Currently free to flaim on Ubisoft Connect
https://register.ubisoft.com/acsyndicate/en-US

First off I'll say I am a loyal Assassins Creed fan and a dedicated PC gamer. I have also completed every Assassin's Creed game to date on PC. This is my personal opinion, being very picky, and coming from the perspective of a long time Assassins Creed fan;

PORT WISE
I can say that it runs MUCH better than AC Unity does. I have a GTX 780 ti and everything is always perfectly smooth with all settings maxed out (at least 50-60 fps). I would get ridiculous random stutters on AC Unity. (Unfortunately, because these are console ports you won't be getting much more than that.)

For the first time in an AC game I feel Ubisoft has actually put forth effort with regard to the PC port (Unlike every other developer, I'm looking at you, Bethesda). Unfortunately these days the gaming industry is more aimed at consoles. However they have actually removed mouse lag/mouse acceleration so navigating menus, moving camera around etc is more responsive. AC Unity was a headache to navigate around. Not surprising as they received ALOT of backfire from AC Unity last year.

The user interface could be toned down a bit. It has definitely been improved since AC Unity however there are some things that are just not needed/should be implemented in a different way. For example the detection ring around the character, enemy levels above their head etc.


GAMEPLAY WISE
Pretty much the same as any other Assassin's Creed game. Small improvements are made with regard to navigation, combat and stealth. The rope launcher feels like its needed as the streets are wider. Combat feels more responsive and fast paced. However it still feels like a constant 'click fest'. Stealth is made more simple with a simpler cover system. HOWEVER I believe the enemy detection system requires an overhaul. Silently kidnap an enemy, and suddenly 10 enemy carriages appear from nowhere and chase you down. Same with killing an enemy via a ranged weapon. Every enemy in the area is suddenly aware of your presence.
With regard to side content, I honestly believe they should stop adding in 'stuff to do for the sake of stuff to do'. There are alot of icons on the map and most if not all of these activites require you to 'kill/kidnap this enemy'. I wish they'd bring back old school Assassination contracts.

STORY WISE **SPOILERS**
It seems to be the same protocol every year for Assassins Creed in regard to the story; create a likeable, humorous protagonist that defeats the bad guy (Since ACIV at least).
I can say that I believe Jacob and Evie were not introduced very well. Start up a new game and you're all of a sudden assassinating enemies as Jacob. We don't know where he's from, what his motives are or what situation he's in. Its hard to describe.
I feel I do not always agree with the motives and feelings of the protagonists. Yes, they are freeing slaves, liberating London etc but I think it takes more than that to make you want to progress further.

You need to feel the emotions the protagonist is feeling. These characters have no motivation at all other than simply 'going after the bad guy because he is bad', which is lazy character development. Ezio, Edward and even Connor were perfect examples. They weren't simply 'going after the bad guy', they had realistic goals/motives. As much as Jacob and Evie are 'likeable' characters, there is simply no character development, the protagonists do not 'learn anything new' from their adventures, and their stories are rather abruptly ended. But YES they are somewhat likeable.

At the start of the game we are introduced to the big bad guy, Crawford Starrick, that is trying to control London and 'must be killed'. So without hesitation Jacob and Evie go after him and eventually kill him. They are thanked by the queen and the game ends. WTF? No epic plot twist or cliffhangers? Come on Ubisoft, this is the most boring, unexciting and predictable story yet. As much as I hate to say it, but even AC Unity had a more exciting story.
There are characters that COULD have been interesting/memorable like Henry Green, but unfortunately only have a few lines of dialogue.

Once again I believe the modern day story is lacking. You can tell that Ubisoft is simply trying to appeal to a wider audience by almost ditching the modern day story. On a positive note, I am glad they decided to include Juno in the storyline this time. But they really need to step up their game in regard to the modern day story. Give us a character to control, don't throw these 5 minute cutscenes at us.

BOTTOM LINE
I do not feel like an Assassin anymore. Instead I feel more like a gang leader or a street thug in a 'beat em up' game, which I think is wrong. In my opinion, Ubisoft needs to stop and think to themselves 'Okay, what does being an assassin actually mean?'. Assassins are supposed to hide from the general public. Instead we are openly starting gang wars. Assassins are supposed to be feared. Every enemy treats you like they are not scared at all. Taunting/intimidating you as you walk by. Remember that time in AC2 when you killed Uberto Alberti in open public? Everyone was shocked. Civilians were terrified. Assassinations need to be like that.
Assassins are also supposed to be a 'brotherhood'. Where were all the other assassins in London?

This is a great Assassins Creed game and I recommend it. Unfortunately, because its one of Ubisoft's best selling franchises, they feel the need to release annually which results in similar recycled content each year. Ubisoft really needs to go back to the 'core' of the franchise and make an effort to appeal to long time fans, NOT just always 'casual gamers' every year.

I don't understand why so many people think AC Syndicate "made up for what AC Unity did wrong". On the technical side, yes, it runs much smoother. But gameplay and story are still the same standard. Unmemorable characters with no development, anticlimatic story, same graphics, very similar gameplay.

So YES, I recommend Assassin's Creed Syndicate. But don't expect huge improvements or anything revolutionary.

Thank you for taking the time to read.

Syndicate is great. Not perfect, not a best game since ac2, but pretty great. City is vast, detailed and beautiful. Main characters are charming and make a good duo. Gameplay, as always, somewhat the same, somewhat new and interesting(first time I saw rope launcher I thought "Oh, they're making it easier, that'll kill parkour, this series is done for!", but 5 minutes later I found myself joyfully zipping and zapping on that thing all over the place). Quality of the story is subjective, but I enjoyed it. A step back from epic battles and world-shaking revolutions felt nice. Modern time storyline is still told through CG cinematics, but actually kinda matters this time. The game looks gorgeous too, just as good as unity, but optimized a bit better this time, haven't encountered any terrible fps drops or a single bug.

You could've skipped Unity, but you should buy Syndicate. It's well worth it.

you can run over children with a carriage

At the time of writing this review, I only have a few hours on this game on PC. But rest assured, I had hit almost 100% on console prior to purchasing this on Steam.

This installment in the series was a HUGE step in the right direction, in terms of both story and gameplay. I have a slight obsession with the AC series, and everything since AC3 just didn't really "feel" like AC. This game, to me, began a turnaround back to the great character stories and dialogue we've come to expect and love from the AC series. The game doesn't take any time at all slogging through a detailed character background sequence as per usual; it gets right into the meat of the game and lets you learn the character stories along the way.

This game is also optimized much better than Black Flag or Unity, and Victorian London with graphics at full blast in 4k is absolutely stunning.

One of the more common complaints I've seen is that the combat is too arcade-y and the addition of the grappling hook makes the game "too unrealistic". I'd like to address these...

1. The combat is much faster. Beyond that, I don't really see how it's more arcade-like unless you consider all the others arcade-like as well. Be honest with yourself, how many times have you found yourself in an AC game finishing a fight and suddenly finding Altair/Ezio/Connor/Edward/Arno standing in an overly large pile of corpses?

2. As far as the grappling hook making the game "unrealistic", I would like to remind those critics that a core element of every AC game has involved jumping dozens to hundreds of feet/meters off of buildings INTO PILES OF HAY.

I digress. If you are a fan of AC, and you weren't really into AC3 or Unity, and you shared my concerns about the direction of the series, I recommend this game. And I recommend that you play it all the way through, including the side story stuff.

The Last Asssassin's Creed game that feels like an Assassin's Creed game.

Now Free on Ubisoft

=== ( 🎯 Difficulty ) ===
☐ No Difficulty
☐ Easy
☑ Standard (The collectables can be a little challenging.)
☐ Big Learning Curve
☐ Hard
☐ Impossible

=== ( 👪 Audience ) ===
☐ Everyone
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☑ Mature

=== ( 👀 Graphics ) ===
☐ What Is This?
☐ Bad
☐ Acceptable
☑ Good
☐ Great
☐ Stylistic
☐ Beautiful
☐ Masterpiece

=== ( Sound/Music ) ===
☐ Bad
☐ Nothing Special
☐ Good
☑ Great (Found the music relatable, especially the background)
☐ Beautiful
☐ I´m Gonna Cry

=== ( 🌏 Story ) ===
☐ This Game Has No Story
☐ Nothing Special
☑ It´s Alright (It's played for a gameplay overall)
☐ Well Written
☐ Epic Story
☐ Thinking About It, When I Sleep

=== ( Grinding ) ===
☐ Nothing To Grind
☑ Isn't Necessary To Progress (Finding all the collectables takes time)
☐ Average Grind Level
☐ A Lot Of Grinding
☐ You‘ll Need A Second Life For Grinding

=== ( 💎 Price ) ===
☐ Free
☐ Underpriced
☐ Perfect Price
☑ Could Be Cheaper (For a game that's been out for 6 years)
☐ Overpriced

=== ( ☣ Requirments ) ===
☐ A Toaster Could Run This
☐ Low
☑ Average
☐ Above Average
☐ High End
☐ NASA Computer

=== ( ⏰ Game time/length ) ===
☐ Really short ( 0 - 4 hours)
☐ Short ( 4 - 12 hours)
☐ Average ( 12 - 24 hours)
☑ Long ( 24+ hours)
☐ Multiplayer/Neverending

=== ( 🐞 Bugs ) ===
☐ Game itself is a bug
☐ Lot of bugs
☑ Few Bugs (Quite funny ones)
☐ Nothing

=== ( Controller Support ) ===
☑ Yes
☐ no

=== ( Enjoyment ) ===
☐ I´d Rather Watch Grass Grow
☐ Hard To Enjoy
☐ Repetitive
☐ It's Okay
☑ Fun To Be Had For Sure
☐ The Kind Of Fun You Will Remember
☐ Life Changing

=== ( Replayability ) ===
☑ One-Time Experience
☐ Only For Achievements
☐ If You Wait A Few Months/Years
☐ Definitely
☐ Infinitely Replayable/Multiplayer

=== ( Worth Playing ) ===
☐ No
☐ Wait For A Sale
☑ Yes
☐ I Can´t Recommend It Enough

TOP FUN THINGS TO DO:
⭐️Ziplining from building to building.
⭐️Riding the carriages (Despite the bugs).
⭐️Heists! (Trains, Carriages and boats).

THE UNIQUES:
💎1800 British era.
💎Well thought out characters, fiction and non-fiction.
💎London layout.

PLAYER GAMING REQUIREMENTS:
💼Assassin's.
💼History.
💼Parkour.

VERDICT:
Being a British fellow myself, I found this game very relatable when it came to London itself. Most things were in the right place, with the atmosphere being how I would picture it back in the 1800 (Aside from Assassin's running around). The story didn't live up to some of the other Assassin's Creeds but the gameplay was very smooth and adding my new favourite gimmick (The Zipline) gave it a more fresh approach.

What I enjoyed the most out of this game would be the voice acting and how the characters reacted to certain things, just walking across the street was entertaining! This is the closest they get to the modern era and i'm very relieved that they stopped it here... in London.
Total Score = 81/100.

SIMILAR GAME LIKE THIS? / REVIEWER PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE:
Assassin's Creed franchise, DEATHLOOP.

GAMEPLAY:
It is the ninth major instalment in the Assassin's Creed series, and the successor to 2014's Assassin's Creed Unity.

The plot follows the premise of the Assassin's Creed franchise, involving a fictional history of real-world events where a secret war has been fought for centuries between two factions: the Brotherhood of Assassins, who promote peace and liberty, and the Templar Order, who desire peace through control. The framing story is set in the 21st century and follows the same unnamed and unseen protagonist from Assassin's Creed Unity, who assists the Assassins in their race against the Templars to find an artefact hidden in London. The main story is set in London in 1868, at the onset of the Second Industrial Revolution, and follows twin Assassins Jacob and Evie Frye as they navigate the corridors of organised crime and take back the city from Templar control.

The game is played from a third-person perspective and its open world is navigated on foot or by carriage. The game introduces new travelling systems and refined combat and stealth mechanics. Players control the two lead protagonists throughout the game's story, switching between them both during and outside of missions

■■■■■■■□□ 8 / 10
Are you a Londoner?

RECOMMEDED SPECS:
OS: Windows 10
Processor: Intel Core i7 3770 / AMD FX 8350
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 or GTX 970 / AMD Radeon R9 280X
Storage: 45GB

Review to Assassin's Creed II: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198202022263/recommended/33230

Review to Assassin's Creed Brotherhood: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198202022263/recommended/48190/

Review to Assassin's Creed Revelations: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198202022263/recommended/201870/

Review to Assassin's Creed III: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198202022263/recommended/911400/

Review to Assassin’s Creed® Liberation HD: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198202022263/recommended/260210/

Review to Assassin’s Creed® IV Black Flag™: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198202022263/recommended/242050/

Review to Assassin’s Creed® Rogue: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198202022263/recommended/311560/

Review to Assassin's Creed® Unity: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198202022263/recommended/289650/

Review to Assassin's Creed® Origins: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198202022263/recommended/582160/

Assassin's Creed® Odyssey: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198202022263/recommended/812140/

Released just a year after its predecessor Syndicate - for the first time in the series - sports two protagonists. We can switch between Jacob and Evie as we see fit; during cutscenes they'll both be present, though. However, memory sequences include missions, too, for each of them, separately. We get to know both of them very well not to mention their struggle with the creed and with each other.


Unity was ambitious. Constantly seeing the mob in front of the Palais de Justice was great. Making friends with Bonaparte. Who could refuse such a thing? Syndicate shows us a different world - London slowly being taken over by Templar Crawford Starrick who controls businesses as well as organised crime. The Fryes - against Brotherhood orders - go to the capital to teach Starrick a lesson. You will appreciate the new, "moving" headquarters, your very own train. No real estates this time.


You will regularly bump into street gangs, the so-called Blighters. London consists of 7 huge areas that are, initially, completely red. Secondary missions such as killing Templars, liberating children from factories or kidnapping key criminals and by doing so aiding the Scotland Yard will all be tasks available to reduce the Templar presence. Completing all side missions will open up the final war mission where you will have the opportunity to face the gang boss.

And this is where Syndicate shines: the opportunity to make secondary quests vital to the main story. As you clear up the streets there will be more and more criminals dressed in green instead of red. They are the Rooks and they are yours to command. Your regular income can be used to make them stronger, appear in greater numbers and you can even become so notorious that bad guys dare not attack you any more.

Horse-pulled carriages are a common sight in Syndicate and the related cargo escort and -hijack missions will be randomly (but constantly) generated. This introduces vehicular combat and an easier (and faster way) to navigate the streets of London. Making friends with Graham Bell will get you the rope launcher - consider it the AC version of Batman's grappling hook. You don't swing, though: you need to press the button so that your character can slide and find themselves on the rooftop of the opposite building in a matter of seconds.


Remember those games where you needed to cross the road with an animal? Imagine this now on the River Thames. Boats are constantly moving and appearing in front of you. Its fun hopping over to the other side and while doing so sabotaging the cargo of some Templar gang or simply marking loot for your fellow gang members.

As in Unity we have to keep playing to earn XP and obtain skill points. Purchasing various skills and their better (upgraded) versions will allow us to attain a higher level. Achievement hunters and those who like exploring everything will be disappointed to see level 10 is the maximum we can reach. Halfway through the game we already have everything. I also missed the minigame concerning lock picking. There are some skills that are only available for Jacob or for Evie. The latter was the one I preferred as Jacob is a tad bit "brute" and Evie's extra skills are more akin to that of an assassin.

As for collectibles we now look for flowers, taste various types of beers, collect royal correspondence and the ever-present Helix glitches and treasure chests will also return. For most maps are available for purchase if you are tired of looking. We also have craft materials: extra resources are available as some inventory items cannot be immediately found but only crafted. This usually requires that we obtain the related schematics.

As for weapons: a great assortment of kukris, brass knuckles and cape-swords are available. Fighting involves a lot of finishing animations - watching a film to see how Evie takes down 4 approaching enemies one after the other is just beautiful. Boxing events are available for practising. Certain activities during combat have built-in counters - performing, for instance, 25 double assassinations will make you stronger. There are a lot of such perks available - you really need to complete all missions, explore everything and play as varied a way as possible to become the ultimate assassin.


The new AnvilNext engine debuted in Unity and it was not properly optimised as it had a lot of bugs and glitches. All is well now and Syndicate's 19th century London looks tremendously beautiful. Certain missions take place at night and facial expressions of each character (including NPCs) are getting better and better. Female antagonists in the ranks of the Blighters and children on the streets of London will be a common sight. Kids will get you items as you help them - Syndicate gives you associates who regularly give you missions. It's best to complete all for getting extra weapons, cloaks, belts or weapon schematics.

Multiplayer - for the first time in many years - is completely non-existent. No coop or companion app, either. Following the issues of Unity we were promised a better story. And Syndicate has a better one, actually. Both Fryes are likeable and, as usual, we meet many celebrities. Graham Bell gives us bombs, Sergeant Abberline always goes undercover to meet us, we realise Churchill did some great things even during World War I and we also meet Karl Marx, Charles Dickens, Darwin and even get knighted by the Queen herself.


It may be so but with Syndicate I've had most fun since Black Flag. I cannot comment on the DLCs, unfortunately, but I had fun while slowly taking over London, climbing up the Big Ben and chasing crazy suicidal Templars in the Houses of Parliament. I achieved 100% synchronisation in 75 hours and I did not regret any second of it. The gameplay mechanics are getting better and better and I look forward to seeing the nextgen AC games by downloading Origins.

Victorian Era London is a beautiful setting for an Assassin's Creed game. I believe Syndicate is an underrated installment in the series. Both Evie and Jacob Frye are fun to play as and the missions are quite enjoyable. This is the last "OG" Assassin's Creed game before Ubisoft took it into the RPG genre with Origins, so it actually feels like an Assassin's Creed game. 10/10 highly recommend!. I know the world may have forgotten you AC: Syndicate, but I love you.