(First published at The Reboot Gamers.)
Assassin’s Creed Rogue wants to do two very different things - flip the series perspective on its head by playing as Templars, while enticing players with the same combat and explorative gameplay elements in Assassin’s Creed 4. Rogue tries to do both but never fully accomplishes either.
Rogue tells the fallout story of Shay Patrick Cormac, an Irish assassin who eventually leaves the brotherhood to join the Templar. For newcomers to the Assassin’s Creed series, the Templar have traditionally been the bad guys. This time around, both sides are marginally terrible. Developer Ubisoft Sofia attempts to write a nuanced story about perspective and the idea of who historically is considered right and wrong. It’s an interesting idea that falls flat due to poor voice acting and cliche character moments. Shay’s persona as an anti-hero is fairly paint-by-the-numbers, while his supporting cast never quite lose their outwardly villainous facade. I never felt like my actions were fully justified or that the Templar was anything other than a shadowy organization.
Rogue returns to the ship-sailing gameplay of Assassin’s Creed 4. Instead of exploring tropical waters, Shay sails through blizzards and avoids iceburgs along the east coasts of America and Canada. The icy waters and terrain look great on last gen consoles. There’s a great crunch when crushing through ice, and navigating storms is great fun. When the weather calms however, is a different story. From a narrative perspective, it makes sense that the cold waters could harm Shay. From a gameplay perspective, however, this mechanic came across as uninviting. The lust for adventure that I had in the tropics of 4 just isn’t there with Rogue. These waters are harsh and unfriendly, and ultimately I felt deterred from exploring and trying many of the available side missions.
The combat on land is similar to past Assassin’s Creed games. Shay can climb and free run with ease and the hand to hand combat is just as simple to execute as it was in previous games. The block and counter controls are responsive and the stealth kill animations are on point. Rogue introduces a grenade launcher, which can feel clunky and overpowered at times. The game also implements gangs throughout major stretches land. Taking over a gang provides a challenge and is one of the few opportunities in the game where players need to strategize.
Rogue’s main campaign missions are fairly easy and can be at times fairly boring. While there aren’t any dreaded “follow this character without being detected” missions, most can be finished by stealing x, or killing a certain number of y. I rarely put any thought into a mission, nor did I go out of my way to upgrade my character beyond the necessary missions where I had to upgrade a weapon or my ship. The game’s greater moments are few and far between and if it wasn’t for the initial intrigue of the story, I wouldn’t have had much incentive to push through the campaign.
FINAL WORD
And for all its faults, Rogue isn’t particularly a bad game - it’s just dull. It will always feel cool to sail the sea in a pirate ship, it will always be cool to leap from a tall building and kill a nearby enemy. Sadly, this formula has been executed better before and Rogue provides no new reasons to pick up a new entry with the same old formula.
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