Is Assassin's Creed Syndicate Another Step in the Series' Decline?

Despite some missteps, including the disastrous launch of Assassin's Creed Unity last year, I still consider myself an Assassin's Creed fan. At least, a fan of the game's spirit. I love running around city streets and scaling buildings detailed depictions of historical sites at the point of great change and turmoil. I also enjoy plotting out assassinations and experiencing an alternate view of history with a shadow war playing out behind the scenes of historic events. Lastly, I'm saddened by the idea that the series peaked with the Assassin's Creed 2 trilogy.

It's also a little unsettling to meet today's reveal of Assassin's Creed Syndicate with little more than a yawn and a shrug. The setting seems good enough: you play as the twin brother and sister duo Jacob and Evie Frye, who set out to take over London's gangs at the height of the Industrial Revolution. Assassins will have new technology at their disposal, such as a six-shooter, a kukri knife, and a Batman style zip-line that will quickly get players up onto and across rooftops. There's also a driving mechanic that gives the game a Victorian Era Grand Theft Carriage feel as you crush people under hoof and wheel.

Even the characters are more diverse, with a brother that specializes in brass-knuckled fisticuffs and (as reply to those that demanded a female protagonist) a sister that relies on a stealthier approach. Together, they use their piercing charm to take out Templar leaders, unify the criminal gangs under their command, and form an army for... working class rights? Let's just focus on the chance to run down the crime ridden streets of Victorian London, in places where even the police dare not set foot. And, at the very least, having most of the characters speak with a British accent will actually make sense this time.

So, why isn't the announcement of Syndicate more exciting? I believe it's because annual Assassin's Creed releases have finally become too much, especially since we saw two of them last year between Unity and Rogue. The Assassin's Creed approach might actually be worse than the Call of Duty games, since those releases rotate between multiple sub-series that tell entirely unrelated stories. Assassin's Creed games all take place in the same universe, where the Assassins generally use improved versions of the same tools, to fight a never ending war against the Templar. It reaches a point where, even as a fan, it's easy to get burned out and tired of it all--despite how Ubisoft claims fans want nothing less than annual releases.

But the truth is, it doesn't matter who is wearing the hood now, or how well they can wield a sword, pistol, hidden blade, or myriad of other weapons. It doesn't even matter that Assassin's Creed is taking a play out of the Hitman playbook by allowing environmental traps. It's that the closer the timeline gets to the modern age, the campier it all seems to get. Connor kind of proved the point by making a cameo at every major event of the American Revolutionary War in Assassin's Creed 3, including the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Now Assassins are out to unite the gangs of London, because watching their leaders get beaten down is somehow more unifying than getting paid money.

But there's a bigger issue at play: Assassin's Creed gameplay has somehow managed to get successively worse since Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, with the possible exception of Black Flag, and it's sad to watch it decline a little more year after year, usually because it repeatedly makes the same mistakes. The series has a bad habit of adding incremental changes, but sacrificing too much for the sake of making the series "more fun," which includes trying to fix a combat system that always seems to be at odds with stealth gameplay. Then there are the crazy lines of sight that allow enemies to spot you from blocks away while you're leaping across a small gap between buildings.

Perhaps this is the year it all comes together. Having Jacob go around punching everyone in the face in fast-paced combat while Evie sticks to the shadows seems like a reasonable compromise, but it's getting harder to care one way or the other. Even the idea of breaking England, or at least London, out of Templar control barely invokes more than a mild shrug. The modern day storyline is spinning its wheels, while trips to the past are fast losing their appeal. Assassin's Creed has always been sort of a test bed for cutting edge technology that simulates crowds and iconic structures in great detail. But the wow factor quickly wears off, which can be said for the series as a whole.

Being an Assassin isn't as exciting as it used to be, considering how you can become a new one every year. Assassins used to be amazing. Now they're lucky if they can survive their own histories. I don't think that extra characters and brass knuckles will be enough to renew my interest, but we'll see if Syndicate has a few more tricks tucked away in its bracer as we get closer to its release this fall.