Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Unity is one of the more divisive entries in the series. While the game has its fans, its rough launch essentially caused Ubisoft to completely reinvent the long-running series with the RPG-focused Assassin’s Creed Origins just years later. (For more AC coverage, read our review of Black Flag Resynced!)
Now, Assassin’s Creed Unity is looking more fondly upon by fans. It has a strong story, the parkour is excellent, and it still looks jaw-dropping to this day. However, former Brand Manager Jean Guesdon, who directed the second game in the series and spent 17 years on the franchise, believes it was a project that was heavily misunderstood, not just by gamers, but by those working on the game.
In a discussion with Retro Gamer magazine, as picked up by GamesRadar, Guesdon said that Ubisoft’s “opus” definitely “pushed too many things at once”. As is well-documented, the game was a massive technical leap for the series, but plagued with technical issues from both a development side.
“Like AC3 with AnvilNext, Unity’s development was impacted by the incredible new tech allowing for 1:1 scale, interiors, massive crowds, a brand-new parkour system and an integrated multiplayer component,” the developer said. “Pushing content and tech at the same time is always very demanding, and this opus maybe pushed too many things at once.”
Nevertheless, the developer believes that Unity as an example of how some can fail to explain development scope of a project. “[Assassin’s Creed Unity] is one of the most underestimated games in the series,” he explained.
Alongside being misunderstood by the brass above the development team, AC Unity is still a weirdly underrated game as well. Despite its development woes, the game turned out well, all things considered.
While the wider Assassin’s Creed fanbase already knows the score now, AC Unity serves as a look at what the series could’ve been before the switch to massive-scale RPGs. I’m not a hater of the series’ RPG entries, although I do prefer them less to the series’ classic formula, and Unity was an imperfect leap forward that sadly failed to grab the ledge it was aiming for.
There’s a lot to love about Assassin’s Creed Unity, especially now that it’s fairly stable. There are still some glitches you’ll have to contend with, but you’re not able to experience what Unity actually is. In fact, on modern consoles, you have the ability to do so with a higher resolution and framerate than we were dealing with on its troubled launch.
It’s interesting as Assassin’s Creed Unity, while more stable now, is widely perceived as pretty good, and it always was. Beneath the launch months’ glitches, the game was always pretty damn good, but it’ll never be perfect. The reevaluation its received is a little weird as, outside of the initial outrage, it’s simply never been a bad game. I mean, maybe that’s just me, as I always love to give imperfect games a chance, but AC Unity is a gem in the rough—always will be.
