Rogue is, hands down, the cleanest play experience of the franchise to date, with numerous subtle tweaks that pick up the pace of gameplay to offset the caution required to avoid ambushes. This stops recent Assassin’s Creed games from feeling like playable movies, as well as avoiding the distracted pointlessness that is a weakness of open world games.īut Assassin’s Creed games have had a history glitchy, loose navigation controls, so I was amazed at how smooth and mostly bug-free the exploration was. All the collectibles in Rogue are relevant from a narrative perspective, and the introduction of a computer virus plot point explains away most of the hardware limitations of the Xbox 360. Ubisoft has a particular talent for creating true video game stories wherein the narrative and gameplay blend.
What’s particularly impressive is how well these two components work together. Through this lens, the softer, more socially beneficial side of the notoriously ruthless Templars emerge, although how much that self-serving warmth can be trusted is something the game deliberately makes you question. He’s a likable protagonist with a working-class humility and a sincere compassion for innocent lives that informs every decision he makes. He flees his friends and is taken in by the Templars. After a disastrous mission, his conscience puts him at odds with the Assassin Brotherhood. Shay is an Irish Assassin that goes… duh… rogue. Which is similar to the experiences of the eighteenth-century subject of your research: Shay Patrick Cormac. Sure, everyone’s being nice, but you constantly feel like there’s an invisible gun pointed at your head. Working for Abstergo is a steady stream of big-corporate emotional abuse served through sing-song voices, cheesy smiles, and savagely chipper emails. In the modern story, you play an employee of Abstergo Entertainment who researches the lives of people from the past through genetic data, replaying their lives through a computer device called the Animus. Assassin’s Creed Rogue focuses on the Seven Years’ War (also known as the French and Indian War and the War of Conquest here in Canada). The story arc Rogue concludes spans from the golden age of pirates, through the American Revolution, with tie-ins to today. 30 hours in game only gave me 59% completion. There’s no multiplayer or co-op, but if you want an immersive, lengthy, emotionally complex single-player experience you’re in for a treat.įor those new to Assassin’s Creed, it has always been a high-concept franchise with games that require a fairly large investment of time to get the most out of. I’m not going to tell you which ones, because the surprise is part of the experience. While Rogue is overshadowed by Assassin’s Creed Unity ‘s next generation marketing blitz, it’s a meaty additional chapter that provides greater depth to some fan-favourite characters. That combination has become a punchline, but Assassin’s Creed still tickles gamers’ inner history nerds, using real history as a backdrop for a solid fictional story. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.