Assassin’s Creed® Rogue

This is a tough one, but I don't think I can recommend Assassin's Creed: Rogue. The thing is, its gameplay is solid. As solid as Black Flag, a legendary game. But that is this game's problem: Black Flag exists. Rogue stumbles when it has to present its own unique strengths. Its North American setting is less attractive than the Caribbean, for one, and the Colonial setting had more charm in Assassin's Creed III. Gameplay is largely the same as Black Flag, but naval combat and all related systems from Black Flag feel out of place here, tacked on as a means of efficiently reusing assets and systems from a corporate/development perspective rather than tailoring systems to this game's themes. Moreover, the naval navigation is not a good experience. Either the river map which is just too narrow, or the North Atlantic which is littered with Icebergs in certain part which are annoying during combat. Now, the narrative premise certainly sets it apart from every other (actual) Assassin's Creed game: we get to play as the Templars! At least, sort of? Gameplay is almost unchanged aside from a single new enemy type of note. So it still feels like playing either Black Flag or even AC III. Worse is that this feeling translates to the story itself as well. It's almost like Ubisoft just flipped the factions around in name and called it a day. The Assassins either feel like Templars in how they behave and are set up as antagonists, or simply behave stupidly as the plot demands it. The idea of controlling criminal networks is not unique to this game, but in Syndicate the Rooks did not have a monopoly on crime and had competition from Templar-backed gangs, and Ezio at most allied himself with thieves. The bigger sticking point is that, in those other games, the Templars controlled the cities still and you had to liberate them. In this game, we do the exact same thing because now the Assassins are in control of New York? They just switched Templars and Assassins around and called it a day. A shame, it would have been very cool to switch up the actual formula in meaningful ways. At the same time, the Templar side is neglected. Shay's disillusionment with the Creed could have been done better but at least it is there. The game does not try to justify the Templar side much. AC III did that better too when they were the actual antagonists. Here the pro-Templar argument boils down to one guy being honorable and wanting prosperity for the people and Shay simply following along. That's poor for the AC game where we supposedly get to play as the Templars. Part of this is due to a lack of development time, resources and ambition. This game is very short for Assassin's Creed standards, having only 6 instead of the usual 12 sequences. Taking into account that Shay's turn on the Brotherhood required 3 of those to set it up, we have only half of this game, or only 1/4th of a usual AC game, that was given to the Templar side. That's not nearly enough, about the same as AC III gave via Haytham. So all in all, the core premise of the game falls flat, and gameplay wise it is the same as Black Flag. So given the latter's existence, I'd recommend playing that one instead of Rogue. Unless you really want to experience it. It's not a bad game per se, just disappointing. Oh, and turn of windows auto-HDR otherewise the game won't launch. And there is a 60fps cap as well.