Is anyone else....

[II Rickman II]

finding this game a real chore to play, so much travelling around on a horse for very little reward? Missions seem a bit meh? really cannot be bothered with it, is this just me or anybody else finding this too?

[The Former]

If you're just playing to complete it, I can definitely get that vibe. It's a game that's meant for those who like to just enjoy the view as they go from point A to point B. Meant to be played a bit more like RDR2 than it is an traditional Assassin's Creed, I'd say.

[Dreamer Zetsuna the Sleepy]

it's the Ubisoft formula

[Shin Happens]

Sometimes... what this game seriously lacks are fun/good random events while traveling from A to B. All you encounter is... a) Ronin trying to kill you b) Shinobi trying to kill you c) random guys killing each other c) some animal you can draw - none of which is all that entertaining. Ronin are dead after 3 seconds. Shinobi, since often there are two of them, maybe take 10 seconds. The random fighting guys... if you want to kill them all... maybe 20 seconds.

What I also do not get is that quite a few locations you can discover on the map have literally nothing for you. Not one single measly chest with resources not even talking about chests with actually useful gear. Not even anyone to kill. So why are these temples or villages even in the game when they have 0 actual content? Are they just supposed to be landmarks then so the game can tell you"evil dude no 182 is west of Nothingville"?.

All the other AC open world games had a lot more things for you in the open world. I only fast travel now, actually going from A to B is pointless.

[MansLaughter]

UBI games almost always feel that way. It is less a flaw with AC:Shadows than it is a flaw with Ubi's game design philosophy.

[googleman81]

I enjoy walking through the jungle in Ghost Recon Breakpoint with the music turned off a lot more than fumbling down a hill with the wind piping around me in this game.
Even though someone put an algorithm in place that puts something to shoot at every 100 yards on the map and those soldiers usually talk pretty loudly...

[Skylers Meth]

Originally posted by googleman81:

I enjoy walking through the jungle in Ghost Recon Breakpoint with the music turned off a lot more than fumbling down a hill with the wind piping around me in this game.
Even though someone put an algorithm in place that puts something to shoot at every 100 yards on the map and those soldiers usually talk pretty loudly...

That because driving to waypoints is an utter pain in the arse @ 14km's away on broken roads that may or may not lead there.

[sh3riff]

Many people who realized the game is bad from trailers before release and that ACS is not actually a sequel to the AC series, they just skipped the game.
So you have mostly super hardcore fans playing the game.

I had to mod this game to remove many annoying stuff and fix many not working stuff to actually finish the game. Which is rare. I almost always finish the game in vanilla and mod it later if i had fun.
Mods can prolong the gameplay by 100s-1000s hours.

Its kinda weird when i have to mod the game after 30 minutes of playing .. or wait for someone else to make the mods i need to actually just finish the game.
I spent over 2000 hours in Odyssey.
Bit over 100 in Valhalla and it was suffering and i just wanted it to end. Still finished it without any modding .. before last dlc release though.

ACS is just not fun.
I enjoy the game only solely for the graphics .. i spent many hours in Odyssey or Witcher 3 and some other games, just walking around the world, enjoying the wind, weather etc ..
So ACS is good walking simulator. When i tried to play the game, do anything else, it was pretty bad.
My best game memories are from around 1999, might & magic 5-8 .. kinda insane how the world and npc interacted with you.
Kinda insane how the world and npc are interacting with you in ACS.
Its just that .. one does in a good way, one in a bad way.

Funny part is .. i have skyrim on my pc, and its kinda on a par. It is heavily modded, footprints, wind, physics, grass and trees moving etc. I have a special dedicated drive just for skyrim how big it got :)
And here I was thinking how skyrim is old, outdated, that i should check for some new mods to improve.
ACS actually made me appreciate it more.

Good old games :)

[gamezonereactions]

Ubisoft needs Viagra.

[Darren Evans]

I don't mind the travelling. I'm one of those gamers who enjoys games with great world building from both a 3D technical and artistic design point and the latest updates to the Anvil engine that massively improve terrain draw distance for dynamic things like NPCs, fauna and raytraced lighting are great.

The missions though? Damn!, they soon get repetitive as crap loads of gangs start to infest your Objectives screen where, in addition to taking out all the Shinbakufu members, you now have to monotonously grind your way though even more gangs.

As of right now I have 11 more gangs to deal with in addition to Shinbakufu and a total of 66 gang members to track down and kill. This is copy & paste, minimum-viable-effort quest design at it's worst and is the kind of thing you'd expect from some lazy generative-AI process churning out side-quest slop instead of creative humans weaving compelling quests, character development and narrative into the world.

[Darren Evans]

Originally posted by The Former:

If you're just playing to complete it, I can definitely get that vibe. It's a game that's meant for those who like to just enjoy the view as they go from point A to point B. Meant to be played a bit more like RDR2 than it is an traditional Assassin's Creed, I'd say.

Yup and I'm the kind of player that enjoys exploration gameplay in an engine that manages to root you in the world with great visuals, great draw distances and a minimum of janky NPC, flora. fauna, lights and shadow pop-in. OP opinion of missions being 'meh' is not far off though.

[ZemX]

You do not need to clear the entire map in this game. Not even half of it. You can complete the main quests in the low to mid 40s level which you can attain mostly just by following the main story and the side quests that link from it. Maybe hitting locations along the way. You don't need to visit every point of interest ('?' on the map).

That's been true of all the big open world ACs since Origins really.

[lancelot]

I wouldn't call it a chore; I was just admiring the view, the weather effects and the beautiful animations, and occasionally thinking about how best to navigate to a waypoint, so riding by itself always felt very nice. Sadly, it actually might be the best part of the game. The ACS world does lack interesting activities and variety.

You can ride for 3 kilometers without discovering anything interesting. There's nothing to do or see in towns as well.

All the regions are quite similar; once you've seen the first bamboo grove, you've pretty much seen everything the game has to offer.

The problem with the dozens upon dozens of assassination targets is that there are no interesting setups for them or scripted scenes; at most you get a couple of dialog lines when reaching the target.

Features like the breathing tube, the ability to cling to a ceiling or to chain a rope swing and an assassination very rarely come in handy. Things like extinguishing the lights or assassinating enemies through doors don't add much to the gameplay either.

Combat also suffers from a lack of variety (and some jankiness, but that's probably a separate topic). You'll keep using the same 2-3 active abilities and keep seeing the same 2-3 finishers (three for Yasuke's katana -- impaling an enemy, decapitating a kneeling enemy and decapitating a standing enemy; it seems most weapons have only two finishers).