Which Assassin's Creed game should I play while waiting for Valhalla?

[Jeivar]

The only AC games I've ever played are Black Flag and Syndicate. I loved the first one because pirate sea battles are awesome... although tailing people on land is less so. I enjoyed Syndicate for the setting, although Jacob annoyed me and I found the writing a bit lacklustre.

I'm considering getting either Rogue, which I understand has more of that delightful naval combat and a less black-and-white look at the Assassin/Templar conflict, OR Unity, just because Paris is a fascinating location and the French Revolution is a fascination period... although I'm told Unity was riddled with technical problems upon release.

How do these two compare in terms of an enjoyable story, fun gameplay, variety, bugs, combat, and just general enjoyment?

[Dire_Flumph]

I'd stay away from Unity, it was a bit of a mess even by AC standards. The story had some potential, taking place during a sort of a truce between sides, but never really takes off. Rogue might be a good fit as long as you don't need the graphics to be top-notch. It was an evolution from Black Flag and had more good naval combat to it. The story in Rogue was disappointingly minimal though, even though you're on the other side of the conflict, the game still plays the same.

The Ezio Trilogy is worth a look as it's where I look back on the actual assassaning (is that a word?) most fondly. It was also about the last time they tried to have a coherent story through these games, and I enjoyed both Ezio and Desmond's story quite a bit, as well as the backdrop of the First Civilization. If you specifically want story, I think those games were probably the ones I liked the best for it. All three games were quite good and you can get them in a bundle for $20 or less on modern consoles.

I enjoyed Syndicate for the most part as long as I wasn't playing Evie's idiot brother, but I didn't feel it was really any better than the Ezio games, just prettier. I didn't like Origins much at all, it added a leveling system that did nothing other than make it so you had to stay in one narrow area at a time. Go to an area just a few levels higher than you and you coudn't defeat anything. Go somewhere a few levels lower and you couldn't get enough XP to advance. It did, however, bring some naval combat back in a very limited role. Assassin's Creed III was a frustrating mish-mash of different systems, but it was where the naval combat aspect started, it just wasn't as developed as Black Flag's was. Story was potentially great, featuring a father and son on different sides of the conflict (Templar/Assassin and British/Colonies), Haytham Kenway is one of the more potentially interesting characters of the series, but his son Connor comes off like a bundle of Native American stereotypes. Everytime the story seems like it's going to pick up steam something ends up killing the momentum. Haven't played Odyssey.

Edit: If I had to pick a favorite game in the series it would be a tie between Black Flag for the naval combat or Brotherhood (2nd game in the Ezio Trilogy) for being able to run a cell of Assassins. One of my favorite things in the whole series was calmly strolling anonymously through a Roman plaza while instructing my underlings to sow chaos all around.

[Rynjin]

I'd say: none of them. If any, Assassin's Creed 2 and Brotherhood (and MAYBE Revelations?), but I'd stand by none.

The Assassin's Creed games are not all EXACTLY the same as each other, but close enough as to make little difference in the grand scheme. The best way to burn yourself out on the series is to try and play several before you jump into a new one.

There's no ongoing plot (that I know of) like there was throughout 1, 2, Brotherhood, Revelations, and 3, so you can play them all a la carte other than that. Your best bet IMO is just to wait until Valhalla comes out and play that one so the formula is still fresh for you.

[Zevox]

Personally, as someone who has so far only played from the first game through Black Flag, the only one I'd really recommend is 2. It and Black Flag are the two that I found to be the best of that bunch, by a fairly sizable margin. 3 and Revelations were okay but nothing special, and I felt that 1 and Brotherhood did not hold up well.

I actually heard enough positive things about Odyssey that I do have that bought and waiting in my backlog to be played, but having not played it yet I can't recommend one way or the other on it.

Haven't played Unity either, but I will say that I've heard enough bad things about it that I'd be very wary of that one.

[Gray Mage]

I have a bit of a gap in my AC repertoire, having played the first ones, stopped before playing 3 and recently picked up Origins to play.

While I do agree that Assassin's Creed 2 is probably the best one of the series, I'd say the gameplay is very far removed from the newer games in the series. If that isn't an issue, feel free to start on two and play up until 3, playing the spin offs that were launched in between.

If you're more interested in something a bit more similar of what Valhalla will probably be, I'd pick either Origins or Odyssey. I rather enjoyed Origins, even though it plays very different from past games, having a leveling up system that sometimes means you can't assassinate elite enemies with many levels on you in one shot. However, I played on hard and even then, if you do side-quests you should not have many issues with that. The collectibles weren't much of a pain as in past games and I managed 100% in about 80 hours or so.

On thing that might bother you is that I felt its naval combat (the, like, 3 or 4 missions of it) to be a chore. Odyssey I've heard is bigger than Origins, with even more naval combat, but some people say it's bloated, but even then I've heard more good than bad. They should be closer on tone/feel/gameplay than the older games.

About bugs, most games should have received patches to get rid of most of them (especially if you buy digital copies), but probably expect Valhalla to launch with some. It's kind of natural at this point.

[snowblizz]

Odyssey is quite good IMO. I'm currently pushing through the Fall of Atlantis DLC. Odyssey IMO fixed a lot of the problems I had with Origins with the levelling of areas. I've had no issue in getting XP and levelling up, quite the contrary. My main issue is probably that with greater freedom comes greater ability to mess with questlines. None are broken, but sometimes it behaves a bit odd if you do stuff the wrong way. I for one kept putting off main questline and that gave me some hiccups.
Both Origins and Odyssey is kinda annoying in that you can't just straight up assassinate* stuff, it all goes on dmg and HP and such.

Odyssey probably will be fairly close to Valhalla. Though who knows if they can dig some slightly fresher angle.


If one enjoyed BF (I personally hated it so much) then Rogue is definitely the way to go I'd say. A lot more island hopping a lot less city visiting. I played Rogue after Syndiacte funnily enough but found the old interface frustrating to work with. I did not enjoy Rogue. But I've managed to blank out what I disliked about it other than a vague (this is a lot like BF). Oh the naval minigame was dumb as ****.

Unity was okay too. I'm trying to remember the few things bothered me now. There was something with how completition was calculated for missions, I am positive I had to restart levels because I had passed the point where doing a challenge was possible. Some of the trickier ones I spent ages messing up.

I'm trying hard to recall now if it was Unity that had removed the ability to lure enemies to easy asassination spots. That or Rogue. A constant annoyance anyway.

My main gripe with Syndicate was the oddness and IMO unclarity of doing some of the story missions. Sometimes had to trundle around trying to complete some optional part of the mission for 100% and there was very little guidence to it. Clearly some odd freedom of action vs scripting of cool stuff thing. It ended up clunky.

One thing to say generally positive of the O & O is that you get further away from the annoying rock-paper-scissor attack enemies. Unfortunatley at the cost of making it RPGishly "level appropriate". So you have to stack certain items when trying to sneak around and assassiante but then need a different itemset if you blow your cover and have to fight. It's... well, annoying. Because you get the tools and can do the switching around with some fussing about.

[factotum]

Given that Valhalla is probably going to be following the style of the modern AC games (e.g. Odyssey and Origins) then I would say those are better choices to play in the run-up to its release. I can't make that a solid recommendation because I haven't really played either myself--I don't have Odyssey, and I played about an hour of Origins when I first got it and haven't got around to getting any further in.

Rogue basically plays like an extra DLC map for Black Flag--even though you're nominally playing an Assassin-turned-Templar, the actual plot and the way the game plays really aren't any different. If you finished Black Flag and felt you could have done with another 30 hours of the same then Rogue is definitely worth getting.