Assassin’s Creed Syndicate – Getting Started

I’ve toyed with the idea of getting one of the newer Assassin’s Creed games recently. Either Origins or Odyssey. Critically acclaimed, apparent game-changers for the series.

Beyond that, I’ve played and finished every “main” entry in the series all the way up to Unity (not classing “Rogue” as one of these, but I’ll get to it one day).

So, I have a gap in the series, and I want to play an Assassin’s Creed game.

Enter Syndicate. Free with Games with Gold ages ago, I’ve had it ready to download and play for quite some time.

How could I miss a main title and skip to the “new” take on the series? I can’t.

Thankfully, I’ve wanted to play Syndicate for quite some time, so I’ve been looking forward to getting stuck-in. It’s cost me nothing (apart from my Xbox Live subscription), and it’s going to scratch the itch, I think.

 

A strong start

I think it’s a good thing that I’ve not played Origins or Odyssey yet. As I understand it, the movement and combat have been changed substantially, so much so that Syndicate is the last of the “old-style” Assassin’s Creed games.

Carrying the movement changes over from Unity, you have a reasonable flow to getting from point A to point B. Lovely animations, too.

Combat is similar to before, with a counter, attack and break-block buttons. It isn’t fluid like more modern games, but I suppose it “feels” like Assassin’s Creed. Oh nostalgia…..

The setting of Victorian London is great. Super industrial-looking and the sights and sounds of London are there to be taken in. I’ve a massive amount of exploration to do yet, so we’ll see if only initial impressions are good.

The twin assassins Jacob and Evie are a nice change to the usual solo-assassin approach, and giving each of them specific skills is nice. Stealth is more my bag, so I expect to be using Evie more, but we’ll see!

Very early doors for story, yet. So I’ll leave any judgement on that.

Voice acting seems pretty good, and it’s nice to hear some British accents in the background as well as the foreground.

Visually, it looks a little dated (released at the back-end of 2015), but it looks fine. I recall being quite impressed with Unity, so I’m expecting a degree of improvement here.

 

Long way to go

I’ve played very little so far, and this is my new solo-play game when I’m not online with Sea of Thieves, or playing through Twilight Princess on the Wii U.

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate will likely get the most play as things stand, so I think over the next couple of weeks of sporadic play, things will start to shape-up.

All being well everything will start to show itself and I’ll have a really good idea of what the game is about.

I’m hopeful and it’s looking promising. Plus, it was well-received at release, giving me extra momentum to get in and on with it.

Time to stalk prey across London town (damn, that map is huge!), and see what the Frye twins have to offer that Altair, Ezio, Connor, Arno and Edward didn’t. So far, it’s looking great. The sibling dynamic is very believable, and the delivery of the script and the acting for both Jacob and Evie is really nice.

As a long-time fan of the series, I’m genuinely excited to get fully immersed into the Assassin’s Creed universe again. Climbing, running, assassinating. I bloody love these games when I’m in the right frame of mind.

Let’s go!