It's on sale. You're here. You think to yourself: "Should I get this?" You look for Steam reviews. Most people are positive but some are not. Then you see this review. This review is written by a madlad with more than 200 hours in this stupid game. This dude has spent more than in virtual Paris than he has in actual Paris during one of his holidays. He practically lives there. So you're curious what he has to say, so you start reading.

If this game is on sale and you're interested, get it. Just walking around can be fun. Get the no HUD mod from the nexus https://www.nexusmods.com/assassinscreedunity/mods/2 and immerse yourself in one of the best recreations of a historical city ever.

If you want to actually play the game, here are my thoughts.

Story is ok but not amazing. It has problems but whatever. It works for what it needs to do, which is give you excuses to do stuff in the world.

Gameplay on the other hand is great. Combat is slow but that's the point. This is mainly a stealth game. HUH, I hear you say, but yes, Arno can't just kill 600 soldiers in a few minutes, especially since enemies use the one thing he is allergic too a lot, namely bullets. A focus on stealth in an Assassin's Creed game, who would have thought.

And the stealth is great (when it works). Sure, sometimes they see you through walls but that is the exception, not the norm. I highly recommend you watch this video by LeoK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5lB14UzX-U to get your stealth gameplay to an enjoyable level ASAP, because stealth has a learning curve and it can be frustrating, but once you can clear entire zones without being seen, you feel like a god.

Parkour is great too but in my opinion it lacks a few moves, most notably the manual side eject. Still, it looks great and Paris is so dense that I 100% believe you can get anywhere from anywhere without touching the ground. Once you get in the flow it's amazing, and to get there quickly I recommend watching this video by Jcers for beginner and advanced movement techniques https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnSQ-XQLWGE .

But now you are saying: "Yo, why the heck should I watch 40+ minutes of videos before I can enjoy this game?". Well, this game has depth. Unfortunately, it explains almost none of it. But once you start to apply these techniques your gameplay will improve because you improved, kinda like dark souls, and you just keep coming back. It's just fun to be able to show off in this game.

Multiplayer is also a thing. It's not entirely dead but not really alive either. If you click "play together now" the game will add you to random parties, which is your best bet for multiplayer action if you like me you have no friends. You can also try them solo, where they become probably the ultimate challenges.

Game is relatively bug free, but it still has some. It's still a Ubisoft and an AC game. Your mileage may vary, but I can't remember ever having a serious problem in at least 100 hours.

This is simply the best Assassin's Creed game on a mechanical level, and it is truly underappreciated for it. Give it a chance. I'll see you in another 200 hours.

EDIT: Okay, I want to add some things

The DLC is really great. Designed for after the main story, missions are challenging in both combat and navigation. The new area has a phenomenal atmosphere and the catacombs beneath are claustrophobic and sometimes even creepy. It deals with Arno's well being after the main story and gives him some much needed characterisation. Honestly the story here is better than in the main game. This is my favorite DLC of the old style of games.

I talked a bit about multiplayer but not about if it's good or not. In my opinion, it is, but of course if it works. There are more bugs and issues while online but it is still somethin I come back to. Missions are balanced around multiple players and playing with someone else and having each others back is just a great feeling.

Finally I want to say that I play all AC games with a controller, except this one. If you play with a controller too and feel frustrated by the controls, consider giving KB+M a try. I remapped RUN to my right mouse and AIM to a side mouse button, and it feel natural to me. In my opinion, KB+M gives you more control, where a controller leaves you much more at the mercy of the game.

Assassin's Creed Unity is currently free at Uplay from April 17th until April 25th

Before anything else in Unity, do yourself a favour and set the spoken language to French. I guarantee you, there is nothing more annoying than sitting through a conversation between French aristocrats at Versailles, performed in cockney English – it is just intolerable. Even if you don’t speak a word of French, set the language to French and enable subtitles. The game is at least twice as immersive in French as it is in English.

Besides that, Unity is the game that could. It could have been the best in the series. It could have been a smooth experience. The technology is there. The visuals are there. The gameplay is there. The difficulty is, for the first time in this series, there. Unity takes place in an absolutely stunning rendition of revolutionary Paris. There are crowds shouting in the streets, burning furniture and books, there are people going about with heads on pikes after beheadings. Guards are smarter and more lethal and for the first time in the series you may actually die from combat with enemies. You can also move better, more precisely and actually go and land where you want to.

The Nostradamus enigmas are absolutely enjoyable and give a high feeling of reward once you solve them – if you resist the stupidity of looking them up on the internet. The same applies to the murder mysteries – absolutely enjoyable if you play them straight. The main storyline is solid and has a good pace, though it can’t compete with the likes of AC II or Black Flag.

So why isn’t this the best AC ever? Basically, there is too much extra content and too much online focus. Too many weapons. Too many outfits. Too many co-op missions that need to be grinded again and again to unlock the aforementioned too many items. There are too many pickpockets on the streets of Paris and you get too many prompts to chase them down. Mind you that I played version 1.5 where these things are milder than the original release. However, the fact that even after 5 patches there are still some npc’s floating in the air above their market stalls is simply unacceptable.

The Dead Kings add-on is ok but really – it adds nothing to your experience other than a grenade launcher and some more hours of mercilessly assassinating thugs.

All in all though – you simply have to play Unity – because for all it’s little annoyances it is still an absolutely visually stunning game, with great gameplay, interesting characters and set in an interesting setting. Just as long as you do it in French….

I say this as a hardcore fan of the franchise but my patience is wearing thin as the game's technical problems are slowly eroding any fun I got out of this game. The game is constantly crashing about every 1/2 an hour on average for me. The game might be playable in 4 - 6 months time but for now, it is definitely not worth playing.

Game mechanics are more or less classic AC. That's great if you enjoyed any of the previous instalments. However, because Ubisoft has decided to force Multiplayer on us. Here's what you are missing out on if you just want to play the game totally solo single-player and not participate in any co-op or any of the guild (called clubs ingame) content (which I must add, the club competitions are NOT EVEN RELEASED YET) You are completely locked out of the 5 star gear upgrades if you are a solo player meaning you will hit a glass ceiling in terms of gear.

The Armor set in Unity that can be unlocked is basically a reskinned Altair's costume (Either a Pro or Con depending on your preference), however it is basically a skin and has no statistical advantages so it is pointless to pursue if you are not a fan of the looks. I should also mention that you need to collect about 12 seals to unlock the gear which means it will take a while to do as well.

The Parkour is great in this game and probably the best in the entire series so far however as usual, it has a lot of stickiness issues. I've basically bounced about on all 4 sides of a window for 30 seconds or so because the game just doesn't want to let me climb to the exact spot to climb into a building.

Level design is much better than the last few games. Now they give you a more open area and let you figure out which route you want to take to get your target which is pretty fun when you perfectly execute an assassination. However there are a few levels (or some spots used in assassin missions) where the layout and guard density can get pretty ridiculous. Overall though the level design is pretty good in Unity.

The Stealth detection mechanics are pretty spotty in this game. I have encountered issues where guards were alerted of my presence after I stealth killed another guard on another floor or issues where guards all across the restricted zone are alerted to me when I killed a guard and there were no other guards looking my way.

Combat is a lot more difficult compared to previous games (which again could be a pro or con depending on your preferences). No longer can you fight off 20 or so guards and win easily. All guards carry guns which can take out 1/2 to 3/4 of your HP if you stick around too long so you have to try not to stay in combat for too long. The Double Assassination mechanics seem to be pretty spotty too in my experience. Even with 2 enemies clearly highlighted for a double air assassination, I have found myself frequently seeing Arno only hit one target which causes me to aggro the 2nd guard and consequently every guard in the zone is alerted to me.

The Story is pretty meh and doesn't really take advantage of the interesting setting of the French Revolution which is pretty unfortunate. You only seem to read about the events of the French Revolution behind the scenes through the ingame journals or dialogue but are not really involved in many of the big events. I can't think of a single character outside of Elise who is memorable or even has any kind of personality. Arno is okay but is a poor man's version of Ezio.

Ubisoft has also included chests that rely on you playing a Mobile App to be able to unlock. I decided to give it a try but uninstalled it 2 days after playing it after it reset my progress twice. Another broken component of ACU... There is also an AC Initiates web game which I'm not too sure what the point of it is as it is still half built at this point on the website and it has also reset my level earlier. To unlock the legacy skins like Altair's Armor, Ezio's armor, etc you need a certain Initiate level before you can open the chest. (Seeing a pattern with Club Competitions, Companion App and Initiates? I'm not sure why Ubisoft is adding in all these extra things to the main game when they are all pretty much incomplete, unfinished and bug-ridden)

Frankly if Ubisoft couldn't get all this working, they should either have left them out of the game completely and made sure their main game is fully featured and actually works properly or delayed the game release.

One of the best games I ever played in my whole life, I just don't understand why this game is so underrated and hated, because I loved it.
Gameplay is just amazing, you have a lot of things to do like CO-OP (first AC game with CO-OP mode), heists, secondary missions, quests, detective missions etc.
Parkour system is much better than system used in previous game from this franchise. More unique and developed.
Storyline is good, it makes you do more and more missions just to see what happens between you and Elise or between Assassins and Templars.
Also, there are a lot of weapons, upgrades, skills, unique clothes that can be purchased with in-game money that makes cash an important thing in the game.
A lot of people said that this game is buggy and unoptimized. Well, that isn't true at all. I never saw a problematic/extremly serious bug in the game except some crashes, and optimization is average, but Assassin's Creed Syndicate's one is better, that's true. But the game is playable on ULTRA on a GTX 1060 with i5 6500 setup, so that's alright.

Okay, seriously, this is a new low. And I'm not talking about visual glitches (which are horrific), I'm not talking about DRM, microtransactions and all other stuff. I'm not even infuriated about the lack of english language in my regional version. Well, I am, sort of, but only because the pre-order clearly stated that all languages are included.
And suddenly after the purchase it isn't, and few hours later store page is updated to reflect this issue.

THIS.
IS.
♥♥♥♥ING.
FRAUD.

Update
======
So I've been trying to resolve this with technical support of Ubi since release, aaaaand… you guessed right! Basically, their answer is: “You can go ♥♥♥♥ yourself, we took your money, we owe you nothing”. Additionally I must mention that support took their time responding. After first response: “We can't help you, go talk to Valve” and me catching them on their ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ (publisher admins store page, not Valve) they waited WHOLE MONTH (even more, 34 days to be exact) to just copy-pase another “We can't help you, go ♥♥♥♥ yourself”.
It really amuses me. The price of changing one digital copy for another for a company is a ♥♥♥♥ing ZERO. Yet their support wastes time writing meaningless ♥♥♥♥. And worst of all: there is no other channel of communication. No phone number, no address (though they have regional office, but it's super-duper secret, so I can't even make a complaint about their horrible support).
You know what, Ubi? I've had enough of your ♥♥♥♥. I will never ever pay even a single cent for you game, no matter how good it will be. Go ♥♥♥♥ yourself — that's my answer. I was a loyal customer for years, I've tolerated your lazy development, bugs and stuff. But pissing on me and saying it's raining? You must be really delusional to think you're doing good job. More importanly I will tell every person I know, every friend, every fellow online, when it comes to any of Ubi games, and the person wants to know whether it's good, should he buy it; my answer will be short: Hell no.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☑ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☑ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☑ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second live for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☑ 9
☐ 10

I'm a huge fan of the Assassin's Creed series. As a history nerd and a huge stealth genre fanboy, these games are always right up my alley.

Now I'll tell you why Assassin's Creed Unity is, flat out, one of the worst games I've played in years, and why it's absolutely unrecommendable to everybody who owns a gaming PC.

I want to start off by saying that I was absolutely hyped for this game. More hyped than any Assassin's Creed game since Assassin's Creed 2. I had watched a few gameplay videos that sold me due to the fact that the devs seemed to be going for the classic Assassin's Creed experience: An emphasis on stealthy gameplay, an intriguing historical period, and a stripped down approach to weapons and gadgets. It hearkened back to Assassin's Creed II, which is an amazing game and probably the best in the series, closely followed by Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and Black Flag.

The first drawback is the one everybody already knows about: The game is nearly totally broken at this point. Bugs are everywhere, the game hard crashes quite often, and it runs like a dog even on the most beastly of rigs. For me in particular, the most damning graphical drawback was some kind of weird frame stutter that I would experience literally every 4 seconds without fail, even in menus. I'm not sure what's causing this, but the game is nearly unplayable with it unless you're incredibly determined. As you can see, I have managed to bludgeon through several hours of the game, mostly due to its amazing recreation of Revolutionary Paris, which is by far the best aspect of the game. Most of that is wandering about the landscape and gathering collectables, which has been the peak of my enjoyment of the game, because any missions are so difficult to get through thanks to the fact that it's maybe the single most broken game I've played since Obsidian was forced to release Knights of the Old Republic II in it's half-finished state way back in 2004. And that's saying something, because that game was a broken mess.

There's been enough said about the games broken, poorly optimized state. I'd like to talk about why it would be a bad game even if it were to run beautifully. I'm going to talk about the past couple of AC games here, so bear with me.

I hated Assassin's Creed 3. Absolutely despised it. I thought it was terribly designed. It had muddy control and poor line-of-sight mechanics that often resulted in instant game over detections, it had awfully designed stealth sequences that forced you to follow people at ridiculously close lengths, and it had bad checkpoints that compounded both of those issues. A number of the missions (the midnight ride, the Charles Lee chase sequence) were just horribly designed to the point where they were frustrating. To top it off, the writing was utter trash, all of the characters were cardboard cutouts, and nothing was even worth following.

Then came Black Flag, which was a complete redemption for the series. The game was so much fun, it was beautiful to look at, and, most importantly for me, IT FIXED THE SERIES STEALTH AND GAMEPLAY DESIGN PROBLEMS! Control was smooth. Stealth sequences were designed well. Free running and climbing was nearly bug-free, quick, and intuitive. Trying to achieve 100% stealth in the plantation sequences were probably my favorite missions in the game. Playing Black Flag felt like the Assassin's Creed series had truly taken a step forward, like it was ready to get back to being the stellar franchise that Assassin's Creed II had promised it would be.

Enter Assassin's Creed Unity.

The reason I contrasted AC3 and Black Flag is because playing through Unity gave me the distinct feeling that I was playing a game designed by the AC3 team. It has the same exact pitfalls that I just described in AC3. Controls are muddy and you never truly feel totally in control of Arno. He lumbers to and fro in the vague direction you send him. A cover mechanic has been introduced that's way too sticky, way too close to guesswork, and generally hampers stealth so poorly that I completely stopped using it except in sequences when the game forces you to. And, to top it off, they've redesigned free running and climbing with a system that seems like it should work beautifully, but fails miserably in every aspect of its execution. The days of your jumping off into odd directions, taking the wrong path up a building, and even inexplicably stopping in place and having to recenter the stick, then hit up again to continue moving HAVE ALL RETURNED FROM ASSASSIN'S CREED II. Seriously, bugs from a game that was made back in 2009 and were just solved last year have miraculously reappeared. How do you mess up that badly?

Add in that the music, something that was unbelievably atmospheric and really made the experience of Florence in Assassin's Creed II, and lent you sea shanties that stuck in your head for hours in Black Flag (and was utterly forgettable at best and terrible at worst in AC3) is absolutely unnoticeable. In fact, I didn't think about it once until, midway through this review, I remembered how much I loved Jesper Kyd's work in AC2. That's how forgettable it is.

There are also several instances of immersion-breaking content, including chests that are only open via the Unity Companion App, and microtransactions that are so hamfistedly jammed in they pull you right out of the experience. It's a basic example of an immersion murdering mechanic, and it boggles my mind that developers have not learned why you don't do these things in games. Hell, even the publisher and the money people should know why immersion is important for a single player gaming experience. There's no excuse for garbage like this.

You can also consider Ubi's utter failure to maintain some semblance of business ethics by setting their review embargo to 12:00 PM of release day, rather than the day of or the day before as is common practice. Why would they do this, you say? The only obvious reason that comes to mind is that they knew their game was an unfinished, broken piece of garbage, and they decided that their best course of action was to lie to their customers for as long as possible in order to prevent them from canceling their preorders. Despicable.

It really disappoints me to tear this game apart so viciously because I've been such a huge fan of the series. I'd like to believe that this was rushed out the door by Ubi, and that the team would eventually have produced a good game if they were given adequate time to have worked on the things that fail here. But at the end of the day, blame lies with the developer as well as the publisher.

"A delayed game is eventually good, a rushed one is forever bad"
- Shigeru Miyamoto

In conclusion, there is very little redeeming quality in this game. Unless you're an absolute history nerd or a super hardcore Assassin's Creed fan, this game is completely unrecommendable in its current state. Furthermore, even if the game were totally fixed, even if the graphical issues and the bugs were completely ironed out and the game ran beautifully, this still isn't worth a purchase because it's easily the worst Assassin's Creed and just not a great game period. The dev team here has an eternity of failure to look forward to, as people will forever think of this game as an exemplary pillar of Ubisoft's descent into the basement of video game development and business ethics. Hell, at least Watch Dogs had some interesting mechanics and some competent stealth sequences. This game brings absolutely nothing to the table. Just replay Black Flag instead. Or burn $60 in your backyard while punching yourself in the face, because that's a more valuable, entertaining experience than playing this game will ever be.

(2020 Edit: Removed a link to an obsolete YouTube video)

why is kanye and jay-z not in paris bruh

I don't think, that anyone in 2k23 really neads this review, but still. Here is my honest opinion on this undoutably ambitious, but sadly, an imperfect game. Let's start simple. The story.Well, to put in a few words, it's ok. There is no WOW-effect, especially concidering how janky it feels sometimes. There are missions, that follow each other, but the characters themself feel completely different. It looks like something inbetween is actualy missing. Other than that, the story is something you can actually enjoy for one play-through, but nothing remarkable. BUT, if you liked Arno, Elisabeth and others, you can check out a book by Oliver Bowden, "Assasin's creed: Unity". It is kinda stupid, that you need to read a book to understand the background of the story. But if you are searching for something to read - try it out. It won't leave you disappointed and is actually a good-writen one.Gameplay.Missions. Oh boi, i have to say a lot. Story missions are generally very well-designed. The assasination missions are the best in the entire series, in my opinion. The way you prepare to the assasination, the process, the planing, side quests - everything feels fun and interesting to play. Especially on you first (and usually the only) playthrough, when you are not that familiar with the game's mechanics. My advice - don't rush them, play smart and slow, it's much more rewarding. The other missions usually have some interesting gameplay evolved, but nothing to say about. You won't get bored, but also nothing WOW.The Murder Mysteries are cool. Unironicly cool. Aside from that - it's mostly garbage. Cafe Theater - nothing special, Helix rifts - SH*T gameplay-wise and are boring as ♥♥♥♥. Nostradamus Enigmas - cool, BUT I'M NOT WASTING MY ENTIRE F*CKING LIFE TO SOLVE THEM. Googled all, and STILL, it took me more than f*cking 3 Hours to complete them. But, I mean, the outfit you are rewarded with is cool, so I guess it's worth it. I want to complete this game 100%, so I have to deal with all this, and it's mostly just "complete and forget" type of stuff.Co-op missions and heists are cool.Open-world. Just superb, Paris is REALLY well-represented. It's insane how many NPC's out there on the streets, they make everything so much more alive. Yes, they are some-what buggy and sometimes feel unrealisic and kinda junky, but overall, really cool. The map design is also very interesting. Unlike in 1st titles where you could spot the "Parkour routes" with ease, Unity has, i'd call it, a seamless map, where everything seems really realistic. One of the reasons I dislike the first games, is that the cities look pre-made and unflowy to move around, "the enviroment is allready there for you", if you want to climb this building - use these crates, these wooden planks that make no real sence for them to be placed between rooftops and so on. Of course, Unity still uses the same formula of moving the player around, but this time it doesn't feel like ther is a "correct" route to use. The amount of detales out there are also impressive, and they tend to blend out all those stuff, that are there to help you to move around. Parkour. It's beautiful. The best one in the series. I don't care if it's unreaslistic, too buggy sometimes. It is the one AND ONLY AC game, that you can boot up ONLY to go for a parcour session. At least for me. The general flow is insane. The way you move around, the ANIMATIONS, the city - it feels like you are the part of it. Everything is there for you, you need to only run and enjoy. But yea, this is the most contraviesial part of the game. Due to AC Unity's poor release, people tended to remember this gameplay as a buggy, unreallistic kinda thing with bad animations and such. This parkour suits my personal preferences, but I completely understand someone, that will say that it's not that good. At this point you have to decide, wether you like the game's flow overall or not. It all comes down to personal preference. I want to just note, that this game has arguably the most complex parcour system there is. The amount of stuff you can do with it is actually insane, trust me.Combat system.It's great. It is complex, but not too complex to be boring or too in-depth. You have different types of weapons, each of them have there uniqe style and flow, some tricks and stuff. Overall, it's enjoyable, but stelth is way more fun. Last but not least - soundtrack. All I can say - I listen to some OST till this day. That says a lot.DLC is cool gameplay-wise, adding a new weapon and a unique looking map. The story is also very-very cool, It felt even better then the main one for me. This was my opinion. I know people, who say that it's a game with a garbage story with plastic charactrers, bad buggy gameplay and is overall unpleasant and unflowy. I can completely understand them and, though I enjoy the game, I can't say that it's perfect. But I highly suggest you to buy and play it.Don't have a good day. Have a great day.

UPD.
Modders finally fixed the game! More specifically, they fixed buggy clothes animations and added A TON of features to the game. So, if you are thinking about playing this game, WASTE A LITTLE BIT OF YOUR TIME BUT INSTALL THE NEW MODS (YouTube is there for you)