Since this is a thread specifically about the quality of the games and I've shared my thoughts on why I rank the first one so highly before, I'll do it one more time I suppose.

 

The first game was the only game where stealth and being an assassin mattered. After doing the prep work to get intel on your target then came the part where you actually had to assassinate your target, and if you screwed up you'd get punished. Combat was a bit more challenging and you could die so there were stakes at hand. In later games you're just god of combat and can dispatch everyone pretty easily.

I also enjoyed the aspect of the kingdom that you could ride through to get to the other cities. This should have been worked on not ditched like the Mako in Mass Effect. A lot of the appeal of assassin's creed is free running and climbing historical landmarks and this one had some iconic ones. This also became less of a focus after revelation came out. Also, this had the most compelling Desmond material, when he got free after the first game the series got really dumb. The papal conspiracies, Adam and Eve stuff and all that stuff with Juno. Oh boy.

In any case I'm probably forgetting some stuff but that's why it's one of my favorite games in the series.

[Brian]

2 hours ago, Firewithin said:

Best - Odyssey or Black Flag (i voted for Odyssey)

Worst - AC3

This for me as well

[Mercury33]

1. Brotherhood

2. Black Flag

3. AC 1

4. AC 2

5. Rogue

6. Odyssey

7. Revelations

8. Origins

9. Sydicate

10. Unity

 

 

 

11. AC3

 

Ill always give the edge to the first 4 games. To me they all held true essence of what the series was, stealth and assassination. The climbing was also all about verticality and staying off the streets to stay hidden. Even within the Ezio trilogy that started to erode but the essence was there. Also, and I may be in the minority but the modern day story was still great. It was an interesting mystery that tied everything together. I’ll remember the endings of AC1, AC2 and Brotherhood forever. 
 

AC3 is the biggest steaming pile of shit I’ve ever played. Fuck that game. Not only does it take everything I just said and throws it in the trash but it gives you one or the most wooden and uninteresting main characters in the history of gaming. And what makes Connor ever worse, is that you play for the first couple hours as Haythem who is actually incredibly fun and interesting. So you get this great character with this cool twist of being a Templar and then they go HAHA NOPE JK, here’s this piece of shit character you have to play as instead. I hate that god damn game. 
 

Origins is good and Odyssey is great but to me they’re really totally different games and don’t really fit into the spirit of the series. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll really really like them I just can’t rate them above the earlier games when discussing the whole series haha

[johnny]

Best - AC2. NOW I doubt it would be the “best” but playing that game has been the best experience compared to any other. Currently playing odyssey right now and it will likely be number 2 or maybe 1. It’s really good. 
 

Worst - Origins. It’s the only AC game I didn’t bother finishing. They boofed the open world RPG stuff. Every mission is to go to a fort or whatever and kill the people. The real problem that compounds this issue is how much you have to grind to get leveled up. If you’re going to make me grind don’t make me do the same thing over and over. I’ve played more of odyssey than origins and I don’t have to grind very much in that game. I mostly do main quest and side stuff that I find interesting and am running into none of the issues of Origins. AC3 would probably be second to last. 

[Keyser_Soze]

I rank Assassin's Creed 3 as the worst because of a lot of things but I think it had one of the better stories in the series and playing as the bad guy at the beginning was a good twist.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Origins was amazing. I was getting tired of the series, but then I played that one and I loved it again. Odyssey expanded on the formula, so I think it's the better game, but I completely loved exploring Ancient Egypt.

[Bacon]

AC2 and Brotherhood are the best. AC3 is the worst. Unity (that's the French one right?) was bland af but not the literal pile of shit that was AC3. AC1 and Revelations are this only other AC games I have played.

[gamer.tv]

I'm not a huge AC fan (or Ubisoft fan on reflection) but Black Flag was the best game for me, then I've not really put much time into many others, so I'll say the first Assassin's Creed game, by default, was the worst (out of AC, AC2, Black Flag and Origins)

[Dodger]

This thread made me realize I’ve only played 3 games in the series and never finished one.

[johnny]

16 hours ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Origins was amazing. I was getting tired of the series, but then I played that one and I loved it again. Odyssey expanded on the formula, so I think it's the better game, but I completely loved exploring Ancient Egypt.

I get that. I think another problem for me was that the world was too flat for an AC game. But I only played half of it before getting tired of it so it probably gets better as the game goes along. 

[Xbob42]

Odyssey is by far my favorite, followed closely by Origins. They took the series in a direction that actually made it fun to play. While I've "liked" several AC games prior to that (and have played them all) the combat was always fucking terrible. In my opinion, combat was the thing holding the series back, because it was never fun --even a little bit-- to engage in Assassin's Creed combat. At best is started becoming passable when they introduced a bunch of weapon variety and had enemies stop attacking you one at a time as you countered and instantly killed them with the parry button, but it just went from tedious to mediocre. I think this is why people liked 4 so much, because unlike the ground combat, the naval combat actually had a little depth to it and couldn't be won by spamming triangle/Y over and over again.

 

Then Origins hit, which really made the combat fun to play, it wasn't perfect, but it was like night and day compared to the previous titles. The RPG mechanics worked in the game's favor as the open world previously felt pretty meaningless in many ways, and the series seriously lacked meaningful character progression outside of a slowly growing health bar and often story-delivered upgrades that didn't matter since you could one-shot everyone in most of the games.

 

Finally, we come to Odyssey, where the RPG mechanics are rounded out beautifully with myriad active abilities, giving you freedom to customize your character in a way that's not just stats, and the satisfaction of doing something besides basic attacks and blocks. Getting rid of the shield was a good concession as well, forcing you to actually participate in combat because you're never safe, even though they made the parry timing a little too easy with the huge window you have to hit it as well as the fact that it triggers even on back attacks, which is probably for the best since plenty of attacks can still go through it, like heavy and ranged. If they can further expand upon this in Valhalla, I'll be super happy. I'd also be a big fan of the (completely optional) ability to play the campaign co-op. With the skill tree system and open world, I think it'd make for a fun little mini-MMO where you could form a party with different combat roles. I 100% do not expect this to happen, but it'd be my next big ask. Me an friend were very prepared to have fun in Unity co-op, until we found out it was some bunk ass little sectioned off part of the game and not the whole campaign. What a letdown.

 

Speaking of letdowns and Unity... that's easily what I consider the worst in the series. They added lots of new weapons, which I consider a huge plus, but I think the disappointments associated with that game have been enumerated on again and again. I don't think it's the worst by a huge margin or anything, the actual game when you're playing it isn't significantly worse than the others of that era, but the endless technical issues hampered the experience tremendously. I'd say it's a close race between this, 3 and 1. But I kinda liked 1, I feel like I'd enjoy seeing where that series would be if they enhanced and improved the mechanics they were working with there instead of just abandoning it and redoing everything for 2, although I guess you could say that's exactly what a refined and enhanced 1 looks like, I really felt like they shifted away from some elements core to 1. On the other hand, while 3 had one of my favorite settings by far, the main character was the dullest I'd ever seen and frankly I think that alone helped squander the setting. I'd love to see a return to that time period. Hell, I'd love them to release a sequel to 3 that maybe followed a character that wasn't a piece of dry toast.

[SimpleG]

Out of all the Forest Gump simulators Syndicate is likely my favorite. Brotherhood is a close second with my least favorite being 3 but it has what could have been a great setting in the series.

 

 

I would love a Aztec or Mayan AC. A giant city flanked on all sides by jungle would be fun as shit.

[Xbob42]

Oh, I completely forgot about environments. As I was saying on Discord, older AC games always had a sort of "generically pretty" look to them for their time. Visually impressive but often lacking in the kind of artistry that leaves a lasting impression. The occasional pretty vista and of course recognizable landmarks, but with Origins and Odyssey, it felt like the art team got to flex their creative muscles and add tons of detail and color and life to what you'd expect to be a relatively bland environment. There's some seriously cool scenery that has nothing to do with sweeping views or historical landmarks, I stop in these two games all the time to just admire the world they've built.

[Paperclyp]

I have never touched an AC game. I was so hyped for the original but was a poor college kid at the time. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

I've beaten every main game(as in, I didn't mess with the portable spinoffs. It's hard for me to rank them in order. But I didn't hate Unity. I didn't play it right away, since it had so many performance issues, but after some patches, I went through it and I liked it. Arno was a bit of a dull character(not as dull as Connor, though.) And that was the game where the formula started to change some, so I appreciated that. My favorites are Odyssey, Origins, the Ezio trilogy, and Black Flag. Bottom picks are AC1 and III.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

3 minutes ago, Paperclyp said:

I have never touched an AC game. I was so hyped for the original but was a poor college kid at the time. 

So was I. I still played games.

[Paperclyp]

12 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

So was I. I still played games.

I did too, but November 2007 was pretty stacked and I just never got to it (I’m positive it was outranked by other games in my budget) then 2 was out and before you knew it there were 12 AC games and it’s just like Jesus Christ who has the time. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

2 minutes ago, Paperclyp said:

I did too, but November 2007 was pretty stacked and I just never got to it (I’m positive it was outranked by other games in my budget) then 2 was out and before you knew it there were 12 AC games and it’s just like Jesus Christ who has the time. 

I couldn't tell you what other games released in 2007. AC2 came out two years later.

 

If I recall, I binged the Ezio trilogy and III the Summer before Black Flag came out. Kinda nuts I did that looking back.

[Jason]

I remember quitting AC III because I really liked that Morris mini game and getting incredibly fed up with this glitch that would literally just block you from placing the winning piece.

[Keyser_Soze]

28 minutes ago, Paperclyp said:

I have never touched an AC game. I was so hyped for the original but was a poor college kid at the time. 

 

Should have sent me a letter in the mail. I'd send you my physical copy!

[Paperclyp]

8 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

I couldn't tell you what other games released in 2007. AC2 came out two years later.

 

If I recall, I binged the Ezio trilogy and III the Summer before Black Flag came out. Kinda nuts I did that looking back.

Uncharted, COD4, Mass Effect, The Orange Box, Halo 3 for sure. Maybe Galaxy? But I didn’t have a Wii. 
 

Kingdom hearts was the equivalent for me in high school. Super hyped for it and then just never had the money at the right time and never got into the series. Maybe dodged a bullet there lol. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

1 minute ago, Paperclyp said:

Uncharted, COD4, Mass Effect, The Orange Box, Halo 3 for sure. Maybe Galaxy? But I didn’t have a Wii. 
 

Kingdom hearts was the equivalent for me in high school. Super hyped for it and then just never had the money at the right time and never got into the series. 

Galaxy was the one one of those I got at release. The rest, I picked up a year or two later. I was probably played a lot of retro stuff back the. That was early in my collecting days.

[Keyser_Soze]

16 minutes ago, Paperclyp said:

Kingdom hearts was the equivalent for me in high school. Super hyped for it and then just never had the money at the right time and never got into the series. Maybe dodged a bullet there lol. 

 

You risk getting norted if you play KH.