Why I've Lost Interest In Assassin's Creed

I really liked the first Assassin’s Creed game. Even though it was overlong and repetitive, it was a breath of fresh air for its time, with its combination of stealth, parkour, and swordfighting. I also enjoyed Assassin’s Creed 2, which took all the strongest elements of the first game, re-located them to Italy, and peppered its story campaign with more variety and personality.

Fast forward to 2013, and a new trailer for the upcoming Assassin’s Creed 4 has recently been released. It features swashbuckling pirates, sharks, naval battles, and teases the potential for ocean-wide exploration. There’s a dramatic voiceover hinting at an epic plot. You get to see gunplay as well as stealthy assassinations. Everything points towards a promising Assassin's Creed game. Why is it, then, that I couldn’t care less about the release of Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag?

There’s no denying that the bitter taste of Assassin’s Creed 3, which won my biggest disappointment of 2012 award, is still lingering in my mouth. After Assassin’s Creed 2’s pseudo-sequels (Brotherhood and Revelations) let the franchise tread water for a couple of years, Assassin’s Creed 3 was an opportunity for Ubisoft to steer the series back to its greatest strengths, rejuvenated in a new time and setting rich in thematic potential.

They blew it. Assassin’s Creed 3 didn’t fix the series’ increasingly irritating pick n mix approach to gameplay, but exacerbated it. Instead of adding depth and strength to the core aspects of the franchise, it streamlined them, neutering the challenge and rendering any reason to explore its bloated world of collectibles and distractions to enhance your skills ultimately pointless. Its plot was padded and dull, and that’s before we take into account what went on outside of the animus. With the overarching story of Desmond Miles, Ubisoft took a concept with great potential and derailed it into a frankly stupid piece of sci-fi hokum with a rushed and anti-climactic ending.

This is not to say they can’t turn things around with Assassin’s Creed 4, but here’s the thing: I don’t care. Why don’t I care? Because it’s too soon. Just like Call of Duty, Fifa, the Lego games or any other franchise with a yearly release, there’s only so much Assassins Creed I can take on a clockwork basis before it starts to get boring.

What's wrong with waiting a few years to allow the new game a longer, stronger build up of anticipation, to allow the rougher edges of the previous game to fade from people's memories and to bring the game back as a new, updated vision of the franchise's core strengths? What we've seen of Assassin's Creed 4 so far has put a heavy emphasis on naval battles, which implies that Ubisoft understands that it was one of the few elements of Assassin's Creed 3 that actually worked quite well. Yet despite some promising trailers, there is still not enough evidence to suggest that the next Assassin's Creed won't run into the same pitfalls as the last one. More to the point, I'm too burned out by the franchise's yearly release schedule to consider letting it prove me wrong.  

Obviously, this isn't how Ubisoft's bookkeepers see it. Assassin's Creed is popular now, so they need to release more Assassin's Creed games now to capitalise on the series as best they can. However, a yearly pre-Christmas release is like having someone serve you ten chocolate desserts, one after another, in the space of an afternoon. Some desserts will taste better than others, but even if the last few are the most delicious, you would still rather pass them up because by that point you're sick of the taste of chocolate. Why not give franchises like Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed a rest for a while? In a few years, I might actually want to play a new Assassin's Creed game again. As it stands, just like Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 from last year, I'm happy to let Assassin's Creed 4 pass me by.