Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate Hands-On Preview [E3 2015]

Love it or hate it, the Assassin’s Creed franchise is here to stay, and it’ll take us back in time to London’s Industrial Revolution when Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate launches this fall. And, while many will likely opt to pass on the series’ most modern outing yet because of its predecessor’s technical faults, those who do may very well end up doing themselves an injustice in the process. That is, if the whole game ends up being as great as Ubisoft’s E3 2015 demo proved to be.

Before we progress, I’ll be frank and reaffirm that I enjoyed Unity much more than the average person seemed to. In fact, I found it to be one of the better games in the series, which seems to place me in the minority. So, I was definitely looking forward to Syndicate

Once I got to Ubisoft’s booth, I had two options as to which game I’d like to play first. I could either quickly jump into Rainbow Six: Siege, or could test my skills as gang leader and new protagonist Jacob Frye in Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate. It was a tough choice, but I went with the latter, then followed it up with a romp through the Dark Zone in Tom Clancy’s The Division.

As you may know, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate tells the tale of two siblings, Jacob and Evie Frye. Together, they lead a street gang called the Rooks and act as the game’s two playable assassins. Jacob will be the primary protagonist, but that doesn’t mean that his sister won’t have her time in the spotlight, and the two characters’ different personalities will surely allow for some interesting juxtaposition.

Now, the demo that I played had three unique sections and was only playable as Jacob himself. Evie appeared in some beautiful-looking cutscenes and also helped out at one point, but she was never available for control.

After picking up the DualShock 4 controller and putting the surround sound headphones on my ears, I was introduced to the world of Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate by a helpful member of the Ubisoft Quebec team. After that, I settled in for a tavern-based cutscene, wherein Jacob and company were discussing ways to spread their gang’s influence. This meeting led to the first playable part of the demo, which tasked me with taking out ten members of an opposing faction that owned a sector of the city the Rooks wanted.