Assassin's Creed Syndicate (2015)

 Assassin's Creed: Syndicate was released for PS4, Xbox One, and Windows at October 23rd, 2015. It had the distinction of being the earliest game in the series to have its existence leaked, with images from the game revealed barely a month after Unity's release. 

Plot

Set in London in 1868, Syndicate follows twins Jacob and Evie Frye as they attempt to free the city from a century of Templar control that stretched back to the death of Edward Kenway. Desperate to relieve the city from the Templars, Assassin Henry Green sends out a plea for help. It reaches the twins in Croydon, who assassinate two Templars, Rupert Ferris and David Brewster. Their mentor declines to send aid to London, so the twins decide to go to London on their own. 

Upon arriving, they find the city in a bad way, with the Templars led by Crawford Starrick pulling the strings in politics, transportation, and medicine, with a street gang named the Blighters terrorizing ordinary citizens. Jacob resolves to take out the Templars and the Blighters by building his own gang, the Rooks, while Evie enlists Henry's help to seek out a Piece of Eden known as the Shroud. 

Jacob seeks out the source of an opiate being passed off as sleeping syrup in the poorer areas of the city and destroys the factory behind its production. He finds that the creator of the syrup, John Elliotson. He assassinates the doctor and goes after the Templar behind the omnibus companies that provide transport in the city. He makes a partnership with Pearl Attaway, who sends him after a rival company she says belongs to the Templars. After assassinating the owner, Jacob is told that Pearl was the Templar and reluctantly assassinates her. 

Seeking to ruin Starrick's financials next, Jacob sought the Templar working in the Bank of England. Working with Sergeant Frederick Abberline, he discovers Philip Twopenny is the Templar and assassinates him. With his death, Jacob learns of a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. After fending off attackers, Jacob learns from Disraeli's wife that the man he seeks in Parliament is the Early of Cardigan. Jacob infiltrates the Palace of Westminster and kills Cardigan. 

With the Templars decimated and the Blighters in disarray, Jacob receives an invitation from Maxwell Roth, the leader of the Blighters. Roth wants to betray Starrick and enlists Jacob as an ally. After capturing several of Starrick's associates, Jacob turns on Roth when the latter wants to burn down a Starrick-owned warehouse filled with children. Jacob attacks Roth in his theatre and kills him, leaving Starrick as the only important Templar remaining. 

Meanwhile, Evie focuses on seeking the Shroud of Eden and cleaning up after Jacob's assassinations. She steals information from Starrick's second in command, Lucy Thorne, that leads her and Henry to the Kenway mansion. There they find that Edward Kenway did find the Shroud and hid it, leaving clues and a key to its location. Evie finds the key in the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, but is ambushed by Thorne, who steals the key. 

Evie and Henry go after Thorne, who is looking for information on the Vault in the Tower of London. After infiltrating the Tower, Evie kills Thorne and recovers the key. The Vault is revealed to be hidden near Buckingham Palace, though Evie is unable to retrieve blueprints for the Vault from the Templars. 

During all this, Evie has to fix situations created by Jacob's assassinations, including stopping counterfeit medicine from sickening children, setting up a new omnibus company, and recovering stolen money plates for the Bank. By the time Jacob has dealt with Maxwell Roth, Evie is fed up with Jacob's recklessness. The two get into an argument and express their desire not to work together again after defeating Starrick. 

Jacob and Evie work together to get into a ball being held at Buckingham Palace. Evie is able to retrieve the blueprints she missed earlier, but is stopped by Starrick, who she is forced to dance with. Jacob takes out snipers meant to kill the heads of Church and State, which allows Evie to get away from Starrick. Starrick, however, steals the key and infiltrates the Vault, taking the Shroud in the process. He is able to overcome Jacob, Evie, and Henry for a time, until the twins manage to separate him from the Shroud and are able to kill him. 

The three are later knighted by Queen Victoria for their efforts. With the Templar threat defeated, Jacob and Evie to decide to work together again to continuing trying to fix the social ills of Industrial London. 

The modern day story is nominally the same as the previous game. The initiate is contacted by Bishop to sift through these memories to locate the Shroud of Eden. Once the initiate finishes the memories, the Assassins led by Shawn Hastings and Rebecca Crane go after it. However, the Templars led by Otso Berg and Violet da Costa are there first and secure the Shroud. Da Costa takes it to Abstergo to aid in the Phoenix Project, which is Abstergo's plan to clone a Precursor being, namely to give Juno a physical body. 

Gameplay

London is considerably larger than Paris was in Unity, which allows for more exploration, especially with the addition of the rope launcher. The rope launcher allowed for near instantaneous ascent of buildings, including Big Ben and St. Paul's Cathedral. London is separated into seven boroughs, including the Thames River. Each of these boroughs starts off controlled by the Blighters, whose hold can be broken through side activities. 

These activities are given by allies of the Assassins, including Frederick Abberline, Henry Green, and Clara O'Dea, who is a young girl who has a network of children working for her that collect items and information. By completing these activities, which include abducting Blighters, assassinating Templars, taking gang strongholds, or liberating children from unsafe factories, the Blighters hold on a borough is broken and the Blighter leader of that borough can be drawn out to be killed in a gang war. Defeating the leader gives the Rooks control of that borough. 

Side missions return in the form of character missions, where the twins can aid a historical character such as Charles Dickins or Queen Victoria in a series of missions. There is a time rift in the world that the player can travel through, allowing them to play as Jacob's granddaughter Lydia. Set in 1916, Lydia works with Winston Churchill to uncover a German spy ring in London during the First World War. Lydia kills the ringleader, who turns out to be a Sage. Afterwards, it is revealed that Juno led the player through the rift to find out what happened to the Sage from that time. 

Tools include the rope launcher, smoke bombs, and voltaic bombs, which shock enemies. Open carrying of weapons is not allowed in Victorian London, so the player the player must use cane swords, brass knuckles, and the Hidden Blade. Throwing knives and pistols can be used at range. 

Syndicate introduces a levelling system that is expanded on in subsequent games. Completing kills and missions grants the player experience, with experience points granted for every 1000 XP earned. These points can be used to unlock skills for Jacob and Evie and once enough points are spent, the player can gain a level, up to level 10. The player's level matters, as the various boroughs have different difficulty levels. Unlocking higher levels allows the player to be able to fight stronger enemies and unlock higher level weapons and gear. 

Collectibles include Helix glitches, chests, pressed flowers (used to unlock outfit colors), illustrations, different beers, and music boxes. These boxes contain amulets which are used to unlock a special outfit for Evie that is of Precursor origin. 

Thoughts

This game was a vast improvement over the previous installment. Whatever broken mechanic led to the issues with the player movement in the previous game was fixed, there were no coop missions, and navigating the city was much, much easier. 

London was designed brilliantly, I felt. You could feel the grittiness and grime of Industrial London, and the social stratification of the city, from wealthy Westminster to poor Whitechapel, was seen very sharply. I enjoyed the rope launcher as well, as it allowed for the easiest movement of any game in the series. Carriages, too, could be used on the streets to get around quickly as well. 

Interacting with historical characters was interesting, I found. This was the first game in the main series (Liberation is not in the main series) to have a female protagonist and certainly switching back and forth between Jacob and Evie and their different strengths was a nice change of pace. 

Still though, the formula for the series had largely remained the same since the beginning and while I did not necessarily mind, there was a certain fatigue growing for the franchise. Ubisoft would take a year off from the games to overhaul the series, but first the franchise took a detour through the silver screen.