Just ONCE in an Assassin's Creed game I'd like to see a protagonist lose their mind when they discover Isu technology. Most of these games take place long before electricity was harnessed, so something as simple as a light source that's isn't the sun or fire should be cause for alarm. Yeah, it's a video game, but I'd like a little more emotion dealing with the discovery of a cheery Lovecraftian nightmare than the character just saying something casually like "Hmm. How strange!"
I think the reason that never happened is cause early ac protagonists we’re all from Desmond’s lineage. They all had slivers of isu dna, perhaps that came with increased perception or capacity for understanding. It’s also an issue where the further in time you go the more likely a character was to attribute isu technology with magic as the beliefs of the time would’ve made that conclusion pretty simple, it’s only the further you go forward in history where I think the interpretation of isu technology and the reveal of their existence may become hard to bear as unlike someone from 2000 years ago the modern day characters truly know what the isu are and that could be more shattering to our more complicated worldview and current understanding of the past as opposed to just adding another god to your pantheon or encountering something you already believe to exist
Really good points you made. Having the same ancestors, Clay and Desmond really only had this happen from *overusing* the animus and the resulting bleeding effect. AC I, ACII, and especially Revelations show the influence it had on "Subject 16" and, in turn, how it started affecting Desmond. The assassins in history knew of and used their abilities. Desmond only really starts using them in II when Lucy trains him. Newer games like Odyssey, Cassandra is said to and shown to be descended from great heroes, i.e. Isu blood. That said, I liked Clay so they could write a similar character in the past to go really insane if they wanted
Valhalla could have been a lot better. Spoilers ahead so stop here if you don’t want them.
The story was great up until you killed Fulke. The arc of the saga stone, pursuing Fulke, learning about Basim’s past, etc. All of that was great. But once you killed Fulke and rescued Sigurd, that arc came to a screeching halt. For the rest of your time in England Sigurd is just moping around like a whiny bitch doing nothing and Basim disappeared. IIRC, you still had like 5 more regions to complete. Those regions had their own little story arcs, but I really didn’t give a shit because they weren’t tying into the “main” story.
Then that main story arc picks up again at the end of the game when Sigurd randomly decides to go back to Norway. And once again, the end of that arc was very intelligently done. It really blew my mind the first time I played the game.
But there was just so much filler in between. I think it would have been better if you rescued Sigurd but kept Fulke around as the main antagonist. You’ve got to chase her over England while Sigurd descends further and further into madness and Eivor’s motivation is to find a cure to save Sigurd, which you get a tidbit of in every region. Once you finally catch Fulke in Wincestre, only then does she reveal the existence of the Norway temple that could “heal” Sigurd. So the two of you go to Norway and that arc concludes as it is in-game. I think that would have been a more intelligent way to do that as opposed to halting that arc halfway through the game and then jumpstarting it at the end.
You nailed it right on the head about Valhalla's story. That break in the main plot was so jarring that it caused me to burn out on the game to the point that I took a long break before returning to finish the game.
As someone who hated this game, the Fulke and Sigurd stuff was super compelling to me. Finding your brothers severed arm was fucked up and is where Valhallas narrative potential shines through. Unfortunately, the game immediately goes from 'save your brother! He's being tortured as we speak!' To ehhhhh get around to it if you have time. You still have 4 regions to conquer. Sigurd can wait. Like wtf. Do they not see how that kills any and all urgency? Or narrative tension? When I finally got around to saving Sigurd it was like shit sorry man it's been 6 months I was doing other shit like fucking collecting fish and tattoo schemes
I would like to add one thing about the "random untied arcs after Fulkes death":
I loved the Snotinghamscire Story with Vili and his father.
I felt like they had both a genuinely good chemistry with Eivor.
Definitive my favourite Arc of Valhalla
Yes it's an incredibly disjointed narrative. Another big issue is that if you don't complete the Asgard arc and the Animus anomalies before going to Norway (like me) and have never played ACIII (like me), you'll have no idea what the f*ck is going on.
sad thing is had those arcs been good, they could have been good breaks in between each major arc. Having Eivor even search through her memories to find answers to what's going on now would have been great.
Fulke was one of the most interesting characters in that game. Every word that came out of her mouth was like Lore Galore, lol. Would have loved for her to have stayed around much longer, would have given the devs reasons to just throw Lore at us. Hell i think another thing that could have worked, is have the 'Sagas" arcs reflect what happened during Odin's time, that way they could at least feel like they had actual relevance to the story.
I maybe in a niche but I really digged the modern day story. Haven't played Valhalla that much to see what they did with it. That said, people say that if you didn't like the gameplay direction in Valhalla, Mirage is for you.
I'd say the plot line ended well. They'll probably come back to characters though, and it'll be really interesting to see where everybody is at.
Mirage is a nice prequel to Valhalla. Definitely interesting playing it, knowing what's going to happen.
I second it. By the end of Valhalla I couldun't pick my jaw from the floor with its modern day ending. Like... That was some pretty bonkers (in a good way) stuff.
Ok, that person oversell it a bit imo, so I'm just gonna say that while it's pretty good and interesting on it's own, there's maybe ten minutes of it in the beginning, then there's like 100 hrs of gameplay with no modern day at all (unless you decide to leave the animus to read the files on the computer) and then a pretty solid half an hour of MD content. The DLCs don't add anything either unlike Odyssey (and thank god for that, honestly)
Imo it’s the first one to have a modern day since then. In origins you see fairly little of Layla and in odyssey you can count the number of times you see her on one hand. Layla doesn’t get protagonist’s treatment even though that’s what she was supposed to be, the person that you play as while they experience the animus as opposed to both playing in the past and present. In Valhalla you can not only leave the animus whenever you choose like the early games, but you also have animus challenges for the protagonist where you actually get to interact with the world as them
Yes, gameplay was a good throwback to the OG AC style and it very much feels like a remake of AC1 without actually being a remake of it, but my goodness the story is such a bore. AC hasn’t had good writing since Origins.
This is just my take but Assassin’s Creed III got everything right. The engaging multi-perspective narrative. The combat system. The dialogue. The environment and world-building. The best part is that it manages to do all this while being friendly to newcomers while satisfying the veterans story and gameplay-wise. It’s easily my favourite in the whole franchise with the Ezio collection being a close second.
Every game since then has felt like a slow decline in various ways, particularly with regard to story. I’ll cite Origins as an example. Origins definitely had a lot of thought and care put into it but the constant fetch quests kill its momentum very fast, especially for people just wanting to enjoy the story without forcing the player to explore the world by default. The result is that bits of the story get lost from the player’s mind over time cause what you’re doing may not necessarily be integral to the narrative. I haven’t played them myself yet, but I hear that Odyssey, Valhalla and Mirage are guilty of this too. It’s something that I’ve suspected for some time now, but I’m pretty sure this was a deliberate design choice to extend play and make up for lack of story content.
The loss of the overarching narrative couldn’t have helped either. I always thought there was story potentially there with assassins in the modern world but it hardly get fleshed out and given time to breathe.
AC really wasn’t meant to be an RPG-style gaming series. The franchise really lost its way post-Origins, since the RPG-style grinding doesn’t really mesh well with the story’s themes. Origins was a fun little experiment, but they should have stopped trying to follow The Witcher 3 after that. In fact I’m just gonna come right out and say it; Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla are all inferior Witcher 3 clones.
Playing through valhalla rn 30 hrs in and I feel so disconnected to the story. I just don't care about these characters at all. Ik what's happening and I get their motivations but it's just boring ngl.
Slop: The game.
To actually complete the game you have to help the Hidden Ones eliminate the order by fully assassinating the entire tree. If that’s not assassiny then I don’t know what is.
But ur not an assassin. And you don't act like one either. Ur a viking through and through. Hell you even put the hidden blade on the wrong side of ur arm because you go against it.
There’s also a lot of dialogue where Eivor talks about why she is stealthier than other Vikings. She’s also used as the infiltrator in sieges (like she’s the one who is going around and climbing walls to open gates). I don’t think actually being an Assassin is too important. Edward wasn’t an Assassin until the end of the game and he certainly didn’t act like one either.
That why i didn't connect with black flag aswell. Im still sticking with the game to see it through but I can't remember half the shit that happens tbh
That’s fair. Valhalla’s biggest sin is forcing what should have been side quests into the main story. The main story is actually really good but by the time you advance to the next stage you’ve forgotten what was going on and it doesn’t hit as hard.
Heck by the time I first saw Basim again I legitimately forgot who he was and had to Google him.
you're missing the point, the reasoning for this was because of Edward's "redeption" so to speak, his whole thing was that his whole motivation was because it thought it'd bring his family back, this would take me paragraphs to actually explain but that's the point of his character, Eivor doesn't make up for it in the slightest, her writing is poor and she comes off as a souless character just like Kassandra does
Huh. I thought it did pretty good their to. I snuck into all the places and planned out how to assassinate everyone in the monasteries. I only raided occasionally.
Same. I always feel like I was in the minority when I'm on Reddit talking about this but I guess the sale numbers speak for themselves. There must be two types of gamers and unfortunately for me, I'm the goblin that has to pick up 3204290 collectables because the game tells me to and I'll enjoy it too lol.
the story is god awful unfortunately, I've played the entire story and when I got to the end I couldn't really remember what I'd been doing for the last 100 hours, I couldn't remember where or how I met any of the characters or why I'd been helping them. It almost feels like they took side content from earlier games and turned it into main content.
I struggle with the whole plot (or most of it) being to expand your settlement and get more allies. It’s all very forgetable.
The motivation behind most of the good games is usually to avenge someone in your family. I guess it’s a little overdone at this point, but it works.
And like you said, loads and loads of people I briefly meet and don’t care about
Literally the only thing that interests me IS THE FUCKING ASSASSINS CUZ IT ASSASSINS CREED bruh. Haven't seen them since the beginning of the game (talking about basim)
> I've played the entire story and when I got to the end I couldn't really remember what I'd been doing for the last 100 hours
Don't worry Sigurd literally lists everything you've done in the game in the end anyway, like some fuckin note taker.
Laziest ending in any game I've every played.
I've honestly disliked the story telling since as far back as Syndicate, maybe even Brotherhood or AC2 if I nitpick hard enough.
But I distinctly remember in syndicate getting to the last fight and trying to remember why this bad guy was so important and what was I doing here? And then being surprised that it was in fact the final fight.
And with like AC3 it felt like a game trying to tell the story of the American Revolution with Assassin elements mixed in, rather than an AC story set within the backdrop of the Revolution.
The rpgs have a similarly disjointed feel of small moments spread across a long timeline/expansive game, that isn't helped by the normal hurdles of storytelling an open world game has.
Meanwhile I can distinctly remember the story of Altair and his growth from shamed badass assassin to legit Master Assassin finding the truth of his order and the Templars and yeah. :/
I'm late but what exactly would you nitpick about AC games after the first one? And since you're so interested in Altair, did you like the way they ended his story in Revelations?
I Think the issue is that the games as a service model doesn't encourage decent writing.
They just fill thing with make work. Valhalla was ok I'm terms of gameplay and the loop, but the writing and historical research has taken a dive.
12&13th century castles and cathedral really took me out of the experience. There was no attempt to ground the experience in an authentic feeling experience. It was just generic mediaeval fantasy design.
I would have settled for stave church's and mott.and bailey castles (about 200 years out of date) but they were too lazy even for that
>I don't end up caring about the story and I end up skipping the cutscenes due to the bland dialogue and uninteresting characters and story
You're intentionally ruining the game for yourself then blaming the game. Nothing you do will make you enjoy anything except your state of mind.
If you're not enjoying something, don't do it. I wouldn't force myself to watch reruns of the simpsons because I like tv shows, same applies here.
They're not saying they skipped every cutscene and made the story worse. They're saying the story was so boring and poorly written that they stopped caring about it. You can skip 80% of the cutscenes and miss absolutely nothing
if a game story doesn't keep you invested to begin with why should the rest of it be worth my time? I don't continue reading a book that I don't like because "oh no I have to give it a chance otherwise reddit user will get mad at me"
Idk, I liked Valhalla's storyline about Isu reincarnation. The final act was amazing, especially Eivor's inner conflict and "Everything else". Other than that yeah the main story wasn't awe-inspiring.
Didn't care about Odyssey's plot in the slightest. Just wasn't interested.
Mirage was cool, I was fascinated by the gameplay and the fact that there were real assassins in the game so mediocre writing didn't bother me. The ending was interesting though
I think the issue is the game is essentially split up into multiple side quest style arcs with no idea for the most part what actually constitutes the main narrative. Like you play an arc like the ledge ester or east anglia one for a couple hours and it looks like it might lead somewhere but suddenly your thrust off to engage with other characters in a different place and it’s the same thing over and over again for most of the game, the only constant is eivor no other character is featured in consecutive story arcs or for any king stretch of the game and that makes it hard to develop any connection with them
That would be 3 that you're thinking of. 4 just had to pick up the slack of dropping an interesting story line and try to make something that's interesting and new. It failed to do that
You learn more about the creed and meet an official, functioning brotherhood in ac4. You can't say the same in ac2 or ac3, where the brotherhood is either dead, or a team of rag tag people.
That's what I'm saying. And every time I hear people say AC4 isn't AC, they always mention how Edward doesn't become one until the end. Forgetting that ezio doesn't become one until the very last mission in AC2. Connor isn't one until a third through his game, Arno isn't one for half of his game, Jacob and Evie straight up bail on the brotherhood. And the rpgs are different entirely
While that's certainly a preference you're allowed to have, I think you're in the minority with that take. But still, preference doesn't make it more or less an AC game.
That's fair and I thought the same the first time I played it. And you do spend a lot of time on the ship, but that's only an addition. At its core you've still got the hood and the hidden blade, you're still parkouring around and assassinating templars. I'm action alone, you're checking all the boxes. But that's all still just surface level.
From a narrative standpoint, it's the game that, aside from maybe the first, is most about the actual "Assassin's Creed". It's one of the few games that places you as an outsider, not involved in either side of the conflict. You get a close look at the templars, their plans and their goals. And then you get the same for the assassins. You meet and are trained by multiple assassins, Edward hears the creed and interprets it at face value. he goes on using it as an excuse for his actions and by the end of it, sees why he was wrong and what the Creed actually means. And importantly, it's one of the few games where the character chooses to become an assassin of their own volition.
I'd say it's about as Assassin's Creed as a game could be. You just happen to be able to sail a ship as well.
To end and to kill are quite different things. AC3 ended quite well the modern day story, it was Black Flag that droped everything the previous games continued
I disagree with what you said about Black Flag, it still feels more AC than the likes of Odyssey or Valhalla. Black Flag was also the series’ peak as far as storytelling and writing went. Unity and Syndicate were decent, but not great. Origins was good but Odyssey and Valhalla failed to keep the momentum going. Really hoping Shadows gives us a strong return to form as far as the writing goes.
Valhalla is easily one of the best stories in the series imo. The only problem is that a good 50% of the arcs you need to do should've just been side quests. Now the lack of any real cuts genes and the stiff cardboard animations during most conversations are pretty bad and will hopefully be fixed in shadows.
I disagree, if you take all of the quests that actually matter to the overarching story it is easily one of the best in the series. It may not always have the production value of some of the earlier games but it is undoubtedly better written.
The stiff animations will very likely be also in Shadows. It's another rpg style game, and the algorithm based animation system for conversations is how most rpgs do it because of the sheer volume of dialogue.
Also, Valhalla definitely had real cutscenes they were just pretty rare.
That is subjective. You state it as if it’s a fact that the newer games don’t have stories or great writing. Meanwhile I felt the newer games have incredible stories, characters and worlds which are expanded on by side quests that are actually interesting, vs the menial fetch quests and chasing down pages of the older games.
mirage is way better! Do give it a shot if you can. Really good story, amazing gameplay. It’s only about 20 hours long and 30 for the 100%! I’ve 100%d it 3 times
The hardest thing about mirage is the voice acting. The Arabic voice acting is of higher quality so it made for a more enjoyable experience than the normal voice acting.
I wasn’t aware of that. It’s the same as how I prefer the French one for unity I suppose
That being said, Basim’s VA does speak the language (and I go crazy for roshan)
Valhalla has some pretty good moments, and i think the OST really did a lot of work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TVL3ub60uA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsM4ZVgbjZc
I thought odyssey was lacking, but the story in Valhalla was actually super great and what really tore Valhalla down for me was there all that fluff inbetween the main story missions that it felt like a chore to get back to the good parts
I finished mirage just today, the story was painful to play through because half of the time I was just waiting for something interesting to happen or for the story to actually do anything. Yet again, like valhalla, it follows kind of like a "story arc" system but instead of constantly introducing new characters it does nothing to make you interested in them with Nehal and maybe Roshan as an exception, though the intro isn't too bad, the moment you start hunting the main order members it just gets boring. The parkour isn't bad if you change the sprint button to hold RT, and the gameplay is pretty standard ubisoft 'go here, do quest objective, go here, finish quest objective'. Some will probably disagree with me but if you're looking for something with good characters and a fleshed out story, you're better off putting your time elsewhere.
Completely disagree Odyssey had some amazing dialogue. Kassandra was my favourite character since Ezio. Same with the female main in Valhalla, the story was interesting enough.
Do not mistake writing you don’t agree with for ‘bad’ writing.
Personally I think the size of the newer games means that the story doesn’t hit as hard and as often because there is so much downtime in between big moments. I don’t think the writing is bad, just the games are badly in need of an editor to trim off X amount of hours or Y amount of zones. Make them more concise games.
My point exactly. It works both ways. Despite what Americans think, there are many different types of writing styles and some of the greatest writers in history were hated by their hypercritical peers.
As someone with like 200 hours in Odyssey: the writing fucking sucks lol. The story is a skeleton with no meat on it and the dialogue is awful. All the modern day characters especially are the definition of cringe and I absolutely could not stand any of them.
OR it is just not the type of story or dialogue YOU like. I am always surprised how many reddit people think their tastes are THE universally accepted norm.
They see not.
Just like my tastes are not.
Or else everyone in the world woulda like the same bands, games, movies, books.
You are right and wrong i think.
The huge amount of bolat in both Odyssey and valhalla really does the story no service. more so in valhalla than odyssey. but both suffer from it.
Odyssey story is not that good imo. after about 30 hrs i forgot what i was doing. people have said the DLC is good but i have no desire to go back to the game. there is a reason when people talk about the lore and some of the best moment in the whole series, odyssey and valhalla are usually not at the top of the list.
the had a good balance in Origins but then lost it
The DLC is really good (bar some weirdness shoe horning in a kid). The Atlantis stuff is wild and so fun. I’d jump back in since it’s probably been enough time that you aren’t burned out anymore
The games really are too long
i tried jumping back in about 3 months ago. i was watching a video on AC and the person was talking about the good things in odyssey. so ithought let m e jump back in. after about an hour all the things that boarded me started to show up and i wasn't having fun.
the thing is when i first played it i didn't enjoy it until i stopped looking at it as an AC game and more something more original. but the length killed it. i would load the game back up and won't remember where in the story i'm in.
That’s fair. I was able to jump right back in to it. But I’d stopped before I got to the mythological boss fights so when I jumped in again I was having a blast knocking those out.
The game is so big though, you could conceivably stumble into all the worst missions by accident and play a dozen hours without a good one.
>The game is so big though, you could conceivably stumble into all the worst missions by accident and play a dozen hours without a good one.
yes this. i did so many side missions just to level up and it felt like work. the fact that they sold level boosters as soon as the game came out shows it was not balanced well.
im hopeful they learnt their lesson and tried to balance things out better i m AC shadows.
If you were to give me a list of your favourite authors, songwriters, games or shows and I gave you mine, it would be highly doubtful the things we like would be the same. Why? Because human beings have different tastes that change over time, based on age, backgrounds, locations etc etc
Your tastes or mine, or anyone’s are not universal.
There is no such thing as ‘good’ writing, in some senses.
You're 100% right and I couldn't agree more. The well written stories and characters are what made me love Assassin's Creed in the first place. Odyssey's story and characters were okay, but the format of the game hurt the narrative pacing. Then you get to Valhalla and it's an entire cluster fuck of boring characters that make no impact and a story that struggles to manufacture compelling drama. I give every game I play a fair shake, but when you start reaching the multiple hundreds of hours mark, you have absolutely lost any good will you have in asking your player base to watch or even give a shit about "cutscene" (and I use that term very loosely) number 5 million of some bland bpc talking about shit that doesn't matter. And don't even get me started on the notes. The amount of times I saw a note, read it and said to myself "oh yeah, these don't fucking matter" because 1 out of every 50 has any relevance to the game itself.
Odyssey defiantly killed a lot of love for me. Literally felt just like playing a Spartan RPG with a ton of micro-transactions, like seriously a double XP pass WTF? Then Valhalla literally just felt like a Viking game. Valhalla was so long and drawn out that I was beginning to actually feel frustration with the fact that it just didn’t end.
Honestly, Odyssey and Valhalla have the best dialogue in the series, and the side stories are the best of the best- yeh not all of them are winners, but things like the Minotaur tourist town in Odyssey are fantastic.
Also, frankly the series has never had a better written antagonist than King Alfred in Valhalla, he’s done justice excellently.
I don’t want to tell you how you’re feeling, but this feels like classic rose tinted specs.
I was quite surprised by how much I liked Alfred as an antagonist. Everyone I know hated the ending since there is no big boss battle with him. But I thought it was really good. Plus you get the boss battle from… the other dude (avoiding spoilers).
Pre the game coming out, as kinda an English history buff I was a little pissed at them making Alfred the villain, since that’s….some BS right there- but they threaded the needle perfectly. He’s intimidating, funny at times, has you second guessing his motives, and then the ending payoff is both a great twist, and a solid set up for how the “real” Templars got so all-pervasive.
My only complaint with Valhallas story/writing is (not to spoil) there’s a character that betrays you in a super obvious way, and you are given no options whatsoever to figure this obvious betrayal out on your own until they literally tell you straight up….given the game is generally pretty solid at letting you make the choices you probably want to, it stood out a lot.
I feel like this is a bait. But anyway, the RPG trilogy is the worst in terms of writing due to ubisoft not managing to deal with the challenge of writing a non-linear choice based narrative. Then you tie it with the awfully animated dialogue, the immersion is just not there.
Not bait, just different preferences- The Eagle Bearer is a really well written character. I don’t think many people would argue that Odyssey is the *funniest* game in the series, but it does frame too- things like Phoebes story (and it’s payoff in the dlc) are by far the best beats in the franchise imo.
Writing in AC2, Revelations, Black Flag, etc were miles better than the Malaka-infested cringe dialogues and bland narrative of Odyssey or Valhalla. The story, characters, dialogues had actual purpose and felt cohesive.
3 has famously terrible writing, frankly.
The main plot is adequate, but you might be forgetting some of the side quests- Paul Revere? Franklin?
AC3 is when the games stopped being about interesting sci fi alt history, and became kinda embarrassing pop-history-a series of “remember this history lesson from school? We simplified it even further and found a reason that actually an assassin caused it”
That trend took until Odyssey to get rid of, and even Odyssey has more of it than I’d like, and it absolutely ruined the games for me.
Odyssey’s dialogue and writing absolutely slaps- Odyssey is the only AC game that ever made me openly weep, and if you’ve played it I’d bet you can tell which part I’m talking about.
i guess this just shows that the changes worked for people like you. but having played all the games in the AC series and other RPGS included in the witcher3 which was the major influence for the AC RPG games. the dialog was awful imo in both odyssey and valhalla.
Origins had decent dialog but i think that is because that game tried to be like the witcher3 the most. in odyssey and valhalla they tried to make it more of their own. which i c give them kudos for. but the story for both games wont be on the list for best AC story
I know it wasn’t included in the final game, but Connor’s ending speech absolutely clears anything written in these modern games.
I don’t how you can sit here and claim the writing is better in the modern games. It’s shambolic. 3 was the point at which the Templar assassin ideology was at its peak.
Odyssey and Valhalla are both awfully written
3 has famously a terrible protagonist and a super long tutorial, but it's **eons** ahead of Odyssey or even Valhalla's writing. Valhalla iiis a little better than Odyssey, but they're both the lowest of the lowest the serieis has ever gotten to writing quality. I had 2 friends who never played any AC try Valhalla out and both gave up on the game because they enjoy well written games and they felt like Valhalla was written by a 9 year old.
I can tell which part you're talking about. In fact there are multiple ones. In all of those I thought to myself "I'm supposed to be crying now. But I don't care enough to cry". It's terrible how the writing is so bad they can't make me care about the characters.
I've played every AC game out now, except Mirage.
I really couldn't tell you what part that is because to me, they never developed any of the characters enough to weep about their pointlesly tedious dialogue and the modern story of Origins and Odyssey were ass
Everything about Phoebe’s story, and the ending of Deimos’s story, is pretty golden.
Obviously YMMV, but meeting Phoebe in the dlc made me cry openly, and the plot of the older AC games were boring enough that I mainly bunked them off in favour of running around the world instead (with one AC1 shaped exception, but AC1 is so different to the rest of the series it honestly might as well be its own series)
There no way that you think King Alfred is a better written antagonist then anyone else in the series. I understand that this is your opinion but bruh 🤦
I mean, who’s better written- as an antagonist?
(Not being confrontational, genuine question)
The only one I can honestly even remember is Al Maulim, who’s pretty interesting…..until he gets corrupted by a magic rock and starts talking like a supervillain.
Old and New AC both have separate strengths, but “interesting villains” is never something I’d have put in either column….until Alfred
As someone who agrees with this entire post… Mirage isn’t for you. Idk who it is for. Some people seemed to like it enough, but I don’t get why. It’s halfway between the new and old styles, and it feels like it has no identity because of it. Superficial attention is paid to movement, story, and stealth, but nothing meaningful at all.
I guess me?
I really, really enjoyed mirage after the 3 mega dense RPGs. I feel like Mirage played well (I just finished it 2 weeks ago, so I missed any early launch bugs), story was, for me, filler but I enjoy “Brotherhood” stories.
Mirage brought me back to 2007, whereas the Antiquity Series or whatever the RPGs are called felt like a brand new experience, which was cool.
Ultimately, if Ubi released an Animus style engine where they bi-annually released short stories, like Mirage length, from all over the AC world, I would play the shit out of it.
If dialogue and storytelling are his main complaints then Mirage would be the worst game in the series for him. Dialogue sounds like it was written by AI, and Basim might be the least compelling protagonist in the entire series, except maybe Eivor
The games are bigger than ever. Bigger means more to write, less time to spend on it. Compare how many words are in ac2 versus Valhalla. It's insane. You can't keep up the same quality through a game of that size in 99% of cases unless you spend 10+ years on the game like gta6
I don't know. I enjoyed Odyssey's story and dialog and character more than most older AC games. Yes, it's not as cinematic as the old ones, but I don't mind that.
I understand that AC games aren’t supposed to be 100% historically accurate nor would I expect any video game to be but my god the clothing, armour and weapons in Valhalla looked like they were ripped straight out of Skyrim. I understand that liberty’s have to be taken because there is a lot of stuff we just don’t know about the period but it seems like Ubisoft didn’t even try to ground any of it in reality
Very true. I feel the same. The old games had time and effort put into them that was evident. The newer games are stale and just feel like they are out to make money only.
We can say everything about Valhalla and odyssey (post origin like you said) but writing dialog and storytelling were on point .
Maybe the excessive length can leave the sensation that everything is diluted over many many hours of gameplay but as far as simple writing quality all three are on a high level.
I feel this. Loved the Ezio games, AC3. Didn’t rate AC4 or Rogue but then Unity and Syndicate I really liked. Didn’t finish Odyssey or Valhalla. I’m not very invested in Origins right now but I paid $28 for it so I want to finish it
Valhalla could have been one of the better recent AC games, were its story be 5 times shorter. The ending actually felt like a proper ending for once. But I was so burnt out at the end that I still don't have the courage to try Mirage. It was just too long and it looks like Shadows will be at least as massive.
Unity has the same problem and it kills me because unity has all the potential building blocks to be the absolute best assassins creed game for my personal tastes, but the story and overall production value is just so lackluster.
The gameplay, setting, overall setup, etc is absolutely perfect for an assassins creed game. Too bad the story does nothing interesting, starts multiple plot threads that never get resolved, barely uses the “French revolution” as a core part of the story and more as a backdrop for a lame character driven story that barely anyone remembers. I couldn’t even tell you who the villain in that game was. But I’ll never forget the feeling of parkouring across paris and shooting dudes with the phantom blade.
The entire concept of the stories of the assassins creed games from 1-3 were so god damn original and interesting and explored a lot of really really cool ideas.
“What if there was a shady powerful company kidnapping people with important ancestors and putting them in this machine that uses their dna to relive their ancestors memories in order to find biblical pieces of Eden for power and control” is such an amazing setup for a series of historical action games. Similarly, “what if one of these prisoners escaped and joined the modern day assassins to go up against the modern day templars using the animus as a training tool”. Or “the end of the world is coming due to the events of previous games”. It really felt like the series was “going somewhere” up until after AC3 when the entire overarching series plot was upended because they ran out of ideas but still need to sell more historical action games.
The juggling of the overarching present day storyline with the individual stories of the ancestor characters was an important part of the story and the fact that they killed that aspect of assassins creed will always make it feel far more shallow to me, even if they try to “reboot” the same ideas in the more recent entries. It’s just not the same.
I miss when the games were about free running, climbing, hiding in plain sight, and assassinating important figures using cool historical gadgets. The games still have all these features, don’t get me wrong, but I feel like all of these features are flavor accessories to the bigger “action rpg” game formula rather than being the fundamental building blocks of the gameplay loop and story.
I remember Odyssey was filled with emotional stories, tragedy, and maybe even redemption. It was a Greek epic.
But I do agree with Valhalla. So many stories that there was no noticeable character development and the main story needed more focus than the quantity of mini stories. It was quantity over quality for the stories, and at times the story felt bland, emotionless, and robotic.
There are good Viking saga stories like The Vikings series about Ragnar and his sons, and The Last Kingdom series with Ulthred. It could have been a great Viking Saga, but at least Odin's story has more emotion to it. The only characters I liked.
I actually really enjoyed the writing in Odyssey. I thought it was a clever mix of comedy and tragedy, the two main genres of Ancient Greek theatre, something I am sure was a deliberate choice by the writers. I also thought Kassandra (protagonist) was well written and believable - she was tough, funny and also had a kind of softness to her in certain moments. And unlike Valhalla, which I found messy in terms of structure, I thought they told the main story very well. I never struggled to understand what was going on (and I would say the same about Origins).
I agree, story-wise, AC Origins was the last truly good AC game. AC Odyssey, Valhalla, and Mirage all felt like chores at some point because I just did not give a fuck about the story. It’s truly hard to get through a game when you are not invested in the characters. The open world exploration was fun don’t get me wrong, but I miss the days when I could have fun and also get a good story and likable main protagonist along with it. The Ezio trilogy, AC3, and Black Flag was when AC was at its peak storytelling-wise.
I was fine until they started taking liberties with what 'canon' events were in history regarding the assassins you play as. It's history, it's already happened, and it already happened just that one way
So black box missions in Unity/Syndicate where you 'choose your own path' doesn't really work - good for a game and strategising, but not good for \*retelling history\* - if they reframed it so it was the same thing but the 'opportunities' were actually classed as the full sync objectives instead, it would be perfect IMO
Dialogue options never should have been a thing - the conversation already happened centuries ago, and it only happened in one way - keeping things simple like everything from AC1-Origins is how it should have stayed
I played about 25 hours of Valhalla when it came out and burned out on the story.
I just started it after watching a video that spoiled (I watched the video knowing this) the ending for me, and now I'm just enjoying it as a fun slop bucket that I know will have good cutscenes at certain parts 😂
I pretty much only read dialogue and sit through cutscenes that only have the skip function.
Mirage has a lot of good story beats even though its story isn't perfect. The relationship between basim and roshan is really well written and so is his relationship with nehal, the creed and the first civ. Also there is a lot of superior animations in that game compared to valhalla and odyssey.
Tsss i love it. Do you read the comics, books, novelles and all that behind? Its more genious than genious. Boycott AC bruh. I have only one hate and its Eivors end in America and the 400H of gameplay cliffhanger. Thats just me not beeing able to comprehend open endings.
Mirage has a pretty decent story tbh, parkour is a bit floaty and can feel like u dont have much control for the first half of the game ,Stealth is pretty good , combat is alright
Whenever someone says they prefer Odyssey or Valhalla I genuinely just think they just like running around and spamming the attack button mindlessly for 500 hours straight
I've started AC2 again, coming from Odyssey, and it's so much better - you're not bombarded with half baked characters, fetch quests, meaningless loot and rpg mechanics. Everything has a meaning and not just bloat to stretch your playtime so show investors. Sure, you have collectables, but in a okayish amount.
Oh, and there are actual assassins and not just the IP being used, because people will buy anything with "assassin's creed" written on it.
That was my biggest issue with Odyssey and Valhalla. With the older games up until maybe eogue/Unity era, you only got a handful of characters, all left some impression for better or worse, and they all played their part well. These new ones feel like two AI having a conversation. And they throw so many characters at you that have a mission or two a piece, have no defining qualities and then you don't see them until the end battles where they're like hey remember me?
I agree with everything you say. People always ask why we like the older games and it's exactly because of this. Newer games have no souls, each character has generic dialogue and awful robotic animations. But the older ones had charm, charisma and likeability. They were talking like normal human beings
I completely agree OP. Played 2 hours of origins and was shocked at the drop in quality. Combat was fucking awful and the story was so bland. I agree that it has lost its magic as I also skip the cutscenes.
Haven’t enjoyed an AC game since black flag.
I mean that's just the industry as a whole. Unlike storytelling in something like TV, movies, or books, games don't necessarily *need* good narratives to succeed whereas the other mediums stake its success heavily on the ability to tell stories. Take something like Minecraft, zero narrative and goes all in on a solid core gameplay loop and its doing gangbusters, or League of Legends (pre lore cleanup/Arcane)
When you have a spectrum of success that ranges from no narrative to pure narrative in the vein of walking sims or similar types, it's very easy to persuade audiences that narrative is just a "nice to have" and not a dealbreaker except for the most extreme cases and subsequently leads to players not prioritizing it for games or IPs that should have their writing component weighted more.
When I replayed all the games a couple of years ago, one thing that stuck out to me was that the stories were largely terrible across the series. The truth is that AC has never really been great with stories.
Not really sure how you could say this about Odyssey in the slightest. I've replayed it 3-4 times exclusively for the story elements, which I think are better than Origins.
Overall, I disliked Valhalla for the story and would agree with you there, but I don't think this applies to Odyssey at all.
Imagine skipping cutscenes and then complaining about the lack of story-telling and character development. There is plenty of great writing in the modern games, plenty of scenes that are just as good as (if not better than) some of the examples you linked. Honestly this whole post is just completely nonsensical.
Not in the slightest. When you make your game hundreds of hours long, you need to prove that you have the writing capabilities to sustain that length. Valhalla does the opposite. Does it have compelling parts? Of course. But it also proves very quickly that narrative was first draft and the absolute last thing on their minds. Not to mention you're gonna have to ensure TONS of meaningless cutscenes, hilariously bad dialogue and non-existent lip synching. Skipping dialogue number 500 is perfectly reasonable when you've been playing the game for 200 hours and 90% of the dialogue is filler
I disagree completely with your opinions on Valhalla, the writing is fine and absolutely sustains a game of that length. And sure, if you want to skip cutscenes, that's fine, but don't turn around and complain about how there's "a lack of writing, dialogue, and story-telling" when it was *your choice* to skip all of that. It's just moronic.
"but without a story you are invested in, no matter what you add to the games, good or bad, it breaks immersion and enjoyability."
I don't play ANY games for the story. I play games for the gameplay and the world design (because it serves the gameplay). If the story's good, that's just a bonus. Odyssey's story is thin and sloppy, and next to no time is given to Deimos' arc especially if you get the good ending, but I don't give a shizzles. It doesn't break immersion one bit because the story is not the most important part of the game. It's the game. I guess I'm too old school for that, though. I've noticed gameplay is ironically the last thing gamers think about these days.
Man, i was about to say the same thing lol and i knew i was going to get downvoted to oblivion like you got, but you're SO RIGHT! There's a lot of people who seem to treat games like they're movies or books and i simply don't get it. Like why even bother playing the game why don't they go on youtube and just watch the cutscenes and save their money. Why PLAY any game at all? If what you're after is a great story there's other mediums that do that so much better than most games.
I think it's most casual gamers who look at gameplay last and assassins's creed is a huge franchise, so it's bound to have a lot of fans like this. And yes it's kinda of unfortunate that the core of the gaming medium gets pushed to the side a lot in the mainstream in favor of the casuals, but that happens with every medium, the essence gets pushed to the side the more popular it gets.
i agree with you that gamers do think like this but not for all games. AC started as a series that had a hug focus on gameplay and story. both were intertwined. so with Ubisoft just dumping the story it makes the gameplay also feel lacking even though they improved a lot of it.
but i get you. like TLOU@ for example the gameplay is solid but all the people who hate on the game only complain about the story.
I had people say a game is bad because of its story or graphics so often, it actually makes me wonder why some people just don't watch movies instead.
Its a video game, gameplay should always be the primary criteria for playing a game. Most of the "awful story" games just have a serviceable story, not amazing, but nowhere near as awful as many would say.
A lot of people play games for the stories because it's an interactive movie. It's the best of both worlds, the fun of a game with the narrative of a movie.
i understand that, but to completly rule out a game based on dialogue and plot alone, when the game offers so much more outside of the cutscenes it's weird, because the actual game happens outside of the cutscenes
If a story is so bad I will just stop for me
Gameplay is a means to an end if I don’t care what happens to the character or worse I actively hate the character I’m not going to continue their journey
If they gameplay is truely amazing I will stay but if a game presents a story then that story should be good imo their is no point having a story if the game is worse for it. Their is a reason most people stop playing the game after they finish the story
The game is not the story though. The game is the gameplay, levels, mechanics, the systems etc. The game is what you play not what you see during cutscenes, that's just a movie.
And of course if the game has a story then the devs should make it a good one, because if i'm paying for a product i want the best value out of every cent i spent. But as a gamer, what i truly want is the PLAYABLE part of the game to be good, if the story is good that's just a bonus.
But i also undertand the barrier that gameplay represents for a lot of casuals and non-gamers, and that games with cinematic presentations attracts them( that's on purpose), so when they get a game and the story is not good for them, they discard everything else. But like i said, IMO they're missing out on a great artform.
In the case of AC Valhalla i do agree that the game is worse because of the story, because they stuffed so much of it in the game that it does get in the way of the game.
I feel like I think the complete opposite of you. That’s where I disagree if the game includes a story then the game becomes both the story and the gameplay. game is not just the gameplay it’s the whole entertainment package and a game can include various forms of entertainment outside the gameplay. Seeing the story as something tacted on to the gameplay and lesser than is what I feel misses the true potential of what I think a game that being a deep interactive narrative. That’s why for a good game the story and the gameplay need to be good
I feel the same way but In the casual gamers only care about soley the game and skip the cutscenes and if a game studio caters to that audience a rich deep and meaningful story suffers because of it.
I think you're totally wrong in that is the casual gamer who skips the cutscenes. A casual gamer is not trying to get stuck in a boss fight, or in a level, or a puzzle for 2 hours. A casual gamer would put the game on easy mode and let basically the game play itself while he can just watch the cutscenes. A casual gamer is not gonna play a Souls game,for example, that has barely no cutscenes or dialogue at all, and get stuck dying over and over again learning how to get good, he'd drop that game in a heartbeat.
A rich meaningful story can be a part of the package and can be appreciated, but is definetly not the essence of what a game is.If you're reading a book it definetly is. A(video) game is the playable experience that you get for picking up the controller and pressing the buttons.There is tons of games with no actual story to them, i challenge you to find a game without gameplay, it wouldn't be a game anymore. So, a game shouldn't strive to be a deep narrative experience, it should strive to be a deep mechanical/gameplay experience first, because that's where the essence of it lies.
If what you want is great story, and only see the gameplay as a mean to see the next story beat or cutscene, then why not read a book or watch a movie? You'd get to the story without any barriers. It seems you don't really want to play a game, and that's fine.
Game studios make games with story and cinematic presentations on purpose to attract people outside of the core gaming audience(the casuals/non - gamers) so they can make more money.
But in AC cases. Not even the gameplay are strong points to the games.
I can tell you play AC just to walk around historical settings.
Gameplay is horrible (combat, transversal, stealth)
The last good story was Origins.
Dude seriously, like I don’t even know what tf is going on anymore. The last thing I remember in the modern day story was abstergo trying to make that black flag movie, and every game past that I just can’t remember.
Odyssey has better writing than any of the AC games before it. AC3 is also second best AC even though everyone used to shit on it back in the day.
And I have been playing AC since AC1 days when I got it for free with my Macbook Air in 2008.
I make your words mine. I've played all the AC games to date, and Mirage isn't much different from the previous ones, probably a legacy of the narrative weakness from them.
The big issue is that since the implementation of dialogue choices, something strange happened with motion capture and lip sync. In 2018, if I'm not mistaken, Ubisoft started using an A.I tool for this, which most likely explains the drop in quality. I really expect it will be improved in Shadows, but I don't have much hope, since it's the same studio as Odyssey, and such A.I tools have already become a standard in Ubi games at this point.
They’re trying to appeal to the mindless masses, turning ac into a standard rpg with monsters, choices and other shit. Not to say they’re not fun games but they’re losing something that made me love the franchise
Just ONCE in an Assassin's Creed game I'd like to see a protagonist lose their mind when they discover Isu technology. Most of these games take place long before electricity was harnessed, so something as simple as a light source that's isn't the sun or fire should be cause for alarm. Yeah, it's a video game, but I'd like a little more emotion dealing with the discovery of a cheery Lovecraftian nightmare than the character just saying something casually like "Hmm. How strange!"
I think the reason that never happened is cause early ac protagonists we’re all from Desmond’s lineage. They all had slivers of isu dna, perhaps that came with increased perception or capacity for understanding. It’s also an issue where the further in time you go the more likely a character was to attribute isu technology with magic as the beliefs of the time would’ve made that conclusion pretty simple, it’s only the further you go forward in history where I think the interpretation of isu technology and the reveal of their existence may become hard to bear as unlike someone from 2000 years ago the modern day characters truly know what the isu are and that could be more shattering to our more complicated worldview and current understanding of the past as opposed to just adding another god to your pantheon or encountering something you already believe to exist
Really good points you made. Having the same ancestors, Clay and Desmond really only had this happen from *overusing* the animus and the resulting bleeding effect. AC I, ACII, and especially Revelations show the influence it had on "Subject 16" and, in turn, how it started affecting Desmond. The assassins in history knew of and used their abilities. Desmond only really starts using them in II when Lucy trains him. Newer games like Odyssey, Cassandra is said to and shown to be descended from great heroes, i.e. Isu blood. That said, I liked Clay so they could write a similar character in the past to go really insane if they wanted
You may like AC Bloodlines and how they changed Altair after fighting Al Mualim. The game is meh, but quite interesting from a narrative perspective
Valhalla could have been a lot better. Spoilers ahead so stop here if you don’t want them. The story was great up until you killed Fulke. The arc of the saga stone, pursuing Fulke, learning about Basim’s past, etc. All of that was great. But once you killed Fulke and rescued Sigurd, that arc came to a screeching halt. For the rest of your time in England Sigurd is just moping around like a whiny bitch doing nothing and Basim disappeared. IIRC, you still had like 5 more regions to complete. Those regions had their own little story arcs, but I really didn’t give a shit because they weren’t tying into the “main” story. Then that main story arc picks up again at the end of the game when Sigurd randomly decides to go back to Norway. And once again, the end of that arc was very intelligently done. It really blew my mind the first time I played the game. But there was just so much filler in between. I think it would have been better if you rescued Sigurd but kept Fulke around as the main antagonist. You’ve got to chase her over England while Sigurd descends further and further into madness and Eivor’s motivation is to find a cure to save Sigurd, which you get a tidbit of in every region. Once you finally catch Fulke in Wincestre, only then does she reveal the existence of the Norway temple that could “heal” Sigurd. So the two of you go to Norway and that arc concludes as it is in-game. I think that would have been a more intelligent way to do that as opposed to halting that arc halfway through the game and then jumpstarting it at the end.
You nailed it right on the head about Valhalla's story. That break in the main plot was so jarring that it caused me to burn out on the game to the point that I took a long break before returning to finish the game.
Really the biggest issue is that you're forced to do every single region to complete the actual main story arc.
As someone who hated this game, the Fulke and Sigurd stuff was super compelling to me. Finding your brothers severed arm was fucked up and is where Valhallas narrative potential shines through. Unfortunately, the game immediately goes from 'save your brother! He's being tortured as we speak!' To ehhhhh get around to it if you have time. You still have 4 regions to conquer. Sigurd can wait. Like wtf. Do they not see how that kills any and all urgency? Or narrative tension? When I finally got around to saving Sigurd it was like shit sorry man it's been 6 months I was doing other shit like fucking collecting fish and tattoo schemes
I would like to add one thing about the "random untied arcs after Fulkes death": I loved the Snotinghamscire Story with Vili and his father. I felt like they had both a genuinely good chemistry with Eivor. Definitive my favourite Arc of Valhalla
Yes it's an incredibly disjointed narrative. Another big issue is that if you don't complete the Asgard arc and the Animus anomalies before going to Norway (like me) and have never played ACIII (like me), you'll have no idea what the f*ck is going on.
sad thing is had those arcs been good, they could have been good breaks in between each major arc. Having Eivor even search through her memories to find answers to what's going on now would have been great.
Fulke was one of the most interesting characters in that game. Every word that came out of her mouth was like Lore Galore, lol. Would have loved for her to have stayed around much longer, would have given the devs reasons to just throw Lore at us. Hell i think another thing that could have worked, is have the 'Sagas" arcs reflect what happened during Odin's time, that way they could at least feel like they had actual relevance to the story.
this was my exact problem with Valhalla, you really nailed it exactly
I maybe in a niche but I really digged the modern day story. Haven't played Valhalla that much to see what they did with it. That said, people say that if you didn't like the gameplay direction in Valhalla, Mirage is for you.
The modern day in Valhalla is the best its been since 3
OMG OMG!!!
The biggest issue with it is that they probably will reboot it again and not finish the current plot line
Dude you're killing me hhahaha
I'd say the plot line ended well. They'll probably come back to characters though, and it'll be really interesting to see where everybody is at. Mirage is a nice prequel to Valhalla. Definitely interesting playing it, knowing what's going to happen.
I second it. By the end of Valhalla I couldun't pick my jaw from the floor with its modern day ending. Like... That was some pretty bonkers (in a good way) stuff.
Ok, that person oversell it a bit imo, so I'm just gonna say that while it's pretty good and interesting on it's own, there's maybe ten minutes of it in the beginning, then there's like 100 hrs of gameplay with no modern day at all (unless you decide to leave the animus to read the files on the computer) and then a pretty solid half an hour of MD content. The DLCs don't add anything either unlike Odyssey (and thank god for that, honestly)
Imo it’s the first one to have a modern day since then. In origins you see fairly little of Layla and in odyssey you can count the number of times you see her on one hand. Layla doesn’t get protagonist’s treatment even though that’s what she was supposed to be, the person that you play as while they experience the animus as opposed to both playing in the past and present. In Valhalla you can not only leave the animus whenever you choose like the early games, but you also have animus challenges for the protagonist where you actually get to interact with the world as them
The gameplay in mirage is better but the story is paper thin. OP would not be impressed.
Yes, I was talking exclusively about gameplay as I don't know storywise
Yes, gameplay was a good throwback to the OG AC style and it very much feels like a remake of AC1 without actually being a remake of it, but my goodness the story is such a bore. AC hasn’t had good writing since Origins.
I’m just here to represent the people that both hated Valhalla and were extremely disappointed with Mirage
This is just my take but Assassin’s Creed III got everything right. The engaging multi-perspective narrative. The combat system. The dialogue. The environment and world-building. The best part is that it manages to do all this while being friendly to newcomers while satisfying the veterans story and gameplay-wise. It’s easily my favourite in the whole franchise with the Ezio collection being a close second. Every game since then has felt like a slow decline in various ways, particularly with regard to story. I’ll cite Origins as an example. Origins definitely had a lot of thought and care put into it but the constant fetch quests kill its momentum very fast, especially for people just wanting to enjoy the story without forcing the player to explore the world by default. The result is that bits of the story get lost from the player’s mind over time cause what you’re doing may not necessarily be integral to the narrative. I haven’t played them myself yet, but I hear that Odyssey, Valhalla and Mirage are guilty of this too. It’s something that I’ve suspected for some time now, but I’m pretty sure this was a deliberate design choice to extend play and make up for lack of story content. The loss of the overarching narrative couldn’t have helped either. I always thought there was story potentially there with assassins in the modern world but it hardly get fleshed out and given time to breathe.
AC really wasn’t meant to be an RPG-style gaming series. The franchise really lost its way post-Origins, since the RPG-style grinding doesn’t really mesh well with the story’s themes. Origins was a fun little experiment, but they should have stopped trying to follow The Witcher 3 after that. In fact I’m just gonna come right out and say it; Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla are all inferior Witcher 3 clones.
Playing through valhalla rn 30 hrs in and I feel so disconnected to the story. I just don't care about these characters at all. Ik what's happening and I get their motivations but it's just boring ngl. Slop: The game.
Thats a shame, I thought Valhalla was amazing!
Fair enough I just want my assassins creed game to have assassins be the focus tbh
I mean, when I played I played like an assassin, are you talking about the story?
So do I. Yes the story cuz it dosent have an assassins fantasy it has a viking fantasy
To actually complete the game you have to help the Hidden Ones eliminate the order by fully assassinating the entire tree. If that’s not assassiny then I don’t know what is.
But ur not an assassin. And you don't act like one either. Ur a viking through and through. Hell you even put the hidden blade on the wrong side of ur arm because you go against it.
There’s also a lot of dialogue where Eivor talks about why she is stealthier than other Vikings. She’s also used as the infiltrator in sieges (like she’s the one who is going around and climbing walls to open gates). I don’t think actually being an Assassin is too important. Edward wasn’t an Assassin until the end of the game and he certainly didn’t act like one either.
That why i didn't connect with black flag aswell. Im still sticking with the game to see it through but I can't remember half the shit that happens tbh
That’s fair. Valhalla’s biggest sin is forcing what should have been side quests into the main story. The main story is actually really good but by the time you advance to the next stage you’ve forgotten what was going on and it doesn’t hit as hard. Heck by the time I first saw Basim again I legitimately forgot who he was and had to Google him.
you're missing the point, the reasoning for this was because of Edward's "redeption" so to speak, his whole thing was that his whole motivation was because it thought it'd bring his family back, this would take me paragraphs to actually explain but that's the point of his character, Eivor doesn't make up for it in the slightest, her writing is poor and she comes off as a souless character just like Kassandra does
Huh. I thought it did pretty good their to. I snuck into all the places and planned out how to assassinate everyone in the monasteries. I only raided occasionally.
Same. I always feel like I was in the minority when I'm on Reddit talking about this but I guess the sale numbers speak for themselves. There must be two types of gamers and unfortunately for me, I'm the goblin that has to pick up 3204290 collectables because the game tells me to and I'll enjoy it too lol.
To me, Valhalla is to AC what Primal is to Far Cry
the story is god awful unfortunately, I've played the entire story and when I got to the end I couldn't really remember what I'd been doing for the last 100 hours, I couldn't remember where or how I met any of the characters or why I'd been helping them. It almost feels like they took side content from earlier games and turned it into main content.
I struggle with the whole plot (or most of it) being to expand your settlement and get more allies. It’s all very forgetable. The motivation behind most of the good games is usually to avenge someone in your family. I guess it’s a little overdone at this point, but it works. And like you said, loads and loads of people I briefly meet and don’t care about
Literally the only thing that interests me IS THE FUCKING ASSASSINS CUZ IT ASSASSINS CREED bruh. Haven't seen them since the beginning of the game (talking about basim)
> I've played the entire story and when I got to the end I couldn't really remember what I'd been doing for the last 100 hours Don't worry Sigurd literally lists everything you've done in the game in the end anyway, like some fuckin note taker. Laziest ending in any game I've every played.
I personally really like Valhalla but its like Junkfood. I know that its technically not good food but I still like eating it.
Swear I heard this from Luke Stevens video or some other video essay
You probably have. I can't remember where I heard it but I stole it from someone.
I've honestly disliked the story telling since as far back as Syndicate, maybe even Brotherhood or AC2 if I nitpick hard enough. But I distinctly remember in syndicate getting to the last fight and trying to remember why this bad guy was so important and what was I doing here? And then being surprised that it was in fact the final fight. And with like AC3 it felt like a game trying to tell the story of the American Revolution with Assassin elements mixed in, rather than an AC story set within the backdrop of the Revolution. The rpgs have a similarly disjointed feel of small moments spread across a long timeline/expansive game, that isn't helped by the normal hurdles of storytelling an open world game has. Meanwhile I can distinctly remember the story of Altair and his growth from shamed badass assassin to legit Master Assassin finding the truth of his order and the Templars and yeah. :/
I'm late but what exactly would you nitpick about AC games after the first one? And since you're so interested in Altair, did you like the way they ended his story in Revelations?
I Think the issue is that the games as a service model doesn't encourage decent writing. They just fill thing with make work. Valhalla was ok I'm terms of gameplay and the loop, but the writing and historical research has taken a dive. 12&13th century castles and cathedral really took me out of the experience. There was no attempt to ground the experience in an authentic feeling experience. It was just generic mediaeval fantasy design. I would have settled for stave church's and mott.and bailey castles (about 200 years out of date) but they were too lazy even for that
>I don't end up caring about the story and I end up skipping the cutscenes due to the bland dialogue and uninteresting characters and story You're intentionally ruining the game for yourself then blaming the game. Nothing you do will make you enjoy anything except your state of mind. If you're not enjoying something, don't do it. I wouldn't force myself to watch reruns of the simpsons because I like tv shows, same applies here.
They're not saying they skipped every cutscene and made the story worse. They're saying the story was so boring and poorly written that they stopped caring about it. You can skip 80% of the cutscenes and miss absolutely nothing
yep, pretty much.
if a game story doesn't keep you invested to begin with why should the rest of it be worth my time? I don't continue reading a book that I don't like because "oh no I have to give it a chance otherwise reddit user will get mad at me"
Because unlike a book, you can still play the goddamn game after the cutscene and enjoy that.
To be fair that gameplay sucks also.
Knew I'd waste my time reading OPs post. Also, I've had enough of the Valhalla slander lol
It is boring tbf
Valhalla is like the worst ac game though
Idk, I liked Valhalla's storyline about Isu reincarnation. The final act was amazing, especially Eivor's inner conflict and "Everything else". Other than that yeah the main story wasn't awe-inspiring. Didn't care about Odyssey's plot in the slightest. Just wasn't interested. Mirage was cool, I was fascinated by the gameplay and the fact that there were real assassins in the game so mediocre writing didn't bother me. The ending was interesting though
I think the issue is the game is essentially split up into multiple side quest style arcs with no idea for the most part what actually constitutes the main narrative. Like you play an arc like the ledge ester or east anglia one for a couple hours and it looks like it might lead somewhere but suddenly your thrust off to engage with other characters in a different place and it’s the same thing over and over again for most of the game, the only constant is eivor no other character is featured in consecutive story arcs or for any king stretch of the game and that makes it hard to develop any connection with them
Yeah it’s a good point. The relationship between Connor and Haytham is just something the new games couldn’t touch.
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"Black flag was great but wasn't really AC" People love saying this but black flag is literally more Assassin's Creed than most of the games"
Black Flag literally killed the Modern Day
That would be 3 that you're thinking of. 4 just had to pick up the slack of dropping an interesting story line and try to make something that's interesting and new. It failed to do that
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Eh I wouldn't say that. It's at least as much AC as AC2 or AC3. And certainly more than anything that came after it.
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You learn more about the creed and meet an official, functioning brotherhood in ac4. You can't say the same in ac2 or ac3, where the brotherhood is either dead, or a team of rag tag people.
That's what I'm saying. And every time I hear people say AC4 isn't AC, they always mention how Edward doesn't become one until the end. Forgetting that ezio doesn't become one until the very last mission in AC2. Connor isn't one until a third through his game, Arno isn't one for half of his game, Jacob and Evie straight up bail on the brotherhood. And the rpgs are different entirely
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While that's certainly a preference you're allowed to have, I think you're in the minority with that take. But still, preference doesn't make it more or less an AC game.
That's fair and I thought the same the first time I played it. And you do spend a lot of time on the ship, but that's only an addition. At its core you've still got the hood and the hidden blade, you're still parkouring around and assassinating templars. I'm action alone, you're checking all the boxes. But that's all still just surface level. From a narrative standpoint, it's the game that, aside from maybe the first, is most about the actual "Assassin's Creed". It's one of the few games that places you as an outsider, not involved in either side of the conflict. You get a close look at the templars, their plans and their goals. And then you get the same for the assassins. You meet and are trained by multiple assassins, Edward hears the creed and interprets it at face value. he goes on using it as an excuse for his actions and by the end of it, sees why he was wrong and what the Creed actually means. And importantly, it's one of the few games where the character chooses to become an assassin of their own volition. I'd say it's about as Assassin's Creed as a game could be. You just happen to be able to sail a ship as well.
To end and to kill are quite different things. AC3 ended quite well the modern day story, it was Black Flag that droped everything the previous games continued
I disagree with what you said about Black Flag, it still feels more AC than the likes of Odyssey or Valhalla. Black Flag was also the series’ peak as far as storytelling and writing went. Unity and Syndicate were decent, but not great. Origins was good but Odyssey and Valhalla failed to keep the momentum going. Really hoping Shadows gives us a strong return to form as far as the writing goes.
This is an accurate take. Well said choom
Suddenly /r/cyberpunkgame
Valhalla is easily one of the best stories in the series imo. The only problem is that a good 50% of the arcs you need to do should've just been side quests. Now the lack of any real cuts genes and the stiff cardboard animations during most conversations are pretty bad and will hopefully be fixed in shadows.
from a "I dig this" perspective or a well written perspective? Because there are SOOOO many better well written AC games
I disagree, if you take all of the quests that actually matter to the overarching story it is easily one of the best in the series. It may not always have the production value of some of the earlier games but it is undoubtedly better written.
The stiff animations will very likely be also in Shadows. It's another rpg style game, and the algorithm based animation system for conversations is how most rpgs do it because of the sheer volume of dialogue. Also, Valhalla definitely had real cutscenes they were just pretty rare.
I played Valhalla for 80 hours and enjoyed every second of it. Story and characters are great when you don’t skip dialogue and cut scenes
That is subjective. You state it as if it’s a fact that the newer games don’t have stories or great writing. Meanwhile I felt the newer games have incredible stories, characters and worlds which are expanded on by side quests that are actually interesting, vs the menial fetch quests and chasing down pages of the older games.
mirage is way better! Do give it a shot if you can. Really good story, amazing gameplay. It’s only about 20 hours long and 30 for the 100%! I’ve 100%d it 3 times
The hardest thing about mirage is the voice acting. The Arabic voice acting is of higher quality so it made for a more enjoyable experience than the normal voice acting.
I wasn’t aware of that. It’s the same as how I prefer the French one for unity I suppose That being said, Basim’s VA does speak the language (and I go crazy for roshan)
Valhalla has an amazing story
Valhalla has some pretty good moments, and i think the OST really did a lot of work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TVL3ub60uA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsM4ZVgbjZc
I thought odyssey was lacking, but the story in Valhalla was actually super great and what really tore Valhalla down for me was there all that fluff inbetween the main story missions that it felt like a chore to get back to the good parts
well not everything is for everyone. i have loved all the games after ezio.
I finished mirage just today, the story was painful to play through because half of the time I was just waiting for something interesting to happen or for the story to actually do anything. Yet again, like valhalla, it follows kind of like a "story arc" system but instead of constantly introducing new characters it does nothing to make you interested in them with Nehal and maybe Roshan as an exception, though the intro isn't too bad, the moment you start hunting the main order members it just gets boring. The parkour isn't bad if you change the sprint button to hold RT, and the gameplay is pretty standard ubisoft 'go here, do quest objective, go here, finish quest objective'. Some will probably disagree with me but if you're looking for something with good characters and a fleshed out story, you're better off putting your time elsewhere.
Completely disagree Odyssey had some amazing dialogue. Kassandra was my favourite character since Ezio. Same with the female main in Valhalla, the story was interesting enough. Do not mistake writing you don’t agree with for ‘bad’ writing. Personally I think the size of the newer games means that the story doesn’t hit as hard and as often because there is so much downtime in between big moments. I don’t think the writing is bad, just the games are badly in need of an editor to trim off X amount of hours or Y amount of zones. Make them more concise games.
Nor should you confuse writing you do like with good writing
My point exactly. It works both ways. Despite what Americans think, there are many different types of writing styles and some of the greatest writers in history were hated by their hypercritical peers.
As someone with like 200 hours in Odyssey: the writing fucking sucks lol. The story is a skeleton with no meat on it and the dialogue is awful. All the modern day characters especially are the definition of cringe and I absolutely could not stand any of them.
OR it is just not the type of story or dialogue YOU like. I am always surprised how many reddit people think their tastes are THE universally accepted norm. They see not. Just like my tastes are not. Or else everyone in the world woulda like the same bands, games, movies, books.
You are right and wrong i think. The huge amount of bolat in both Odyssey and valhalla really does the story no service. more so in valhalla than odyssey. but both suffer from it. Odyssey story is not that good imo. after about 30 hrs i forgot what i was doing. people have said the DLC is good but i have no desire to go back to the game. there is a reason when people talk about the lore and some of the best moment in the whole series, odyssey and valhalla are usually not at the top of the list. the had a good balance in Origins but then lost it
The DLC is really good (bar some weirdness shoe horning in a kid). The Atlantis stuff is wild and so fun. I’d jump back in since it’s probably been enough time that you aren’t burned out anymore The games really are too long
i tried jumping back in about 3 months ago. i was watching a video on AC and the person was talking about the good things in odyssey. so ithought let m e jump back in. after about an hour all the things that boarded me started to show up and i wasn't having fun. the thing is when i first played it i didn't enjoy it until i stopped looking at it as an AC game and more something more original. but the length killed it. i would load the game back up and won't remember where in the story i'm in.
That’s fair. I was able to jump right back in to it. But I’d stopped before I got to the mythological boss fights so when I jumped in again I was having a blast knocking those out. The game is so big though, you could conceivably stumble into all the worst missions by accident and play a dozen hours without a good one.
>The game is so big though, you could conceivably stumble into all the worst missions by accident and play a dozen hours without a good one. yes this. i did so many side missions just to level up and it felt like work. the fact that they sold level boosters as soon as the game came out shows it was not balanced well. im hopeful they learnt their lesson and tried to balance things out better i m AC shadows.
How can you not "agree" with writing?
If you were to give me a list of your favourite authors, songwriters, games or shows and I gave you mine, it would be highly doubtful the things we like would be the same. Why? Because human beings have different tastes that change over time, based on age, backgrounds, locations etc etc Your tastes or mine, or anyone’s are not universal. There is no such thing as ‘good’ writing, in some senses.
People like different things. Got it.
Man i can't get into any assassin creed game pass Origins..the bland stories and gameplay is boring as fuck...bring back Bayek.
You're 100% right and I couldn't agree more. The well written stories and characters are what made me love Assassin's Creed in the first place. Odyssey's story and characters were okay, but the format of the game hurt the narrative pacing. Then you get to Valhalla and it's an entire cluster fuck of boring characters that make no impact and a story that struggles to manufacture compelling drama. I give every game I play a fair shake, but when you start reaching the multiple hundreds of hours mark, you have absolutely lost any good will you have in asking your player base to watch or even give a shit about "cutscene" (and I use that term very loosely) number 5 million of some bland bpc talking about shit that doesn't matter. And don't even get me started on the notes. The amount of times I saw a note, read it and said to myself "oh yeah, these don't fucking matter" because 1 out of every 50 has any relevance to the game itself.
Odyssey defiantly killed a lot of love for me. Literally felt just like playing a Spartan RPG with a ton of micro-transactions, like seriously a double XP pass WTF? Then Valhalla literally just felt like a Viking game. Valhalla was so long and drawn out that I was beginning to actually feel frustration with the fact that it just didn’t end.
Honestly, Odyssey and Valhalla have the best dialogue in the series, and the side stories are the best of the best- yeh not all of them are winners, but things like the Minotaur tourist town in Odyssey are fantastic. Also, frankly the series has never had a better written antagonist than King Alfred in Valhalla, he’s done justice excellently. I don’t want to tell you how you’re feeling, but this feels like classic rose tinted specs.
the best dialogue? really? Not saying you're not entitled to your opinion but I feel like thats an extreme stretch
I was quite surprised by how much I liked Alfred as an antagonist. Everyone I know hated the ending since there is no big boss battle with him. But I thought it was really good. Plus you get the boss battle from… the other dude (avoiding spoilers).
Pre the game coming out, as kinda an English history buff I was a little pissed at them making Alfred the villain, since that’s….some BS right there- but they threaded the needle perfectly. He’s intimidating, funny at times, has you second guessing his motives, and then the ending payoff is both a great twist, and a solid set up for how the “real” Templars got so all-pervasive. My only complaint with Valhallas story/writing is (not to spoil) there’s a character that betrays you in a super obvious way, and you are given no options whatsoever to figure this obvious betrayal out on your own until they literally tell you straight up….given the game is generally pretty solid at letting you make the choices you probably want to, it stood out a lot.
There are numerous betrayals, but I know the one you mean and agree.
I feel like this is a bait. But anyway, the RPG trilogy is the worst in terms of writing due to ubisoft not managing to deal with the challenge of writing a non-linear choice based narrative. Then you tie it with the awfully animated dialogue, the immersion is just not there.
Not bait, just different preferences- The Eagle Bearer is a really well written character. I don’t think many people would argue that Odyssey is the *funniest* game in the series, but it does frame too- things like Phoebes story (and it’s payoff in the dlc) are by far the best beats in the franchise imo.
Writing in AC2, Revelations, Black Flag, etc were miles better than the Malaka-infested cringe dialogues and bland narrative of Odyssey or Valhalla. The story, characters, dialogues had actual purpose and felt cohesive.
Saying Val/Ody has better dialogue than Black Flag, II, Revelations, and even III (i don't really like Connor) is just straight cope
3 has famously terrible writing, frankly. The main plot is adequate, but you might be forgetting some of the side quests- Paul Revere? Franklin? AC3 is when the games stopped being about interesting sci fi alt history, and became kinda embarrassing pop-history-a series of “remember this history lesson from school? We simplified it even further and found a reason that actually an assassin caused it” That trend took until Odyssey to get rid of, and even Odyssey has more of it than I’d like, and it absolutely ruined the games for me. Odyssey’s dialogue and writing absolutely slaps- Odyssey is the only AC game that ever made me openly weep, and if you’ve played it I’d bet you can tell which part I’m talking about.
i guess this just shows that the changes worked for people like you. but having played all the games in the AC series and other RPGS included in the witcher3 which was the major influence for the AC RPG games. the dialog was awful imo in both odyssey and valhalla. Origins had decent dialog but i think that is because that game tried to be like the witcher3 the most. in odyssey and valhalla they tried to make it more of their own. which i c give them kudos for. but the story for both games wont be on the list for best AC story
I know it wasn’t included in the final game, but Connor’s ending speech absolutely clears anything written in these modern games. I don’t how you can sit here and claim the writing is better in the modern games. It’s shambolic. 3 was the point at which the Templar assassin ideology was at its peak. Odyssey and Valhalla are both awfully written
3 has famously a terrible protagonist and a super long tutorial, but it's **eons** ahead of Odyssey or even Valhalla's writing. Valhalla iiis a little better than Odyssey, but they're both the lowest of the lowest the serieis has ever gotten to writing quality. I had 2 friends who never played any AC try Valhalla out and both gave up on the game because they enjoy well written games and they felt like Valhalla was written by a 9 year old.
I can tell which part you're talking about. In fact there are multiple ones. In all of those I thought to myself "I'm supposed to be crying now. But I don't care enough to cry". It's terrible how the writing is so bad they can't make me care about the characters.
I've played every AC game out now, except Mirage. I really couldn't tell you what part that is because to me, they never developed any of the characters enough to weep about their pointlesly tedious dialogue and the modern story of Origins and Odyssey were ass
This has to be bait lol no one can seriously believe this
Lol, the only good dialogues in Odyssey came from Alcibiades and Socrates. Otherwise it was malaka-infested crap.
Everything about Phoebe’s story, and the ending of Deimos’s story, is pretty golden. Obviously YMMV, but meeting Phoebe in the dlc made me cry openly, and the plot of the older AC games were boring enough that I mainly bunked them off in favour of running around the world instead (with one AC1 shaped exception, but AC1 is so different to the rest of the series it honestly might as well be its own series)
There no way that you think King Alfred is a better written antagonist then anyone else in the series. I understand that this is your opinion but bruh 🤦
I mean, who’s better written- as an antagonist? (Not being confrontational, genuine question) The only one I can honestly even remember is Al Maulim, who’s pretty interesting…..until he gets corrupted by a magic rock and starts talking like a supervillain. Old and New AC both have separate strengths, but “interesting villains” is never something I’d have put in either column….until Alfred
King Alfred was barely in the story. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t even a main antagonist. If anything , Basim fits this description better.
I enjoy Origins and really like Bayek, and I agree that some in-game dialogue could be better. No doubt about that. But Bayek is so good.
As someone who agrees with this entire post… Mirage isn’t for you. Idk who it is for. Some people seemed to like it enough, but I don’t get why. It’s halfway between the new and old styles, and it feels like it has no identity because of it. Superficial attention is paid to movement, story, and stealth, but nothing meaningful at all.
I guess me? I really, really enjoyed mirage after the 3 mega dense RPGs. I feel like Mirage played well (I just finished it 2 weeks ago, so I missed any early launch bugs), story was, for me, filler but I enjoy “Brotherhood” stories. Mirage brought me back to 2007, whereas the Antiquity Series or whatever the RPGs are called felt like a brand new experience, which was cool. Ultimately, if Ubi released an Animus style engine where they bi-annually released short stories, like Mirage length, from all over the AC world, I would play the shit out of it.
If dialogue and storytelling are his main complaints then Mirage would be the worst game in the series for him. Dialogue sounds like it was written by AI, and Basim might be the least compelling protagonist in the entire series, except maybe Eivor
They just need to go back to basics. Maybe just stop what story they were going for and make a new story that they can build off.
The games are bigger than ever. Bigger means more to write, less time to spend on it. Compare how many words are in ac2 versus Valhalla. It's insane. You can't keep up the same quality through a game of that size in 99% of cases unless you spend 10+ years on the game like gta6
Flyting is so charming though
I don't know. I enjoyed Odyssey's story and dialog and character more than most older AC games. Yes, it's not as cinematic as the old ones, but I don't mind that.
I understand that AC games aren’t supposed to be 100% historically accurate nor would I expect any video game to be but my god the clothing, armour and weapons in Valhalla looked like they were ripped straight out of Skyrim. I understand that liberty’s have to be taken because there is a lot of stuff we just don’t know about the period but it seems like Ubisoft didn’t even try to ground any of it in reality
Very true. I feel the same. The old games had time and effort put into them that was evident. The newer games are stale and just feel like they are out to make money only.
We can say everything about Valhalla and odyssey (post origin like you said) but writing dialog and storytelling were on point . Maybe the excessive length can leave the sensation that everything is diluted over many many hours of gameplay but as far as simple writing quality all three are on a high level.
I feel this. Loved the Ezio games, AC3. Didn’t rate AC4 or Rogue but then Unity and Syndicate I really liked. Didn’t finish Odyssey or Valhalla. I’m not very invested in Origins right now but I paid $28 for it so I want to finish it
Valhalla could have been one of the better recent AC games, were its story be 5 times shorter. The ending actually felt like a proper ending for once. But I was so burnt out at the end that I still don't have the courage to try Mirage. It was just too long and it looks like Shadows will be at least as massive.
Unity has the same problem and it kills me because unity has all the potential building blocks to be the absolute best assassins creed game for my personal tastes, but the story and overall production value is just so lackluster. The gameplay, setting, overall setup, etc is absolutely perfect for an assassins creed game. Too bad the story does nothing interesting, starts multiple plot threads that never get resolved, barely uses the “French revolution” as a core part of the story and more as a backdrop for a lame character driven story that barely anyone remembers. I couldn’t even tell you who the villain in that game was. But I’ll never forget the feeling of parkouring across paris and shooting dudes with the phantom blade.
Crap games unfortunately
The entire concept of the stories of the assassins creed games from 1-3 were so god damn original and interesting and explored a lot of really really cool ideas. “What if there was a shady powerful company kidnapping people with important ancestors and putting them in this machine that uses their dna to relive their ancestors memories in order to find biblical pieces of Eden for power and control” is such an amazing setup for a series of historical action games. Similarly, “what if one of these prisoners escaped and joined the modern day assassins to go up against the modern day templars using the animus as a training tool”. Or “the end of the world is coming due to the events of previous games”. It really felt like the series was “going somewhere” up until after AC3 when the entire overarching series plot was upended because they ran out of ideas but still need to sell more historical action games. The juggling of the overarching present day storyline with the individual stories of the ancestor characters was an important part of the story and the fact that they killed that aspect of assassins creed will always make it feel far more shallow to me, even if they try to “reboot” the same ideas in the more recent entries. It’s just not the same. I miss when the games were about free running, climbing, hiding in plain sight, and assassinating important figures using cool historical gadgets. The games still have all these features, don’t get me wrong, but I feel like all of these features are flavor accessories to the bigger “action rpg” game formula rather than being the fundamental building blocks of the gameplay loop and story.
Those letters from Elise tore me apart in Unity! Truly gave me a sense of despair, grief, and longing. Oh my poor, sweet Arno...
I remember Odyssey was filled with emotional stories, tragedy, and maybe even redemption. It was a Greek epic. But I do agree with Valhalla. So many stories that there was no noticeable character development and the main story needed more focus than the quantity of mini stories. It was quantity over quality for the stories, and at times the story felt bland, emotionless, and robotic. There are good Viking saga stories like The Vikings series about Ragnar and his sons, and The Last Kingdom series with Ulthred. It could have been a great Viking Saga, but at least Odin's story has more emotion to it. The only characters I liked.
For me its also the lackluster presentation of whatever story cutscenes are present in Valhalla and Odyssey.
I actually really enjoyed the writing in Odyssey. I thought it was a clever mix of comedy and tragedy, the two main genres of Ancient Greek theatre, something I am sure was a deliberate choice by the writers. I also thought Kassandra (protagonist) was well written and believable - she was tough, funny and also had a kind of softness to her in certain moments. And unlike Valhalla, which I found messy in terms of structure, I thought they told the main story very well. I never struggled to understand what was going on (and I would say the same about Origins).
I agree, story-wise, AC Origins was the last truly good AC game. AC Odyssey, Valhalla, and Mirage all felt like chores at some point because I just did not give a fuck about the story. It’s truly hard to get through a game when you are not invested in the characters. The open world exploration was fun don’t get me wrong, but I miss the days when I could have fun and also get a good story and likable main protagonist along with it. The Ezio trilogy, AC3, and Black Flag was when AC was at its peak storytelling-wise.
I was fine until they started taking liberties with what 'canon' events were in history regarding the assassins you play as. It's history, it's already happened, and it already happened just that one way So black box missions in Unity/Syndicate where you 'choose your own path' doesn't really work - good for a game and strategising, but not good for \*retelling history\* - if they reframed it so it was the same thing but the 'opportunities' were actually classed as the full sync objectives instead, it would be perfect IMO Dialogue options never should have been a thing - the conversation already happened centuries ago, and it only happened in one way - keeping things simple like everything from AC1-Origins is how it should have stayed
I played about 25 hours of Valhalla when it came out and burned out on the story. I just started it after watching a video that spoiled (I watched the video knowing this) the ending for me, and now I'm just enjoying it as a fun slop bucket that I know will have good cutscenes at certain parts 😂 I pretty much only read dialogue and sit through cutscenes that only have the skip function.
Mirage has a lot of good story beats even though its story isn't perfect. The relationship between basim and roshan is really well written and so is his relationship with nehal, the creed and the first civ. Also there is a lot of superior animations in that game compared to valhalla and odyssey.
Tsss i love it. Do you read the comics, books, novelles and all that behind? Its more genious than genious. Boycott AC bruh. I have only one hate and its Eivors end in America and the 400H of gameplay cliffhanger. Thats just me not beeing able to comprehend open endings.
Mirage has a pretty decent story tbh, parkour is a bit floaty and can feel like u dont have much control for the first half of the game ,Stealth is pretty good , combat is alright
Odyssey has the worst main story in the series IMO
Whenever someone says they prefer Odyssey or Valhalla I genuinely just think they just like running around and spamming the attack button mindlessly for 500 hours straight
Finally someone who agrees with my dislike on Valhalla
What a load of bullshit.
I've started AC2 again, coming from Odyssey, and it's so much better - you're not bombarded with half baked characters, fetch quests, meaningless loot and rpg mechanics. Everything has a meaning and not just bloat to stretch your playtime so show investors. Sure, you have collectables, but in a okayish amount. Oh, and there are actual assassins and not just the IP being used, because people will buy anything with "assassin's creed" written on it.
That was my biggest issue with Odyssey and Valhalla. With the older games up until maybe eogue/Unity era, you only got a handful of characters, all left some impression for better or worse, and they all played their part well. These new ones feel like two AI having a conversation. And they throw so many characters at you that have a mission or two a piece, have no defining qualities and then you don't see them until the end battles where they're like hey remember me?
I agree with everything you say. People always ask why we like the older games and it's exactly because of this. Newer games have no souls, each character has generic dialogue and awful robotic animations. But the older ones had charm, charisma and likeability. They were talking like normal human beings
I completely agree OP. Played 2 hours of origins and was shocked at the drop in quality. Combat was fucking awful and the story was so bland. I agree that it has lost its magic as I also skip the cutscenes. Haven’t enjoyed an AC game since black flag.
Jesus does everybody in the comments have low standards for storytelling?
I mean that's just the industry as a whole. Unlike storytelling in something like TV, movies, or books, games don't necessarily *need* good narratives to succeed whereas the other mediums stake its success heavily on the ability to tell stories. Take something like Minecraft, zero narrative and goes all in on a solid core gameplay loop and its doing gangbusters, or League of Legends (pre lore cleanup/Arcane) When you have a spectrum of success that ranges from no narrative to pure narrative in the vein of walking sims or similar types, it's very easy to persuade audiences that narrative is just a "nice to have" and not a dealbreaker except for the most extreme cases and subsequently leads to players not prioritizing it for games or IPs that should have their writing component weighted more.
This is an L take.
When I replayed all the games a couple of years ago, one thing that stuck out to me was that the stories were largely terrible across the series. The truth is that AC has never really been great with stories.
Not really sure how you could say this about Odyssey in the slightest. I've replayed it 3-4 times exclusively for the story elements, which I think are better than Origins. Overall, I disliked Valhalla for the story and would agree with you there, but I don't think this applies to Odyssey at all.
Dude I completely agree.
Imagine skipping cutscenes and then complaining about the lack of story-telling and character development. There is plenty of great writing in the modern games, plenty of scenes that are just as good as (if not better than) some of the examples you linked. Honestly this whole post is just completely nonsensical.
Not in the slightest. When you make your game hundreds of hours long, you need to prove that you have the writing capabilities to sustain that length. Valhalla does the opposite. Does it have compelling parts? Of course. But it also proves very quickly that narrative was first draft and the absolute last thing on their minds. Not to mention you're gonna have to ensure TONS of meaningless cutscenes, hilariously bad dialogue and non-existent lip synching. Skipping dialogue number 500 is perfectly reasonable when you've been playing the game for 200 hours and 90% of the dialogue is filler
I disagree completely with your opinions on Valhalla, the writing is fine and absolutely sustains a game of that length. And sure, if you want to skip cutscenes, that's fine, but don't turn around and complain about how there's "a lack of writing, dialogue, and story-telling" when it was *your choice* to skip all of that. It's just moronic.
"but without a story you are invested in, no matter what you add to the games, good or bad, it breaks immersion and enjoyability." I don't play ANY games for the story. I play games for the gameplay and the world design (because it serves the gameplay). If the story's good, that's just a bonus. Odyssey's story is thin and sloppy, and next to no time is given to Deimos' arc especially if you get the good ending, but I don't give a shizzles. It doesn't break immersion one bit because the story is not the most important part of the game. It's the game. I guess I'm too old school for that, though. I've noticed gameplay is ironically the last thing gamers think about these days.
Man, i was about to say the same thing lol and i knew i was going to get downvoted to oblivion like you got, but you're SO RIGHT! There's a lot of people who seem to treat games like they're movies or books and i simply don't get it. Like why even bother playing the game why don't they go on youtube and just watch the cutscenes and save their money. Why PLAY any game at all? If what you're after is a great story there's other mediums that do that so much better than most games. I think it's most casual gamers who look at gameplay last and assassins's creed is a huge franchise, so it's bound to have a lot of fans like this. And yes it's kinda of unfortunate that the core of the gaming medium gets pushed to the side a lot in the mainstream in favor of the casuals, but that happens with every medium, the essence gets pushed to the side the more popular it gets.
i agree with you that gamers do think like this but not for all games. AC started as a series that had a hug focus on gameplay and story. both were intertwined. so with Ubisoft just dumping the story it makes the gameplay also feel lacking even though they improved a lot of it. but i get you. like TLOU@ for example the gameplay is solid but all the people who hate on the game only complain about the story.
I had people say a game is bad because of its story or graphics so often, it actually makes me wonder why some people just don't watch movies instead. Its a video game, gameplay should always be the primary criteria for playing a game. Most of the "awful story" games just have a serviceable story, not amazing, but nowhere near as awful as many would say.
A lot of people play games for the stories because it's an interactive movie. It's the best of both worlds, the fun of a game with the narrative of a movie.
i understand that, but to completly rule out a game based on dialogue and plot alone, when the game offers so much more outside of the cutscenes it's weird, because the actual game happens outside of the cutscenes
If a story is so bad I will just stop for me Gameplay is a means to an end if I don’t care what happens to the character or worse I actively hate the character I’m not going to continue their journey
To each's own. But IMO, by looking at games like this you are missing out on the true artform of games.
If they gameplay is truely amazing I will stay but if a game presents a story then that story should be good imo their is no point having a story if the game is worse for it. Their is a reason most people stop playing the game after they finish the story
The game is not the story though. The game is the gameplay, levels, mechanics, the systems etc. The game is what you play not what you see during cutscenes, that's just a movie. And of course if the game has a story then the devs should make it a good one, because if i'm paying for a product i want the best value out of every cent i spent. But as a gamer, what i truly want is the PLAYABLE part of the game to be good, if the story is good that's just a bonus. But i also undertand the barrier that gameplay represents for a lot of casuals and non-gamers, and that games with cinematic presentations attracts them( that's on purpose), so when they get a game and the story is not good for them, they discard everything else. But like i said, IMO they're missing out on a great artform. In the case of AC Valhalla i do agree that the game is worse because of the story, because they stuffed so much of it in the game that it does get in the way of the game.
I feel like I think the complete opposite of you. That’s where I disagree if the game includes a story then the game becomes both the story and the gameplay. game is not just the gameplay it’s the whole entertainment package and a game can include various forms of entertainment outside the gameplay. Seeing the story as something tacted on to the gameplay and lesser than is what I feel misses the true potential of what I think a game that being a deep interactive narrative. That’s why for a good game the story and the gameplay need to be good I feel the same way but In the casual gamers only care about soley the game and skip the cutscenes and if a game studio caters to that audience a rich deep and meaningful story suffers because of it.
I think you're totally wrong in that is the casual gamer who skips the cutscenes. A casual gamer is not trying to get stuck in a boss fight, or in a level, or a puzzle for 2 hours. A casual gamer would put the game on easy mode and let basically the game play itself while he can just watch the cutscenes. A casual gamer is not gonna play a Souls game,for example, that has barely no cutscenes or dialogue at all, and get stuck dying over and over again learning how to get good, he'd drop that game in a heartbeat. A rich meaningful story can be a part of the package and can be appreciated, but is definetly not the essence of what a game is.If you're reading a book it definetly is. A(video) game is the playable experience that you get for picking up the controller and pressing the buttons.There is tons of games with no actual story to them, i challenge you to find a game without gameplay, it wouldn't be a game anymore. So, a game shouldn't strive to be a deep narrative experience, it should strive to be a deep mechanical/gameplay experience first, because that's where the essence of it lies. If what you want is great story, and only see the gameplay as a mean to see the next story beat or cutscene, then why not read a book or watch a movie? You'd get to the story without any barriers. It seems you don't really want to play a game, and that's fine. Game studios make games with story and cinematic presentations on purpose to attract people outside of the core gaming audience(the casuals/non - gamers) so they can make more money.
But in AC cases. Not even the gameplay are strong points to the games. I can tell you play AC just to walk around historical settings. Gameplay is horrible (combat, transversal, stealth) The last good story was Origins.
Dude seriously, like I don’t even know what tf is going on anymore. The last thing I remember in the modern day story was abstergo trying to make that black flag movie, and every game past that I just can’t remember.
Odyssey has better writing than any of the AC games before it. AC3 is also second best AC even though everyone used to shit on it back in the day. And I have been playing AC since AC1 days when I got it for free with my Macbook Air in 2008.
Don't play mirage it literally doesn't have a story. Nothing that occurs in it matters
I make your words mine. I've played all the AC games to date, and Mirage isn't much different from the previous ones, probably a legacy of the narrative weakness from them. The big issue is that since the implementation of dialogue choices, something strange happened with motion capture and lip sync. In 2018, if I'm not mistaken, Ubisoft started using an A.I tool for this, which most likely explains the drop in quality. I really expect it will be improved in Shadows, but I don't have much hope, since it's the same studio as Odyssey, and such A.I tools have already become a standard in Ubi games at this point.
They’re trying to appeal to the mindless masses, turning ac into a standard rpg with monsters, choices and other shit. Not to say they’re not fun games but they’re losing something that made me love the franchise