I really enjoyed Assassin’s Creed Unity last year – to the tune of 120 hours spent on the game, the DLC, and the companion app. It was nice to return to the city-based gameplay that birthed the franchise, but if you asked me to pick my favorite Assassin’s Creed game out of the entire series it would have to be Black Flag. There was something about the mix of high seas piracy and landlubber exploration that was as undeniably fresh as the sea air, and it only took me a matter of minutes to find my sea legs once again once I entered the world of Assassin’s Creed Rogue.
Previously released on PS3 and Xbox 360 last November (since last-gen gamers didn’t get Unity) Rogue doesn’t necessarily pick-up where Black Flag left off, but rather incorporates elements and ties together plot threads and characters from Assassin’s Creed III, Black Flag and its DLC. Once again, you’ll be playing as an employee of Abstergo, acting under the guidance of an unseen voice in your head as you explore those familiar office cubicles from Black Flag looking for more lost data pads and jacking into the Animus to take on the role of Shay Patrick Cormac.
The game opens with an efficiently brief and informative tutorial level that familiarizes you to with the core gameplay elements of the franchise as well as reminding you of a few favorite tricks that are back – who else missed whistling from haystacks in Unity? By the end of the tutorial mission, you will have whacked a few redcoats, freed some prisoners, opened a few chests, found a treasure map, and stolen your new ship, the Morrigan.
The story for Rogue is extremely clever and once again inserts Shay into historical events much like Forrest Gump. I had never heard of Lawrence Washington, or that he invented an air-powered (silent) rifle, or that he was killed by an assassin so his brother George could rise to power. If you are a fan of the TV series Sleepy Hollow (especially this last season) you will certainly enjoy sailing your ship to that town and assisting Ben Franklin with some experiments involving lightning and an artifact. But things really get tense when Shay cuts his ties with the Assassin’s and even starts to hunt down his former brothers.
As always, the story is only a small fraction of the content and is presented in such a way that you can decide when you are ready to pursue the next chapter. This leaves you plenty of time to scour the maps to find and collect more booty than your ship could ever hold. Divided into two main areas, you can chart your course across maps of the River Valley and North America, which both contain a wealth of known and unknown locations such as islands, bays, shipwrecks, outposts, forts, and settlements. There are plenty of towns, villages, and major cities including a sprawling 18th century version of the Big Apple that will keep you busy for days.
Finding the viewpoint in each new area, climbing to its peak, and syncing will reveal all the collectibles in the area and then it’s map clean-up time. Chests, totems, Indian cave drawings, Templar relics, treasure maps, sea shanties, and Viking sword fragments have all been carelessly misplaced and need your recovery. You won’t be able to abandon the main story for too long though, as Rogue gates much of its content by your progress through the campaign. This is especially evident in crafting, equipment for Shay, and ship upgrades. Even treasure is gated, as they will tempt you with chests hidden behind ice walls that cannot be shattered until you get frag grenades much later in the game, so completionists will be doing a bit of backtracking.
Rogue offers a travel speed to quickly get you from one location to the next and if you have already been to that location and synced the viewpoint you can always fast-travel, but then you might miss out on some rewarding ship combat, which always helps fill the hold with valuable resources for upgrades and cash, as well as fishing opportunities to catch yourself a great white shark or perhaps a killer whale. There are plenty of hunting opportunities and challenges on land as well, and everything you scavenge can be used in the excellent crafting system to improve and resupply Shay.
Rogue introduces a few new elements to the series starting with the icy conditions of the North Atlantic. Sure, those shimmering Northern Lights are beautiful at night, but don’t let them distract you from that iceberg that threatens to sink your ship – at least until you can install an ice breaking ram on the bow. Assassin Intercept missions are another fun and challenging diversion. Once you break ties with the assassins, you’ll want to sink their ships and foil their plans, which means sneaking up on carrier pigeons to intercept their orders, find their target, and protect them from multiple assassins who are blended into the local population. Even the naval combat has been enhanced. Instead of dropping exploding barrels behind your ship you can now ignite a trail of oil to set your pursuers on fire. And for the first time, enemies will now try to board your ship, putting you into a defensive mode where you must quickly kill your attackers before your crew is killed and you lose your ship.
One thing that is missing from Rogue is the companion app. This was an invaluable tool when playing Black Flag, not only being able to access the real-time navigation maps without interrupting my gameplay, but also being able to have my treasure maps accessible while trying to match-up landmarks. Plus, the whole building a fleet and shipping cargo around the world for extra cash element is gone. Also gone is any type of multiplayer component, which may turn off some gamers, but I was never a huge fan of the multiplayer modes in any of the Creed games other than the co-op in Unity.
I haven’t played an Assassin’s Creed game on a last-gen console since AC3. I played Black Flag and Unity on both the Xbox One and PS4 and knowing that Rogue was eventually coming to the PC, I chose not to play it when it launched last year. I’m fairly certain it was worth the wait, as the PC version of Rogue looks fantastic on my gaming rig, not to mention it was so refreshing to get out of those claustrophobic city environments of Unity and scamper through the treetops once again. My GTX980 card was able to run this game at max settings at consistent framerates with no tearing. There were a few clipping issues that had Shay getting stuck in the environment, but only two of them required me to reload a checkpoint. As expected, the soundtrack is glorious, and the voice acting is perhaps some of the finest in the series – love singing along with those sea shanties almost as much as Shay’s Irish accent.
I really hope Ubisoft considers releasing this to current-gen consoles. Despite my love of Black Flag, Assassin’s Creed Rogue might just be my new favorite installment in the franchise thanks to the wonderful way in which it ties together so many individual games, stories, and characters. I can’t count the number of times I said, “Hey, I know that guy!”, or “Hey, I (Connor) built that house!”, and yes, Shay will get to renovate plenty of buildings in almost every location he visits and even do some city management later in the game.
And that is what I love about the Assassin’s Creed franchise – there is never a shortage of things to do. You can immerse yourself in the fictionalized events of American history, or you can lose countless hours of your life in simple exploration and treasure hunting – with or without a treasure map. No matter what you do or when or how you do it, Assassin’s Creed Rogue delivers 30-40 hours of solid single-player entertainment, and this is one epic adventure you don’t want to miss.
