“Syndicate is one of the worst AC games”
“Syndicate was awful, and way worse than Rogue”
“Syndicate was the worst Assassin’s Creed ever and it didn’t even deserve to be finished” These comments seem to be a common trend on
my channel when it comes to AC Syndicate, and I’ll be totally honest, when I played
it back in 2015, I was inclined to agree. I have however been playing and reviewing
a bunch of Assassin’s Creed Games recently, and given the largely negative reviews, I
was keen to hop onto Sy
ndicate and see if it really deserves all of the hate. This review will be largely spoiler free,
and lets just jump straight on in…. To start, it’s easy for me to say that 19th
century Victorian London looks absolutely gorgeous. This is by far the most modern day setting
that Assassin’s Creed has ever had, set in 1868 at the onset of the Second Industrial
Revolution. It’s even arguable that London might even
be the most iconic setting they’ve ever chosen, as you’d be pressed to find many
people
who don’t know landmarks such as Big Ben or St Paul’s cathedral, which of
course are all scalable. Graphically, this game is solid too, and whilst
I’m playing on my mid spec PC which will make a difference compared to console players,
it doesn’t actually have an FPS cap, and I tend to get between 90 and 110 frames per
second, and mostly it’s a really really smooth experience. In terms of exploring the city, we can obviously
travel around on foot, grappling hook, horse and carriage, boats and eve
n trains, and besides
the grappling hook which I’ll discuss later, carriage riding is the next most interesting. This is the quite the new feature that Syndicate
introduced, and as London is a fairly large map, actually about a third larger than Unity,
which by the way and being the next game on from Unity, I will be making a lot of comparisons
too, Syndicate gives us the opportunity to basically experience Grand Theft Auto in Victorian
London. Whilst they are a solid way of getting around,
and
much faster than running across rooftops, they aren’t perfect, and in many cases can
be awkward to use, and actually at the time of release, were a big buggy mess and a common
complaint. The NPC’s in Syndicate, compared to Unity,
are way less populated. But, this is actually a good thing. Whilst NPC’s in Unity looked fantastic,
walking through crowds actually kinda felt like you were just walking through ghosts. In syndicate, they feel more like real people
with some weight to them, in the end s
acrificing density for stability, and overall I think
that’s a positive. Within the game is also a full day and night
cycle, although this will also be mission dependant, as well as a complex weather system,
both two things we didn’t have in Unity. Overall, and it’s the thing that Assassin’s
Creed always does so well, the world they build is just incredible. London is a detailed, rich, large bustling
city full of different life, whether that be child labourers, police roaming the streets,
carria
ges of multiple shapes and sizes, and it just succeeds in fully immersing you in
a beautiful, truly one of a kind experience. Being from London I am potentially a little
biased, but you’re truly not going to find another game setting quite like this one… Now I don’t want to spoil anything for you,
but I will give you the plot, which the game jumps into right from the start. You play as Evie and Jacob, the low level
brother and sister Assassin duo, who decide to take it onboard to conquer London,
establish
their own gang; and crush the Templars within - all whilst searching for Isu artifacts. A simple story that’s easy to follow. They’re no major twists or groundbreaking
elements within the story, but it’s dependable, in sort of a basic and one toned way. In many ways it’s actually similar Valhalla,
with far less surprises, in that you take England piece by piece, or in this case, London. I do personally like the brother and sister
duo with differing personalities, Jacob is hot headed a
nd comical, Evie is more stoic
and calculating; and this plays into the missions with Evie taking on more of the stealth objectives,
Jacob more of the direct combat. You can play as either character for some
parts of the game, but if your pushing along with the narrative, Syndicate will make you
swap into Jacob or Evie. Jacob also completes the majority of missions
too, focusing on taking over London and assassinating the Order members, which leaves Evie to focus
on finding a piece of Eden, whic
h doesn’t really factor that much into the overall story. If you even look at the marketing, Evie isn’t
even in the trailer, and on the games box, she’s just a side character who you can
barely even recognise. She sadly does feel like an addition, rather
than a central piece of the plot. We do however have a bunch of awesome historical
characters that are basically our side missions, including Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Charles
Dickens and even her Royal Majesty Queen Victoria, all of them helpi
ng in some fashion to further
establish the world, it’s problem, and drum it into us where we are as a setting. Theirs is a really jokey tone to Syndicate,
not just between our two main characters, but even every side character is either cracking
wise or delivering cheeky one liners, which seems a little odd within a very murderous
location and time of 19th century London, and there’s actually a good reason for this. Supposedly in early notes and concept art,
Syndicate was going to have a much d
arker tone to everything. We’d have 5 Assassin’s as opposed to the
eventual three of them, the other being our Assassins pal Henry Green, and all of them
working together to take over London. There’s not much more than concept art,
but it’s clear that we could have been got a much grittier and gloomier experience than
the one we actually got, which looking at the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Hexe, might
be the answer. There is even a focus on class disparity,
constantly referring to the poor or the
downtrodden of the British elite, which ultimately is
what our bad guy is a homage too. He is a cartoonishly evil moustached twirling
Englishman named Crawford Starrick; and you may be thinking, you just revealed the head
honcho, won’t that spoiler the story? But that’s because the game also shows us
Crawford in about the first five minutes. On the modern day story line, like most AC
games without Desmond, it just exists. We play again as a faceless bot, doing something
or other with Shaun and
Rebecca, and yeah, ultimately just get me back to the animus,
it’s really not worth me talking about. Overall though, the story is ok, you’ll
likely get a few laughs throughout, but the humour can all feel a little bit overkill
at times, as well as never so simple that you’re never made to feel surprised; bringing
it all together for really one of the weakest AC storylines ever. To end on a high note though, the cut scenes
do themselves look fantastic, in in my opinion even holding up to new gam
es even today. Now onto the missions themselves, which is
easily one of the games major highlights. Whilst the gameplay loop is very much just
conquering gang territory and working your way up to your next target, it’s the larger
main missions which really stand out. The Black Box missions in Syndicate are arguably
some of the best out of the entire series, and if you’re not aware of what these are,
you’re basically given a target to assassinate, usually within a building that you have to
infilt
rate, and there are a variety of ways that you can approach that target. In Syndicate, there are massive locations
like the Bank of England or an Insane Asylum where these missions take place, and they
each start with a really cool cutscene animation, which then showcases different killing or
entry opportunities within that location, leading on to potentially different cutscenes
and mission endings, depending on what route of assassination you take. I’ll give you an example where upon infiltrati
ng
a morgue, you can pretend to be a dead body that’s going to be autopsied, get wheeled
to your target under a white sheet, to then spring up unexpectedly and stab them amidst
a crowd of onlookers. Genuinely a really really fun experience,
and each black box mission is really different, detailed, and super intricate. And, the side content is also really lively
and great fun as well. Most of it ties into conquering London piece
by piece with our gang the rooks, but I like it a lot because it fur
ther explores Evie
& Jacobs personalities outside of the main storyline. Whilst the main storyline is pretty short,
at around 12 hours, the abundance of side content makes up for this hugely, adding a
further 40 hours or so to the game. One side mission in particular, which could
actually be up there for one of the greatest gaming side missions ever, is the mission
where you travel forward in time to WW1. We have the opportunity to play as Lydia Frye,
granddaughter to Jacob, where you experience
an entire full sequence in London during the
Blitz, meeting Winston Churchill, taking out enemy planes with a ground gun, and it really
scratches that WW1 Assassin’s Creed itch the community has been begging for since the
dawn of time. They did actually have a WW2 mission in Unity
too, however I strongly feel that Syndicate improves on this, and am hoping that one day
we do eventually get a game like this. I made a video last year about of all of the
time periods I’d love Assassin’s Creed to ta
ke us too next, and this is easily one
of my strongest choices. Aside the black box missions and side missions
though, the conquering of the gang territory, which is the thing you’ll find yourself
doing the most, is pretty repetitive. They’re four different types of gang territory
missions – hunting down a key templar, child liberation where you free child workers from
factories, strongholds where you basically just kill every single enemy within a small
area, and bounties where you have to snea
k into a gang controlled zone, and take someone
hostage and lead them out. Once all territory in that area has been captured,
you’ll then start a gang war, which is a giant street brawl between your gang the rooks
and the enemy templars. Once you take over an area too, it’ll then
show all of the gear on the map you’ve missed, just adding an incentive to keep on exploring. This concept is actually very similar to the
AC Brotherhood in terms of taking out the Borgia strongholds, and whilst as a co
ncept
I do like this idea, it can all feel like a bit of a grind. Overall whilst the meat of Syndicates missions
can sometimes feel a bit samey, the black box missions are some of the best the series
has ever given us, and the side missions are really entertaining too, making your playthrough
a super fun experience when exploring off the beaten track. By the way guys if you’re enjoying this
video so far, a like and a sub would go a long way. Starting with the games combat, this is a
massive chan
ge to the previous Unity. In Unity the combat in my opinion was just
ok, sometimes it was a bit floaty and unresponsive, but you could have an enjoyable time utilising
the variety of weapons. In Syndicate, they clearly heard all of the
negative feedback from Unity, and completely changed the experience. Syndicate is very much a brawler style multiple
hit sort of combat, with a focus on parrying and lining up your enemies all at once to
deal out a giant kill animation. It's quite artistic looking
, although I think
the white outline on which enemy you’re focused on is a little much, but ultimately
I do find Syndicates combat disappointing. Whilst I can appreciate what they were trying
to do, offering a more quick hit experience, gang style of fighting, it just ends up becoming
a bit of a tedious time. You are constantly bashing the attack button,
as you only get one simple light attack, hitting parry, or occasionally hitting break defence
to get through an enemy blocking you. The actuall
y NPC’s you’re fighting also
have very little depth to them. You have a light type, a heavy type, which
is actually kind of weird as they’re all big and bald and look the same, and then an
elite type who honestly just doesn’t feel that elite. They all have high health, so you can find
yourself having to stab some enemies literally 20-30 times, and you’re only equipped with
three weapons, kukri, which is basically a machete or short sword, brass knuckles or
the cane sword. I like the idea of them
all being concealable,
rather than you running around London with a giant axe strapped to your back, but they
also don’t feel any different either. Whether you fight with any of the three weapons
makes next to no difference in terms of the damage or speed that you’ll hit an enemy,
and even the finishers, whilst overall look great, your weapon type doesn’t make much
difference. In terms of getting stronger weapons, you
ultimately just gain higher levels and unlock different parts of London, but
even the weapon
strength doesn’t feel different either. You could be using a basic pair of brass knuckles
or the strongest cane sword in the game, and you might not even realise the difference. There is a microtransaction store in the game
too, but it’s pretty mild and not really worth a mention, and there is weapon crafting
too, which is basically as simple and uninteresting as you’d expect. You do also have a pistol or throwing knife,
which can be fun to pop a shot off mid combat, or shoot som
eone from afar before engaging
with them; but Overall though, Syndicates combat is just a repetitive onslaught of constant
attacks, and actually doesn’t feel particularly challenging either, which is why if possible,
Syndicates stealth is always the way to go. This may be controversial, but to me, Syndicates
stealth is actually one of the best stealth mechanics of the series. Unity’s stealth was good, however Syndicates
is even better, with a lot of the stealth elements from Unity being transfer
red and
improved, especially the new crouching stealth mechanic, where you’re now able to hide
behind items at half height. The tools in this game are pretty standard,
sleep darts, berserk darts, smoke bombs, volcanic bombs and throwing knives – which are my
definitely my favourite thing to use, not just able to take out people silently, but
also used to cut down hanging cargo onto an unsuspecting gang members head. NPC’s are also better at reacting as well,
so if one guard gets alerted, then ev
en others within a certain radar will move into stealth
mode, rather than some AC games where you’d find NPC’s just staring at walls for no
reason. The ability to whistle has now returned, which
was absent from Unity; and is always a nice little skill to be able to lure guards in
your direction, and once you do manage to hit that assassination button, the animations
will be different dependant on whether you’re standing or crouching, something that some
of the newest AC games don’t manage to do.
Hiding in plain sight is also pretty great,
the crowds are much more useable than previous games, where you can actually draw them into
certain areas for you to move around unseen in. An example of this is in one of the missions,
you send a bunch of passengers to wrong station platform, just so you can sneak closer to
your target. There is even the kidnapping feature which
I mentioned earlier, where you can ultimately take someone hostage and use them to keep
you invisible and inconspicuous, as
long as you don’t get too close to guards and brush
past them. This is something I’d absolutely love explored
more in a future Assassin’s Creed game. I also haven’t really touched on the gang
aspect too much in this review, as they don’t honestly affect your playthrough all that
much, unless you’d like them too. Aside the mandatory gang warfare events, other
ways you can get your gang members involved is by bringing them with you for combat, or
even using them to help traverse you around carria
ge in the map. They’re ultimately a similar sort of experience
to your Assassin colleagues from AC Brotherhood, always around to lend a helping hand when
needed. I feel like in the trailer they’re advertised
as being more of use and part of the main storyline, but personally I found myself never
ever wanting to use them. I’ll mention the skill tree now too, which
as we have two protagonists, means Evie and Jacob each have a separate skill tree. However, most of the skills each of them have
are e
xactly the same, despite a few minor differences – Jacob is suited to more direct
combat with higher health and damage skills, and Evie more so for stealth, even able to
weirdly go completely invisible when stationary, as if she’s best mates with Harry Potter. Our brother and sister assassins both earn
these skill points simultaneously too, and it’s all very simple, there aren’t build
choices like in Valhalla for example. Overall, stealth in Syndicate is a really
well oiled machine. London is de
signed in a way that aids our
abilities; they added some new features which work really well, and then improved on old
features too. If I could make one suggestion, it would just
be that I’d like to be able to have my hood any time, but this easily has one of the best
stealth systems in the entire franchise. Parkour in AC Syndicate is much like the rest
of the game, it’s not overtly clear on whether it’s it’s just good or bad. When compared to Unity, which whilst many
hail as the best parkour sy
stem of all time, it still has it’s faults; Arno at times
might struggle to enter a window, or just insist or swinging horizontally – when Unity’s
parkour works though, it’s pretty amazing. In Syndicate, parkour has been near enough
copied and pasted over from Unity, it still has that sort of floaty feel to it, and at
certain moments, Evie and Jacob’s parkour abilities can really make London feel like
it was made for them. the most part though, and unfortunately, the
design of London doesn’t rea
lly work for a parkour setting. The wide streets and areas of open space mean
that Jacob and Evie could often find themselves running around on the ground or hoisting a
carriage from some poor driver, rather utilising the rooftops of Victorian London; and a big
part of this too is that they’re aren’t very many parkour paths for you to follow. I’ve been playing Black Flag recently, and
despite that game being made two years earlier, and set in the Caribbean, they’re tonnes
of fun parkour routes a
nd moments throughout – do take a peek at my 2024 review for that
if you’ve always wondered if you should have played it. Here is why in Syndicate they added the grappling
hook, a steampunk rope gun which can attach itself to almost anything. Whilst this is a fun and controversial twist,
and something I get a lot of enjoyment out of, overtime it gets repetitive, and ultimately
negates that need for parkour. Why would I spend any time hopping from ledge
to ledge when I can speed across a rope in
less than half the time? I don’t think I’d have a problem with
it if maybe there were more opportunities to utilise the games parkour, but you end
up using this thing more than your free running capabilities, which is one of the core parts
of any Assassin’s Creed game. Evie & Jacob also now just awkwardly stop
when approaching a ledge, as the game won’t allow them to step off any height too large,
which kind of ruins things immersion wise. I like the idea in Assassin’s Creed games
that if I make
one mistake I could fall to my death; and this would make me learn from
my mistakes to make to play as a better Assassin. Overall, and I might get a lot of hate for
this, I think Syndicate’s parkour is actually more smooth than Unity, but that’s only
down to the game design. Unity’s Paris is a much denser city that
isn’t that much smaller than Syndicates London, and it has way parkour opportunities
within it. If you pair this with the removal of a manual
jump, and a grappling hook which basical
ly negates any climbing, the parkour in Syndicate
works well, you just won’t find yourself actually using it. It almost feels like they just couldn’t
figure out how to properly fix Unity’s parkour, so instead, they removed what doesn’t work,
and added a device to bypass it altogether… AC Syndicate had a lot to live up too, and
whilst Unity is very respected now, it’s known for having potentially the buggiest
game launch in history, which aided massively to downfall of Syndicate sales; which in i
t’s
first week was the second worst selling game of the franchise, only outselling AC Rogue. In terms of pop culture, Assassin’s Creed
are always on point when it comes picking a games setting, and whilst not set in Birmingham,
and set 70 years earlier, the gang warfare aspect of Syndicate is likely due to the popularity
of Peaky Blinders, which came out two years prior. Looking at the game objectively, it’s overall
still a good game despite all the negativity. The world of London is detailed, b
eautiful
and vast, some of the missions are utterly incredible, it copied a lot of the best parts
of Unity over, and the stealth is pretty excellent. Yes the world doesn’t really allow for the
best parkour, and the combat is repetitive and simple, and the whole tone of the game
is too light-hearted, but our dual protagonists are likable enough to carry the simple story
through. Syndicate really didn’t get the chance it
deserved, and whilst AC Origins arrived two years later, I don’t think Syndic
ate bears
all the blame for that. Some even say, that Syndicate was the last
ever true Assassin’s Creed game; perhaps until Mirage arrived anyway. I personally have ranked Syndicate 10th out
of the 13 mainline Assassin’s Creed games, it’s probably not going to blow you away,
but it won’t leave you feeling disappointed either. Interestingly, the developers of Syndicate
Ubisoft Quebec also made AC Odyssey, as well as the upcoming AC Red, in which rumours of
it seem to be flying around ever single
week. Much like the Syndicates WW1 sequence, Assassin’s
Creed in Japan is something we’ve always wanted, and again, is on my list of best AC
Time Periods; which you can watch in my next video. I will catch you legends in the next one,
until then.
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