Assassin's Creed Rogue: Everything the Franchise Has Built Towards

Assassin’s Creed Rogue

It’s Assassin’s Creed season yet again! Thank god too, because I had an itch that I needed to scratch. Seriously, the yearly dose of stabbing that the Assassin’s Creed franchise gives has become such a constant force in my life that if the series ever dies, I won’t know what to do with myself.

Assassin’s Creed Rogue is the sister game to Assassin’s Creed Unity. Rogue was released on passed-gen, while Unity is on current-gen. I originally suspected that Ubisoft was going to slack off on Rogue, but I was pleasantly surprised with Rogue’s overall quality and amount of content.

Note: I have played every AC game, and am a huge fan of the series. That said, I will try to write this review with as little bias as possible.

Gameplay

If you played Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, you have essentially played Rogue. All the mechanics (aside from some minor weapon changes and ship combat additions) are cut and pasted from Black Flag. Still the games feel very different.

Black Flag was, at heart, a pirate game. Rogue, on the other hand, is an Assassin’s Creed game. This is a bit ironic, seeing as you play most of the game as a Templar, but nevertheless, Rogue combines all of the qualities of the older games in the series with the sailing in Black Flag perfectly.

Since the game takes place in the Northern Atlantic and New York, all of the buildings on land are much taller. I felt like a true Assassin running across rooftops in New York City, as well as when I was exploring the landscapes in the River Valley and North Atlantic.

There have been some minor changes in combat, like the additions of a silent air rifle and a not-so-silent grenade launcher. The most significant change to the game is probably the variety of enemies. Since Shay is hunting Assassins, you will face enemies equipped with all the skills and tools as you.

Using the hunting mechanic from Black Flag’s multiplayer, players must track down and take out lurking assassins before being spotted. If you give them the chance, the assassins will do everything in their power to attack you, and their attacks deal a lot of damage.

Rogue does not stand out because of it’s normal gameplay. It is the locations and expansive map that make the game a great experience.

Note: Rogue also offers some great set pieces and alternate areas in places such as Lisbon, Portugal, Paris, France, and the Arctic Ocean. These moments in the story are fantastic. In fact, the Lisbon mission is one of my favorites in the entire franchise.

Story

There are two separate storylines: one in modern day, and one in the animus. I will do a separate section for each.

Modern Story

The modern storyline is very similar to Black Flag’s. You once again play as a faceless worker at Abstergo Entertainment. After a virus hits the building, you are the only one left in the building to restart the servers.

After being enlisted by a modern Templar Knight, you go into the Animus to record Shay’s memories, occasionally coming out to reboot servers so that you can go back into the Animus and record more memories.

This storyline doesn’t really go anywhere, but it does give the player to go Easter Egg hunting by hacking computers around the Abstergo office building. Yay.

Animus Story

(the interesting one)

Rogue is the first installment in the franchise where the player can play as a Templar, the enemies of the Assassins. You play as Shay Patrick Cormack, a former Assassin who after serving the creed for years, decides he doesn't agree with what the Assassins are doing, and leaves his brothers to become a Templar and do what he thinks is right.

I knew going into the game that Ubisoft was going to have a hard time making the player prefer the Templar side after having them be enemies thus far in the series, but I thought the issue was handled well. By the end of the game I really felt like all the decisions made by the Shay were reasonable and that he was doing what he thought was right.

Speaking of the end of the game, I beat the main campaign in about 16 hours. This is pretty short for an AC game, but it places it at the approximate length of Assassin’s Creed Revelations. It just so happens that Revelations is/was my favorite AC game, so maybe the series is better off with shorter games.

The amount of collectibles and unlockables in the game is unreal. This game was built for 100 percenters. Here lies my only problem with the game. The story is so short that I didn’t visit a lot of the locations in the game. I bet I have seen about ⅓ of the entire game, even though my save slot says I’m 60% through the game.

Decide what you want about the story (or lack thereof). The massive map certainly provides for some replayability, but I wish the story had taken me to those location so I had a reason to go there besides to get collectables.

I should mention that Rogue’s story ties into Unity’s in such a awesome and significant way that I don’t want to spoil any of it. Let’s just say that the ending of Rogue and the realization of who your final target is is fantastic.

Controls

If you’ve played an AC game before, then you know what to expect. Controlling Shay feels clunky and imprecise. You WILL run up poles and fall off ledges unintentionally.

At this point, the inaccuracy of AC controls might as well be a trademark of the series. There is nothing new or gamebreaking here. Just another AC game and more falling off ledges. No big deal.

Graphics

Rogue looks just as good, if not better, than Black Flag. The sceneries and textures are impressive, especially for passed-gen. There are some pretty noticeable framerate drops when large groups of enemies are on screen. Sometimes is got so bad that I could not even fight because my frame-rate was somewhere in the vicinity of 2. Still, these moments are scarce, and the rest of the game runs very smoothly.

Award Time!

Best New Character: Shay Cormack

Best Returning Character: Achilles Davenport

Best Mission: The Lisbon Mission

Best Voice Actor: Whoever voiced First Mate Christopher Gist; his voice is absolutely ridiculous. Seriously, he sounds like a British guy doing a rich, white, american impression.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that Rogue is a game meant for fans of the series. Still, I think Ubisoft outdid themselves and sent a great last hurrah to all those playing on past-gen. I give Assassin’s Creed Rogue a 9/10. I even liked it better than Black Flag.

At this moment, I have not played Unity. That said, Rogue is probably my favorite AC game since Revelations. Everything the franchise has built towards during the last generation is compiled in this one game. As Unity leads the AC voyage on next-gen, Rogue wraps all that the series has worked towards in one neat package.

But rent it. $60 isn’t enough for a short game with no multiplayer.