Why is assassins creed so popular

While its combat and sidequest structure make it all but inseparable from Black Flag, it deserves an honorable mention for its story alone. Here, former slave Adewale stands against the slavemasters of Haiti in the name of freedom, proving that the Assassins' mission can take on many important shapes. Freedom Cry puts you in the thick of a slave trade and is unflinching in how it depicts that brutality.

You can't miss the human auctions or runaway slaves who will be killed without your help, and being a participant rather than an observer makes it impossible to ignore. But perhaps most importantly, Freedom Cry shows how those slaves and the nation's freemen are active participants in their own liberation, working with Adewale rather than waiting passively.

In that regard, Freedom Cry does something that is not only important, but almost entirely unique, and that deserves a shout out. Before Ezio's trilogy was a twinkle in the eyes of the AC development team, there was Altair's Chronicles. The mobile prequel to the original Assassin's Creed, it sees Altair hunting for a mythical artefact called The Chalice in constricted 3D world.

The one thing Altair's Chronicles sort-of has going for it is visuals, including lovely if overused environmental designs, which at least make it aesthetically-pleasing.

The final side-scrolling stealthy spin-off say that three times from Ubi and Climax Studios, Chronicles Russia is gorgeously drawn in the hues of 20th century propaganda, but fiendishly difficult.

The sneaky quest of Nikolai Orelov in Russia, this is actually the most modern Creed adventure to date. Orelov is, of course, still an Assassin, complete with hidden blade but just to shake things up he's armed with a rifle for picking off enemies from afar and a winch for yanking doors off grates to sneak through.

There's plenty of satisfying Assassin-ing to do here but Chronicles Russia manages to be the worst of the arty trilogy with some seriously infuriating difficulty spikes if you choose to do anything other that, well, spike your enemies silently. Add in some frustrating timed levels and the interesting Assassin's lore and new characters become bogged down by an experience that just feels like it hasn't been thought through quite hard enough. Unlike Chronicles China or India, both fun stealth side scrollers in their own right, this one is for fans of the Brotherhood only.

They just act as vehicles to push you into a 2D platformer that takes on a few infinite-runner qualities, if you feel like charging in full steam and destroying every barely competent guard you meet.

It's a simple game that doesn't have the depth of most Assassin's Creed titles, but it does accomplish what it sets out to do. Creating a smoother, more interesting platforming experience than the mobile companion games, Discovery set the standard for 2D Creed games back in It's since been bypassed by the superior Chronicles: China, but might still be worth a play if you can find a DS copy, since Ubisoft has since removed all evidence of the mobile version.

Released alongside Assassin's Creed 2 and Discovery in a calculated assault on everyone's wallets, Bloodlines on PSP continues Altair's story following the events of the original game. In the case of the former, it does a decent job, with crisp visuals that make it look like a true AC game but when it comes to gameplay, Bloodlines misses the haystack: small environments funnel you into battles constantly and the combat system means fights often feel as ungainly as hand-stitching in oven mitts.

Plus, while Bloodlines does have an involved story that's not as awful as Altair's Chronicles, it often falls flat and isn't strong enough to make up for the lacklustre combat. The game's one saving grace is Maria - Altair's sharp-tongued associate who fans might remember from a certain dream sequence - whose interactions with Altair give the story some life and depth. Sadly, even she's not enough to save the production. Acting as part two of the three-part Assassin's Creed Chronicles mini-series, Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India is the franchise's first foray into what was, at the time, the Jewel in the Crown of the British Empire.

Unfortunately, you'll only see a limited amount of it, because main character Arbaaz's linear, 2. Beautiful backdrops and a satisfying sense of movement make up for that somewhat, but that only does so much to fix the game's other pressing issues.

Chronicles India punishes you for even attempting to liven things up with combat, handing out automatic low scores or outright failure for your efforts. And in a game where points are directly tied to important upgrades, that just feels like bullying.

Clumsy attempts to up the tension - like forcing Arbaaz to run slower than he did five minutes before, for no reason - lead to even more frustration, and awkward pacing makes the game drag horrendously. Falling short of its predecessor, Chronicles China, in almost every respect, this is an entry you can safely vault right over. It takes serious confidence to slim down a mini-game from one of your previous titles and release it on its own.

But Ubisoft was riding high on the crest of Black Flag's success in late , and the result was Assassin's Creed Pirates, a mobile game that is just Black Flag's ship combat, playable on the go. But the designers knew that, and so they made a point of prioritizing the combat and making sure that controlling ships via touch features feel simple and natural.

Assassin's Creed 3 is, in many ways, a test drive. Unfortunately, it gets a lot of other things - fundamental, obvious things - very wrong. Main character Connor is often too aloof and superior to be sympathetic, and the amount of times he steps in to save the incompetent Founding Fathers is hard to take seriously. The game contains sections that emphasize stealth, but the actual stealth controls are poor, so these parts are far more annoying than fun. And, hurting from a tight development schedule, the game shipped with enough bugs to make an entomologist swoon.

Sadly, the way it controls is awkward at best and game-breaking at worst and let's not even talk about how climbing every tree is exactly the same. The latest entry into the Assassin's Creed canon, Valhalla serves as a successor to Odyssey. Set during the Viking Invasion of Britain circa AD, the player assumes control of the Viking Eivor, who becomes involved in the ancient conflict between Templars and Assassins.

Highly anticipated since its announcement, Valhalla received praise for its narrative and world design. Criticism was once again aimed at the familiarity of the gameplay. Indeed, the game plays more like a mixed-tape of previous hits rather than a fresh new entry of original tunes. With an average score of 83, however, Valhalla is a clear signal that the franchise is still in fine form. Black Flag marked a shift in the series' gameplay. The game features a great deal of ship-based action, with particular emphasis on strategy and exploration.

Critically acclaimed upon release, Black Flag was considered an interesting and successful shift to the traditional formula. Criticism remained for the repetitiveness of the missions, as well as the modern-day storyline which was considered intrusive. Black Flag 's open-world received considerable praise, particularly for its large scope. With an 85 Metacritic score, it received high notes in all its iterations, with its PS3 version as the highest-rated.

Odyssey took players further into the past than ever before, taking place between the years BC. Set against the backdrop of the Peloponnesian War, the player controls a mercenary who fights for both sides as they attempt to find their family.

Odyssey received critical acclaim for its characters , scope, setting, plot, gameplay, and story. However, it was criticized for being overly ambitious. Indeed, the game's reach sometimes exceeds its grasp. It achieved a weighted score of 85 on Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable reviews. Entering into the golden age of Assassin's Creed, Brotherhood serves as a direct sequel to Assassin's Creed II and continues Ezio Auditore da Firenze 's quest to restore the Assassin order and bring down his enemies, the powerful Borgia family.

Set in 16th-century Italy, mainly Rome, Brotherhood earned critical acclaim. Reviewers praised the setting, gameplay, and multiplayer mode, although some found the story inferior to its predecessor. The PS3 version is the first one to achieve a 90 on Metacritic, although its weighted average is 89 when counting the Xbox and PC versions.

Perhaps one of Assassin's Creed's greatest successes is its world-building. While AC1 didn't have a large open world that is so common in its latest installments, each city still felt unique and alive in its own way.

The inclusion of Assassin Dens throughout each location gave a feeling of safety and security in the company of fellow Assassins that maintained them, a detail that was lost later in the series. Another aspect about the first Assassin's Creed game that is often overlooked is the modern storyline and how non-intrusive it was.

Desmond Miles was introduced as the first modern protagonist of the series, but his story was quite simplistic and never left his room. It hasn't always been a happy relationship. While the early games captured my imagination and introduced me to whole new modes of gameplay, the series' middle years were laden with misfires, feature bloat, and other serious problems.

But as I looked back on more than a decade of playing Assassin's Creed games to write this article, I for the first time kind of understood loving something so much that its stumbles make you feel not just disappointed, but a little mad.

And Assassin's Creed has made some infuriating missteps over the years. But at the same time, it has something in common with many of my favorite music artists like David Bowie and Radiohead: it's willing to reinvent the wheel on the regular and try new things rather than settle into a Call of Duty or FIFA-like pattern of barely-there refinements.

My ups and downs with the series reached a new zenith with this year's Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Just as I was giving up on one of my favorite franchises, this reinvention gave me the feels I hadn't had since the series' best days that means the Ezio Trilogy , by the way.

And while the deepest heart of the new game was still Assassin's Creed, Odyssey was a wild departure. But that's OK. Because by tossing out the old ideas about what this beloved franchise was, Ubisoft actually saved it from doom. What you're about to read isn't a review— Ars already did that. This is just a super-fan putting his geek-out hat on to ponder why Odyssey worked so well where other recent Assassin's Creed games didn't.

It makes sense to start with a summary of the journey so far, so we'll go through each main series game one-by-one. To understand why Odyssey is great, it's important to recognize why not all of its predecessors were.

If you're just interested in Odyssey , you can skip ahead—this will be bloated and lengthy, just like a modern Assassin's Creed game. You probably won't agree with all my takes. That's OK, it makes for a good conversation. Think of it kind of like a "best and worst" list without firm rankings. Also included here: a link to every main series Assassin's Creed review ever published on Ars. Today, the series has a reputation for aping the best ideas from other franchises and adapting them for the Assassin's Creed formula, and that's accurate.

But sometimes we forget that the first game actually was truly inventive. It wasn't just imitating other games—at least, not other triple-A ones. While the first version of anything usually falls short and this title was no exception, I warmly remember it for its ambition regardless.