Review: London is lovely in redemptive ‘Assassin’s Creed Syndicate’

When I first fired up Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, I was already a little tired of the series’ seemingly endless tale of Assassins and Templars duking it out across history. You can only throw on a hood and stab legions of baddies in the face so many times before the whole thing starts to feel rote, and with at least one game released every year since 2007, well, it feels rote.

But Syndicate surprised me. Though developer Ubisoft Quebec hasn’t quite flipped the script on the series, it has refined everything that made it fun in the first place. The result is my favorite game in the franchise since the excellent Assassin’s Creed II, and a fine return to form for an overplayed killer.

Double Trouble

Set in London during the Industrial Revolution, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is the first game in the series that takes place in what is more or less the modern era, and Ubisoft couldn’t have chosen a more perfect locale.

You take on the role of the wonderfully voiced twin assassins Jacob and Evie Frye, who seek to free London from the grip of the tyrannical Templar, Crawford Starrick. Starrick has his hands in every facet of London’s day-to-day life, keeping everyone in line with his gang, The Blighters. (Hint: these are the folks whose faces you’ll spend the game rearranging.)

The Frye siblings are both fully realized and well developed. Jacob is headstrong and rash, and as a result prefers to deal with confrontation head-on. Evie is the smarter, more deliberate of the duo and relies more on stealth, though she can still throw a heck of a haymaker. You can switch between the two at will, though doing so is far from seamless. Unlike Grand Theft Auto V, which allows you to switch between characters on the fly, Syndicate requires you to pause the game to make the change.

As you progress through the game’s story, you collect cash and experience, which you can then use to upgrade and purchase new equipment and skills. Thankfully, Jacob and Evie share everything, so when you gain a skill point with Jacob, Evie gets one, too. Those skill points can then be used to upgrade both characters separately.

Unfortunately, you’ll power through each character’s skill tree so fast that they eventually end up with the exact same upgrades. In fact, the only thing that sets Jacob and Evie apart is their handful of unique skills. It’s not a huge issue, but if feels like a missed opportunity.

Rope-a-Dope

At its heart, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is about sneaking around, sticking your blades into some bad guys, and climbing away. And while the combat isn’t exactly as fluid as it is in, say, Batman: Arkham Knight, it feels sharper than previous Assassin’s Creed games thanks to tightened controls. Syndicate also introduces a slew of new weapons, including poison darts, stun bombs, and cane swords.

But the best addition is the rope launcher. Attached to your gauntlet, the rope launcher lets you streak across London’s rooftops in a flash. You can literally go from running on foot to standing on top of Big Ben in an instant with this thing. Being chased by a group of gang members only to rocket up to the top of a church steeple and out of their sight makes you feel like a Victorian superhero.

My one gripe with the rope launcher is that you can’t always see where you’re going to shoot it. You might intend to shoot your rope onto a rooftop across the street and accidentally fire it at the building above you. And as in past Assassin’s Creeds, the climbing still gets fidgety. You’ll still get hung up on bits of the environment and will frequently fumble with the controls.

London Calling

But even so, it’s easy to fall in love with roaming about London.

Your first look at the city is a bleak slum called Whitechapel, complete with drunkards and street urchins ready to pick your pockets. Heavy smog from nearby factories hangs over the area and hundreds of smoke stacks dot the landscape. It’s all pretty damn depressing, and that’s the point.

As you move across the city, however, the world becomes more colorful and lively. You’ll see people going about their daily lives, wandering the cobblestoned streets and setting a convincing backdrop. Better still, the often awkward present-day subplots found in other Creed games has been downplayed in Syndicate. You’ll spend most of your time in London, and the game is better for it.

Further building on the city’s character is the game’s fantastic, dynamic score, which shifts as you move between different parts of London. The city is the star of the show.

Gangland

In order to progress through Syndicate’s story, you’ll have to wrest control of London’s neighborhoods from Starrick’s gang. Completing various missions unlocks gang wars between your own crew — The Rooks — and Starrick's Blighters. The winner takes the territory.

But there are a number of boroughs to conquer, and after a while, the gang wars and missions that lead to them begin to feel played out. The same thing can be said for a handful of the game’s side quests. Eventually, saving kids from child labor factories, no matter how noble, starts to feel tedious. Repetition is a common open-world problem — it’s plagued every version of Assassin’s Creed since the first game was released in 2007 — and Syndicate doesn’t manage to solve it. Fortunately, there's plenty to do, and that living, breathing London keep the game from feeling stale. It largely feels fresh and stays fun until the very end.

Pleasantly enough, Syndicate also takes a big step away from last year’s troubled Assassin’s Creed Unity by removing every whiff of online connected hooey. You’ll no longer be noodged to spend extra money, visit websites, or invite friends to activate missions. This is a solo game, and it’s perfectly content to be one.

And if you’re a fan of the series, you’ll likely be content roping your way through Syndicate. It rights the ship and delivers a solid, steady stealth game. Best of all, if, like me, you were ready to write the whole series off, it will jump you right back into the gang.

What’s Hot: OMG rope launcher; tight combat; charming protagonists; London feels alive

What’s Not: Free-running controls can be wonky; repetitive missions

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