The Assassin's Creed Series: Assassin's Creed Syndicate + DLC

Context

When I first played and completed Unity about a year after it was released, I was absolutely disgusted by it. I was already getting frustrated with the long standing issues in the series that remained unaddressed whilst Ubisoft churned out the annual releases and took the approach of "good enough to get people's cash." So Unity was the straw that broke the camel's back for me and I wasn't giving Ubisoft any more of my money for anything that had "Assassin's Creed" written on it.

Then Syndicate was released and got favourable reviews. I ignored them, Unity got reviews which, in my opinion, horrifically glossed over the game's shortcomings, so I wasn't taking reviewers' words for it. Maybe it was me that was the problem and I just didn't like what the series had become, because reviewers like it and there were positive reviews from players, but even if that was the case, I didn't think I was going to like the next in the series of the same basic type of game. It wasn't easy, because the setting of Syndicate was a huge draw for me, living around 20 miles away from London myself, but I stood fast because I was fed up investing in the series.

I've been there, as lots of people have I'm sure, but this is a train ride away for me.

Syndicate's release came and went, then Origins came out.

And the word was that Origins was a major revamp of the series, that Ubisoft recognised the level of staleness that had crept in and had opted to revisit every aspect of the game and reconsider the basic gameplay from the ground up. Origins wasn't just the next release on the same game engine as Unity and Syndicate and was an all new experience.

And I didn't buy Origins either, because I had opted out of continuing to invest in the series.

And then Odyssey was released, and the reviews of Odyssey were hugely positive. Not only that, but watching the gameplay in reviews and other online videos, I could see how different the series had become, and I quite liked what I saw. I actually felt like I wanted to play Assassin's Creed again.

But I thought that if I was going to opt back into the series, I should re-enter where I left. Maybe it would be painful because I knew Syndicate used the same game engine and gameplay structure as Unity, but at least I had the completely revamped Origins and Odyssey to look forward to.

So that's the story of how I got sucked back into the series. Was it a wise decision?

The Setting

Even though I didn't buy Syndicate when it was first released, I have admitted that there was some temptation to give Assassin's Creed one more go despite my disgust with Unity, and that was due to the setting. Syndicate is set in London at the end of the Industrial Revolution. With 100 years of sea superiority leading to the world's largest ever empire being allowed to operate largely unchallenged, the industrial revolution cemented Britain's position as the leading commercial nation globally. The centre of all this is London and in the introduction of the game we hear the words "Whosoever controls London, controls the world."

So what a narrative for someone who is not only a Brit, but lives close to London himself.

The main characters we control are the twins Evie Frye and Jacob Frye. Right away during our initial introduction to them, they exude more warmth than Arno ever did. Evie is the more serious and scholarly twin whilst Jacob is more cavalier, humerous/sarcastic and in your face. Obviously they don't always see eye to eye, so they manage these differences of opinions with the kind of digs and sly little jokes one might expect from brother and sister. Their relationship with each other is very much a driver for how they both operate.

Evie and Jacob Frye, our twin protagonists. Can anyone say sibling rivalry?

The depiction of London in Syndicate is very different from Paris in the previous game. Even though I think you can probably find a lot of parallels between the two cities in real life, Unity seemed to focus more heavily on the residential areas of Paris, with half the city dedicated to slums and working class homes, and the other half for the rich and aristocrats. The depiction of London in Syndicate is more focussed on London as the centre of global politics, commerce and industry. Whilst there are parts of the map that are residential, and we get treated to the sight of rows of terraced housing where each dwelling would be shared by 3 to 7 families, most of the time you'll be around train stations, industrial areas, docks on the Thames, or buildings associated with politics or the aristocracy.

As a Brit that lives close to our capital, I can joyfully report that London feels "right" in the game, and it's wonderful to feel such a familiarity with the game world that you are running around in, even if it's 150ish years before my time.

The Gameplay

From the very first minutes of playing Syndicate, there is the relief that even though the game is clearly using the same engine and same basic structure as Unity, it is clearly not the same game. Everything feels better right from the start. Movement of your character is sharp and responsive, the sluggishness of controls is gone, if you want your player to do some action, they'll just do it, no longer do you feel like you are fighting with the controls.

Stealth is back to 100%. The ridiculous omissions of Unity are resolved. Whistling to attract guards is back, the cover mechanic now works properly, bodies can be moved and hidden, slow refined movements possible again. It is an absolute joy, because not only have Unity's problems been resolved, but stealth in general is back exactly where it should be along with the best games in the series. Once again you can infiltrate a location by watching the guards and then systematically taking them out one by one, which is exactly what I want to do in an Assassin's Creed game.

Stealth in Syndicate is a huge return to form after the dialobical mechanics in Unity.

And choirs and angels are singing, because the parkour is also finally fixed. Having hit the low point in Rogue and then having some things fixed whilst other things nerfed in Unity, the parkour in Syndicate is as predictable and responsive as it was when playing Ezio. They even fixed the problem with your character jumping up on things when running down on the ground. Neither Jacob or Evie will go to jump over any obstacle unless you tell them to, but they will automatically move over low fences. In other words, they'll jump over things in order to continue running forward, but they won't jump on top of anything unless you tell them to.

However, the problem with the depiction of London is that, for the most part, the buildings are quite far apart. In Paris most areas were very densely populated and so you could run from rooftop to rooftop without much issue, but here in London, you'll be lucky that there is any string of buildings you can run across that will be going in the direction you want them to. The game has resolved this issue by giving you a new movement mechanic, which is the grappling hook. The grappling hook lets you move from the edge or peak of one building to another edge or peak up to about 60m away. When you are close to a place you can use the hook, a marker will appear that shows where you will hook over to if you press the command at that time. Moving via grappling hook can be much quicker than traversing by foot once you get the hang of it, so whilst the purity of running from rooftop to rooftop is gone in Syndicate, you can move around London whilst high up quite fast! Apparently the grappling hook is not to everyone's tastes, but I really like it.

Unique feature to Syndicate: the grappling hook. You'll be using this a lot.

Combat has some changes over Unity, some are definite improvement but some are just different, so it will be down to the player whether they like it or not.

One definite improvement is that you can dodge incoming gunfire again. One of the biggest annoyances in Unity was that if you got surrounded by enemies, you could die in seconds from gunshot because there was no way you could avoid it, which is realistic perhaps, but not good gameplay for my tastes. In Syndicate, not only can you dodge incoming gunfire but if you buy the right skill, you can even counter with a gunshot back to the person trying to shoot you.

Other changes to the combat in Unity make it faster and more responsive, but at the expense of fluidity of movement. Other than the gunfire and sluggishness of controls, the combat in Unity was quite good and rewarded good timing when countering. Syndicate is a lot more forgiving on timing, but the fluidity of movement from Unity is gone and when levelled up, you'll see your character moving unnaturally fast to get a string of blows on an enemy.

Finally, there is a "guard" system in Syndicate where enemies can block attacks and, if you keep trying to hit them normally, will counterattack you. There is a "break guard" mechanism you can use, but this feels hit and miss to use. It's much easier to wait for the enemy to attack you and counter, which is a bit of a well-worn trope in Assassin's Creed games. The return to "counter then attack" will cause many players to think Syndicate's combat is a step back from Unity. As I tend to favour stealth over combat where possible, it's not really an issue for me.

Another major new feature of the gameplay are the twins themselves. The character upgrade system is now a skill tree for you to unlock with three branches, one for stealth, one for combat, and one for other things. The game rewards you for sticking faithfully to the depiction of the twins' strengths. Evie is characterised as favouring stealth and silent kills, and Jacob as favouring open combat. Whilst you are still going through unlocking various skills, you could turn this on its head, but the best skills of stealth and combat are reserved for each twin. Evie has a stealth ability that only she can unlock, where she can effectively hide in plain sight and is massively useful when infiltrating locations. Evie also has a skill that doubles the amount of throwing knives she can carry, which isn't needed as such but does give the player more free reign to start taking out enemies left, right and centre completely silently without having to be restricted to slowly creeping around the place.

It's clear which direction the AC series is going with skill trees: More and more depth.

Jacob's best reserved skills are around the amount of damage he can give and receive during open combat and his ability driving horse-drawn carriages. Therefore, if you stay true to the depiction of the characters, you'll be using Jacob when you are expecting a fight or are going to start racing around the streets, and you'll favour Evie when you want to sneak around undetected.

And we just mentioned horse-drawn carriages! Syndicate has cars! Well, okay, they are not actually cars, they are horse drawn carriages, but essentially how these things drive, they've been made to behave like cars for the most part. You can accelerate and brake, turn left and right, sideswipe other vehicles to take them out, hijack carriages being driven by other folks, they're basically cars. Probably the main way they are not like cars is that cars don't get scared and run off on their own if fighting breaks out next to them, so watch out or you might get run over by your own carriage. It can't be said that the physics of these carriages is terrifically accurate, because you'll be bashing into things, other carriages, side-swiping enemies... There's a lot of collisions that should kill your poor horse in an instant but luckily, they are as hardy as the carriages themselves unless you aim to shoot them specifically, then they become a way to quickly take out a pursuing carriage.

So what about the side missions? Unity had a lot of side missions, but they felt very fragmented and isolated from each other as well as the main story. Syndicate solves this by focussing the side missions onto a handful of side characters in the game. For the main historical characters:

• You'll join Charles Dickens' ghost hunting club where, as an educated writer and man of science, he looks to debunk the fiction apart from the genuine supernatural.
• You'll partner with Charles Darwin on fighting some of the immoral practices going on in the city and help him further his research.
  
• And you'll work with Karl Marx as he attempts to give the exploited working classes a voice by banding them together into unions to fight for better rights.

On top of these story-driven side missions, there are also the usual sub-game side missions, which are also affiliated to characters you'll partner with: Freeing child labour for the leader of the street urchins, bare-knuckle fighting and carriage racing for your bookie friend, bringing in the police's most wanted for your undercover cop friend. They all tie in to the main story by way of friendship with the main character, as opposed to the random strangers Arno would help out and then never see again.

Charles Darwin and Charles Dickens both have a fascinating set of side missions.

I mentioned earlier that the very first minutes of playing Syndicate gave a lot of joy, because it is just so much nicer to play then Unity was. However, I had similar feelings with the setting in the opening couple of hours of Black Flag, only to have all this drowned out in the end by the ridiculous amount of tedious repetition in the game. Syndicate doesn't do that, it remains a fun game to play throughout, whether you are focussing on the main missions, side missions or collectibles.

Summary

Despite my huge cynicism brought on by Unity, I must report that Syndicate is a hugely successful return to what I liked in the Assassin's Creed series in Ezio's days. Things are have been broken have been fixed, most importantly including the parkour, which is now as good as it was when playing Ezio. Shortcuts seen in previous games where generic locations or soulless collectibles were used to flesh out the hours are dispensed with, now everything you do in the game has some meaning. Perhaps the chest collectibles could still be considered soulless, but then chests have been a mainstay of the entire series and even here, collecting the chests is way more fun then it was in Unity, with Unity's turgid "hunt for the open door or window" approach eliminated in Syndicate.

In retrospect, it's really a shame that Unity caused me to chuck the towel in. If I'd given the series one last benefit of the doubt then it would have rewarded me earlier with a game that is a huge return to form and a great amount of fun.

DLC: The Darwin and Dickens Conspiracy

 

This DLC consists of two mini-stories, of which the second one is split into two missions, so three missions in total. The first story/mission, Darwin's Orchid, sees you tracing down the source of mysterious flowers giving off hallucinegenic fumes. This one is quite fun as it presents some new gameplay not seen in the game before, but it's only a 10 minute-ish mission so it's over fast. The second story is about a friend of Dickens coming to London to check out his fiancée from his pre-arranged marriage. The missions are okay I guess, but story aside, the first is pretty much a repeat of a main game mission and the second, whilst bringing something new I guess, is pretty humdrum.

I got this DLC as part of a season pass, and I can't see that you can buy it separately. I wouldn't pay money to buy these missions specifically but they are okay as part of a larger pack.

DLC: The Last Maharaja

This DLC is a sequence of 10 missions that see you working with the titular last Maharaja, Duleep Singh. These missions have quite a variety to them, and bring back some gameplay mechanics to Syndicate. Early on the DLC you'll start using the murder mystery mechanic from Unity, where you go to locations, talk to people and discover clues. It's quite fun for the short time you are doing it, although there are no actual puzzles to solve, you just go through the motions. Mission 4 "The Golden Path", is one of the lengthier missions, and combines a rewarding systematic approach to infiltrating a location with some action sequences in the second half.

A later mission see you doing what most male Londoners will have done at some point in their lives, stagger around London pubs half drunk with your best mate who you only just met ("I love you mate, it's not the drink talking, it's me!").

Then towards the end of the DLC, you'll tackle a couple of missions that see you playing both twins to achieve the objective, with a kind of tag team approach to getting the job done. Honestly, this works out very well and it brings up the question as to why there are no missions in the main game that both twins embark upon, aside from one close to the every end of the game.

So the DLC is actually quite good. Clearly some thought has gone into bringing some originality to the new set of missions and it means this DLC is definitely worth the value given the price it is up for sale today, which is around 2-3 pounds/euros/dollars. That's apparently a 60% discount but I'm not clear if this is a "perpetual discount" or a genuine one. I'm not sure I'd pay "full price" for it, presumably around ten pounds/euros/dollars, and feel satisfied.

Reasonably good fun, some wacky bugs. Worth a discounted purchase.

This review of the DLC does have to come with a warning, The Last Maharaja does come with some pretty interesting bugs. Most of them are fairly benign, like seeing the Maharaja moonwalk into the side of your train hideout carriage, but there are some more serious ones.

After completing one mission, I had to force quit the game and restart because Jacob was just standing there and wouldn't move. If you brought up the pause menu, it only brought up the basic pause screen for a cutscene, but with no option to skip, so all I could do was force quit the game. Luckily no progress was lost.

The far more serious bug, however, threatened my entire savegame for the entire game, not just the DLC. In the mission "The Good Send-Off", when you are the first part of the mission on the boat, it's possible to dive off the front of the boat only to end up in the water "in the boat" or rather, inside the bounds of the boat rather than next to it. This happened to me, and I naturally went to restart checkpoint, and this started an endless reload loop. When looking this up on the Internet, I found that this seriously game breaking bug has been around since the DLC was first released in 2016, and is still not patched.

If this happens to you, the solution that work for me was posted by DahsWaLLker on the Ubisoft Forum thread: Assassin's Creed Syndicate Darwin mission endless loop, which is as follows:

It took a few tries though, here's exactly what I did in case it can help someone:
1. Load into the game. Wait out the white loading screen.
2. Once it gets to the black screen and the loading icon starts rotating press windows key.
3. After exactly 40* seconds I popped back into the game and pressed ESC as soon as possible and it opened the pause menu.
4. Quit the memory.
* YMMV - too soon looped, too late looped but said your ally died

So this is a pretty serious bug to remain unpatched since 2016, but then in all seriousness, it's not unlike Ubisoft to just give up on fixing serious game issues and just pretend they don't exist any more.

The bugs are a shame, because the only other even slightly negative thing to say about the DLC is that it's available to play right before the main game mission where you get introduced to the Maharaja, so you can end up going on a full blown adventure with him and then be introduced to him during the next main game mission.

Despite the avoidable negatives, the DLC is  great fun, even the most serious bugs can be worked-around (thankfully, it's not nice fearing for your entire savegame), and its currently good value!

DLC: Jack the Ripper

This DLC is the largest of Syndicate, and also the most famous not just for Syndicate but for the whole series, with some players saying it is the best DLC of all the AC games. I very much looked forwards to playing this one.

Story-wise, there's not a lot that needs to be said without resorting to spoilers. 20 years after the events of the main game, Jack the Ripper is at large and you work in parallel to the police in trying to bring him down.

The scope of the DLC is equivalent to the previously largest DLC to date, the Freedom Cry DLC in Black Flag. There's a "new" mini-version of the main game map to pursue, which is actually two boroughs of London we saw in the main game, but 20 years later there are obviously a lot of changes. There's also 3 mission-specific side areas which have a few additional collectibles as well. The skill upgrades are also a also mini-version of the main game, with seven additional skills to unlock.

A major new mechanic in the DLC is the fear system, where you can terrify enemies so that they do all sort of rash things, most simply running away, but terrify them enough and they may shoot their allies in panic.

The yellow smoke depicts the fear effect. Every baddy gets a fear indicator over their heads.

The other biggest new and creepy feature of the DLC is that on occasion, you actually play as the Ripper himself. You are obliged to carry out the Ripper's goals whilst at the same time feeling that you are in fear for his quarry, but obviously knowing that the game won't proceed unless you do it, you carry out his macabre plans and wonder what will happen to his victims. This element of the DLC is probably the most powerful in terms of developing the main story.

The investigation system that featured heavily in Unity and was only lightly used in Syndicate and the other DLCs returns here as well. With the Ripper being extremely elusive, you revisit crime scenes in an effort to find any clue as to the motives and location of the Ripper. There's no real decision making to be done here, it's just a case of stitching the clues together, but it still works very well as part of the overall set of main missions.

Side missions are completely revamped and new. Anything similar to the borough-specific side missions in the main game has new twists to it, and there are some all new side missions. The kidnapping side mission is now related to dealing with and shaming customers of the brothels who treat the women like dirt. You have to lead the culprits squirming through crowds of people in the back alleys so that everyone can see who he is and he can feel shame for his actions. The mission seeing you bringing suspects back for police questioning is also different. The suspects are now coming voluntarily, but that is because with all the hysteria about the Ripper, being seen as a suspect is tantamount to a death sentence by public lynching, so you have to bundle these people into your carriage and then drive them back to the police station raising as little attention as possible.

There's around 6 or so additional side mission types that become available as you progress through the main story, so it's a significant source of additional content and gameplay in the DLC.

As far as the main story and missions go, I'd say the writing is quite good. It starts off especially strong in the opening sequences, but for me it did feel like it boiled down into some routine as the story went on. There's one main development that I guess is meant to feel like a twist, but really the game telegraphs this the whole time. Also, despite the Rippers apparently amazing abilities to remain elusive, in the end tracking him down feels rather routine.

The Ripper DLC is definitely one of the most memorable in the series

Overall, the Jack the Ripper is pretty good. It's obvious a lot of thought has gone into it throughout, with a lot of original ideas and mechanics and very little in the way of empty filler. It's definitely one of the best DLCs but then it's also one of the largest alongside Freedom Cry, so you'd expect more from it. But if you are a person who is generally thoughtful about spending additional money on DLCs or Season Passes, then Jack the Ripper is definitely worth it for Syndicate.

Review Score

I admit that I may well be biased due to my real-life proximity to the setting of the game, but for me, playing Syndicate is a return to the great fun I had when playing the Assassin's Creed 2 trilogy. I wouldn't say the game reaches the absolute heights that series did, but I consider Syndicate to definitely be the best Assassin's Creed game since Revelations, so it gets a score of 4 accordingly.