The premise is that the only Assassin’s Creed I’d played before this was Assassin’s Creed 2, and that was many years ago. Furthermore, I knew little to nothing of how the whole series evolved over time, so I didn’t have any particular expectation about this game. I only knew it was well received — better than the previous titles had been — so I added it to my wishlist and I was lucky enough to win it on SG.

Long story short: I enjoyed it.

I really liked how vast and immersive the world is. The whole setting feels real: the various cities, with the people that bring them to life, the impressive castles (I didn’t know I loved Japanese architecture this much), the wilderness and breathtaking sceneries. That’s what astounded me the most: how once you leave the beaten path, you find yourself immersed in an impenetrable bush, exactly as you’d expect from a land that hasn’t been fully corrupted by human presence yet. It just feels right, and it’s probably the best open world game I’ve played in that regard (not that I played many, but still).

Gameplay-wise, I was less impressed, instead. There are two playable characters: a shinobi and a samurai. The shinobi has a classic assassin style, with parkour, stealth kills, and such, which make it very similar to the protagonist of the other game I played. The samurai is basically an unbreakable walking wall; he smashes through almost any enemy with little to no effort. I felt a sort of dissonance playing with this one, not only because he seems unfairly strong, but also because his playstyle really clashes with that of the first character.

This feeling of dissonance was then exacerbated by the story. They built the game as if the two characters were equal, both with strong motivation behind their actions, to the point that once you’ve unlocked both, apart for a few very short sections of the game where you don’t have any choice, you can play with whatever character you prefer. But to me it didn’t feel like that at all. In my opinion, the shinobi’s story had a much stronger premise compared to the samurai’s one, so it made little to no sense to favour the latter in the major quest line.

I’m not saying it’s not fun to play as the samurai. Actually, it reminded me a bit of For Honor, and I liked that game at the time. But this one simply jars with the general perception I had of the game. I wouldn’t have made him a playable character and had him be more of a secondary character instead.

Another thing regarding the plot. We have to deal with two parallel narratives: (1) the one you often forget about: you being someone who’s reliving memories of the past through a simulation; (2) the one that almost the whole game revolves around: you being the very characters which those memories belong to.

About the first one: when I started the game for the first time, I was shown a very interesting cinematic, showing some sceneries, but filled with glitches and such at the same time, and a voice telling something along the lines of “they’re lying to you”. Then I ended up in the hub where I could select the memories of different AC games, including the ones I didn’t actually own. This whole thing really piqued my interest, but I soon realized that there was nothing more to it. They basically relegated the whole lore behind the assassin’s creed simulation to the memory selection screen. The game itself makes no mention of it, with the exception of a handful of secondary missions that are easily missable since their aim is to collect shop currency. I found it quite disappointing.

Concerning the second one: despite the strong premise I mentioned before, it fell a bit short in its delivery at the end. There’s a huge build-up about taking revenge on a group of men who basically took everything away from the protagonists, but the way they end up dealing with them and, most of all, their leader, felt a lot anticlimactic. (Mind that I played with the canon story option activated right from the start, so the “big” choices of the game were taken automatically by the characters. I assume you have a say in that if you can choose yourself)

To make things worse, after that quest line ends, you’re left with just a few personal quests for each of the main characters which feel more like side quests rather than main ones, and then the game just ends, leaving you hanging there like that. I just hope there will be more development and a proper closure to the story with future DLCs.

So, overall, I had fun playing it, but it undeniably left me a bit unsatisfied. Despite that, I would still recommend it.