Assassin’s Creed doesn’t need remakes, it needs a complete overhaul

Ubisoft is testing the waters with a remake of one of Assassin’s Creed most beloved entries, but this stale franchise is too beholden to past glories.

Few games have made an impact through a single trailer like Assassin’s Creed.

The CGI clip, shown at E3 2006, promised an evolution of Ubisoft’s Prince Of Persia acrobatics in an open world historical setting.

It was a leading showcase of where third person action games were heading at the start of the Xbox 360 era, and graphically it set the world alight.

The original Assassin’s Creed failed to live up to this promise.

It was highly repetitive and pretty shoddy despite its visual splendour, while the sci-fi Animus twist largely got in the way of the 12th century hijinks.

The series, however, executed on its original promise with Assassin’s Creed 2, which replicated the Italian Renaissance period with a dynamite (and still series’ best) protagonist in Ezio, who led its two sequels Brotherhood and Revelations.

It’s been over 15 years since Assassin’s Creed 2, and while Ubisoft has iterated on the formula with ship battles, role-playing systems, and more varied settings, the series has never achieved the same creative fervor.

In many ways, Assassin’s Creed 2 is the series’ equivalent of Activision’s Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, a defining template which was so successful, and worked so well, there’s been little reason to deviate from it since.

Like Call Of Duty, Assassin’s Creed games are now simply part of the furniture in the gaming landscape.

They’re consistently solid, and remain a financial bedrock for Ubisoft, but it’s a well-worn, familiar concept which long ago stopped being cutting edge.

Ubisoft’s new strategy for dusting off the cobwebs is trying Capcom’s successful recipe with Resident Evil; in other words, remakes.

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced launches in July, but there’s also rumours of additional remakes, including a potential overhaul of the original game from 2007.

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The latter, if true, could be an interesting rework because it is a barely playable relic at this point, but based on the conservative improvements seen in the Black Flag Resynced trailer, we don’t have much faith that Ubisoft is looking to meaningfully upgrade anything beyond the obvious.

There are improved visuals, talk of refreshed combat, new parkour animations, and better tailing missions, but you’re still gallivanting through the same V-shaped trees and waiting to parry enemies in an awkward circle.

It’s perhaps unfair to expect a substantial series’ overhaul in a remake, but going back to the bones of a 13 year old game – which doesn’t feel too divorced from last year’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows in terms of gameplay – only reinforces how stagnant and dry the entire series has become.

When you compare it to the player choice seen in Baldur’s Gate 3 or the immersive, layered systems in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Assassin’s Creed feels dated and lifeless.

Ubisoft has little incentive, at least financially, to change anything at this stage but Assassin’s Creed is in dire need of a creative uproot if it wants to continue for the next decade.

Movement-wise, it needs to compete with the slick transitions in Insomniac’s Spider-Man.

It could also take some structural cues from Io Interactive’s Hitman, where the sandbox levels are far more dense with assassination opportunities and reactive systems in enclosed scenarios.

Assassin’s Creed games aren’t known for their bold narratives, but maybe a radical, unexpected shift in setting could spark some creative verve.

Go more contemporary with a Second World War spy slant, or lean into the sci-fi premise and shoot forwards in time instead.

Fundamentally, surprise people with something fresh beyond the swords and sandals.

Ubisoft is promising a ‘very different type of Assassin’s Creed game’ for its next mainline title, codenamed Hexe, which will be a ‘darker, narrative-driven’ experience.

It remains to be seen what that means exactly, but based on the studio’s track record over the past decade, it’s hard to imagine it isn’t just another production line sequel with a setting swap.

Assassin’s Creed is one of the biggest franchises in gaming, and was once a creative force in the realm of third person action games, but Ubisoft has allowed it to coast into an outdated and predictable mould.

It’s about time it stopped dredging up the past, and gave players an exciting, rejuvenated reason to be excited about its future.

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