Making a ranking of the finest Assassin’s Creed games from least to most beloved is difficult. To begin with, there will be a significant amount of time spent on the road. In a matter of seconds, we might be in Russia. The following day, we’re in India. Mykonos City shimmers in the distance, and then we’re in Renaissance Italy and Ancient Greece in the blink of an eye. There’s also the issue of staffing. Your perception of the best Assassin’s Creed games may depend on whose characters you play, from Shay to Arno, Edward to Jacob, Altar to Connor, or Ratonhnhaké:ton to give them their Sunday name.
Identity in Assassin’s Creed
Aiming to be more like the full-blooded console releases, Assassin’s Creed Identity made its iOS debut with an RPG twist. Identity tries to recreate the series’ hallmark gameplay in a more concise format, a stealth-and-stabbing game set in Renaissance Italy. Ezio has been replaced with a series of custom-created personalities; each brought to life by an Italian name generator.
In all likelihood, you’ll be spending more time fiddling with that than you will playing the game itself, which is too bad. Free-to-play, it sends you across the world to murder some guy, acquire this relic, or escort this person in exchange for skill points that you can use to buy clothes, equipment, and move sets for your character. Flat visuals and boxy structures have to do most of the work in generating a feeling of place because there aren’t many people around. The game’s poor controls make this even more challenging, which forces you to run into walls rather than up them.
The Bloodlines of Assassin’s Creed
After the events of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Bloodlines: Brotherhood on the PSP picks up where the first game left off, continuing Altair’s journey. Instead of previous mobile/handheld games in the series, Bloodlines is attempting to mimic the appearance and gameplay of the console versions. However, when it comes to gameplay, Bloodlines does a decent job, with clear visuals that give the impression of a real AC game. However, the combat system makes combat feel as clumsy as hand-stitching in oven mitts when it comes to fighting.
While Bloodlines does feature an interesting plot that isn’t as bad as Altair’s Chronicles, it often falls flat and isn’t powerful enough to compensate for the lackluster combat. This game may have been a lot worse without Maria, Altair’s witty companion from a dream sequence, who gives the plot a sense of life and substance. Unfortunately, even she can’t save the show.
Pirates in Assassin’s Creed
Slimming down a mini-game from one of your earlier games and releasing it on its own requires a lot of guts. Assassin’s Creed Pirates, a mobile game based on Black Flag’s ship combat, was released by Ubisoft in late 2013 due to Black Flag’s success.
Pirates try to be an Assassin’s Creed game with a tale involving Assassins, Templars, and mystical DNA time machines, but that’s all window dressing – you spend 99 percent of your time launching. Cannonballs at other ships just for frickin’ sake. But the creators were aware of this, so they made a point of focusing battle and making it easy to handle boats via touch features. Because it’s just a sliver of another Assassin’s Creed game, Pirates isn’t on our list, but it ought to be because it’s so well-designed.
