Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is an action adventure game developed and published by Ubisoft, releasing in October 2015 for the PS4, Xbox One and PC. This is the 9th game in the Assassin’s Creed series so far. The game is run using the AnvilNext 2.0 engine, which was used in AC Unity and Rainbow Six Siege.
For the game play, most will probably be already well aware of what to expect from an Assassin’s Creed game. You play as one of two playable characters, Evie and Jacob Frye. A new, welcome mechanic to the game is a rope launcher, allowing the characters to quickly scale larger buildings and to create their own zip-lines for easier travel between buildings too. The combat system is at its best again with a very easy to use control set. The game is set in London, and you are able to freely roam the city completing all kinds of quests, finding collectables and locating treasure scattered around the world. Whilst the game play is considered the same as the rest of the games, I still really enjoyed it.
Graphically, Syndicate looks gorgeous, I sadly was not able to run the game at 4k, but was able to push all of the graphics up to max on 1440. The City of London just looks amazing. The textures are of all high quality, animation is almost seemly showing on all of the characters. It is a huge improvement over the previous entries to the series. Voice acting is spot on with the classic London accent on all characters found throughout the game.
You should not expect a challenging game when playing Syndicate, as long as you stick to the areas of London that is within your level range, you probably won’t die at all. You can challenge yourself by going to the higher level zones before you should, but I found myself to getting completely overrun by more powerful enemies quicker than normal. The game’s skills trees are very well designed to let you build your two characters to specialise in different trees. I went for Evie being the more stealth oriented character and Jacob the more hand-fisted of the two. I really liked having the option of the two characters as it lets you choose the right head for the job you have been tasked to do.
Like I said above, the city is jam-packed full of things to do, gang wars, freeing laboured children, finding rare wine or searching for treasure. There are hours of content to be found after you complete the game, with plenty of side quests to take on as well. This was one of the few Assassins’ Creed games that I actually really enjoyed doing the optional tasks in.
I have been playing Syndicate for about 50 hours so far. The main story only takes about half of that. I wouldn’t say there is a huge level of replay ability in this game, as the story is linear and the lack of any difficulty options means you can’t replay the game in a sort of New Game + mode. Although I am very happy with the amount of hours I have put into the game so far and not many people about the amount of content on offer in this game.
Thankfully I didn’t have any technical problems. I wasn’t able to run at 4k, because it is simply too taxing at this moment in time. But the game ran as smooth as butter at 1440p in 60 fps. The game is very well optimized and loading times are almost none-existent. I played with a controller and I would suggest you do to as the combat system just matches up well with it.
To sum up, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is one of the better games in the series, coming close to Black Flag as the best. The characters are probably the most loveable of all of the series so far, with Evie being the first female protagonist. The game has plenty of content, and shows off extremely high production values in the graphics and sound departments. The lack of any technical problems also counts as a major positive for the AC series too given past releases not being so smooth. As with all recently released games in this series, you should expect a premium price tag, and this is no different at £39, 99. If you can wait it out another few months you can probably get it for £30, but I would say the game is even worth it at full price right now.
Minimum Requirements of Assassins Creed Syndicate:
OS: Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 (64bit versions)
Processor: Intel Core i5 2400s @ 2.5 GHz / AMD FX 6350 @ 3.9 GHz
Memory: 6 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 / AMD Radeon R9 270 (2GB VRAM with Shader Model 5.0)
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Card with latest drivers
Recommended Requirements of Assassins Creed Syndicate:
OS: Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 (64bit versions)
Processor: Intel Core i7 3770 @ 3.5 GHz / AMD FX 8350 @ 4.0 GHz
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 (4GB) or the newer GTX 970 (4GB) / AMD Radeon R9 280X (3GB of VRAM) or better
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Card with latest drivers
Additional Notes: *Technical Notice from the developer: For a recommended experience, the game requires a video card with at least 3GB of VRAM when playing at a full HD resolution. While we encourage you to fiddle with the advanced options to fully customize your gaming experience, please keep an eye out for the VRAM meter usage when you adjust these settings.
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