Assassins Creed: Syndicate - Playing It Too Safe 

I just wasted an entire minute of my day to see "but that makes you a loser" thanks

Syndicate soundtrack was perfect for the setting and time period 👏🏾👏🏾

Ac unity ---->Big, ambitious,detailed but not polished Ac syndicate---->polished, good overall but not ambitious, not big, not detailed

This should've been a sequel to Unity with Shay being the Grandmaster instead and Arno is building up the assassin's in London to take down Shay and also for his revenge

Don't get too worked up about the fact that Starrick was supposed to be the big bad guy but you felt you were rooting for him because that's not wrong. That's the point of AC since the beginning - they don't establish black and white. On most occasions, neither the Assassins nor the Templars are good guys as both factions believe they're fighting for the greater good and even on times that their objectives align, their methods differ. One fights for freedom and the other for order but both sides are extreme. We only play as the Assassins (because it offers more gameplay opportunities) but if we played as Templars (like in Rogue), Assassins would then feel as if they're the villains. Therefore, thinking you should establish one as purely bad is the wrong way to go or expect when playing AC games since they never force you to think of one as the completely evil side and they always leave you free to decide where you personally align except for the fact that you can only play as assassins for gameplay and plot's sake. Think of it like Marvel's Civil War in the comics. No one is completely good or bad and it's just the same thing with AC.

The villains are hollow because they weren’t real people. The closer to modern times we get, the more ubi has to replace real historical figures with fictional characters because they can’t pitch them as good or bad. For one reason. Recent descendants. People may get mad if their great great grandpa is the Templar grand master that wants to enslave a generation with some piece of eden.

I personally enjoyed Unity (minus the glitches) more than Syndicate. I just felt more emotionally invested in it and the character development was better. We also had more interactions with the main villain. Also the character customization was more fun (for me) in Unity, although I didn't like how I had to grind and unlock simple things like the dual hidden blade. It's just a damn shame Unity had so many glitches because I firmly believe if it didn't, it would have been a fantastic AC game.

Your complaint for the antagonist is that he was evil, everything you pointed out just makes him more evil, controlling the entire world is a fundamentally even thing, employing people doesn't make you good

"Outsourcing jobs to India will bring wealth to London" You might to stick to talking more about gameplay and less about economics...

Black Flag will always hold a special place in my heart, even though there's literally no way they could replicate its success without it being painfully obvious.

You should do a critique of a rockstar game either gta v or red dead redemption.

I must be a basic bitch, I loved this game, I still remember grinding to get every collectible, every outfit, every weapon. The map is huge, I love the time period, the main characters, the DLC’s it all worked so good for me, I would spend hours just roaming London and I loved every second of it, makes me sad to see everyone is calling it basic and repetitive. I think every game is repetitive in some aspects, I thought this game was a great experience I still do.

10:13 remember Unity? The Assassin's where backing the aristocracy back then. Loved Unity for it, it brought some much needed "grey" to the series.

AC syndicate has been in my backlog for like 1 and a half years. Playing it now and this is the most insightful detailed review I have ever seen. I agreed with you on a lot of things regarding the repetitiveness..subscribed!

I played Jacob and Evie differently based on their personalities from the start. For me, how a character acts often has more impact on how I play them than their abilities.

Honestly, I never even once thought about buying the microtransactions. It was never quite bad enough for me to think about getting them.

100% agree with you about the villain part...Sometimes I tend to disagree with the Assassin cause, while finding the bad guy's plans actually reasonable. Killing for the sake of killing is just not fun after so many sequels!

omg the borough mini mission things are genuinely so much fun to me idk why its like the right level of mind-numbing and satisfying

your critiques are great! please consider doing a video on rockstar's bully or red dead redemption!

When I played through the game, I actually did liberate all of London at once. And I did it so early in the story that I didn't even have the grappling hook thing, so freerunning wasn't trivial.

I finally finished this game last night. The reason I say finally is cos I started playing this game 6 months ago. Every time I played it I felt it was missing something. The character designs all looked pretty much the same and level design was far too easy for an AC game. And I've played all the other AC games. And I'm off to playing AC Origins now. Hoping for a much better experience

Syndicate had the best music in the series.

Honestly, you are my favorite video games critic. Like you are the only person who im prepared to spend hours watching his video. Also i watched all you critiques fully. Good job man i really enjoyed it.

They should've found a happy medium between the combat difficulty of Unity and Syndicate, kept in Unity's weapon and outfit system, kept Unity's multiplayer, and made the story interesting enough to replay beyond just ticking the side challenges for 100% synchronization.

Never played Syndicate, but I acc really liked Unity. I never got attacked by the glitches Thankfully

Really solid analysis! I totally agree! Those people needed a big strong business man to take care of them! It's all about that trickle-down economics, am I right?!

9:41 WTF? outsourcing is not good for the people! The people will lose they job how is that good?

Assassin's Creed Syndicate is my favorite AC game

Came to your channel for the Unity video. Now I'm stoked to hear what you have to say about Syndicate! Thanks Luke!

Your critiques are fantastic. Easily my favorite on youtube. Very insightful, visually engaging, and endearing to watch/listen to. I hope you keep it up! I watch until disgustingly late hours in the night, so great job. Definitely deserving of more subs. Your awesome. Keep it up Luke! My fav channel right now :)

I still love syndicate and unity no matter what anyone says. They were the final evolution of the classic assassins creed gameplay that made AC what it was, but then origins came in and took a big steamy shit all over it by starting this new shitty rpg-lite thing that odyssey continued, and made every single aspect of the game worse than what it was in previous titles. Not only the gameplay, but the story too, as origins retconned every single assassin that existed before bayek, and odyssey doesn’t even have a single fucking thing to do with assassins creed in the first place. They may have just called it “go around in Ancient Greece and kill stuff the game”.

Syndicate is my favourite in every aspect. Victorian London is amazing .

Someone should really do an in-depth retrospective of the best game in the series: Assassin's Creed 3.

I love AC Syndicate. It feels different but still respects its heritage in the series.

Gameplay wise, Syndicate was really good. The grapple gun may have been way out there but it was kinda needed, considering the distances between the buildings. the story wasn't anything special, but it did give you pretty cool locations to visit & interesting ways to take out priority targets. The criticism of Syndicates "exploration" part is kinda unfair, when you're a pirate in Black Flag. Its kinda natural the game will be more open of choice in that part, though i think Black Flag is a game that ventured too far from the series & its roots.

love this gam easily my favourite ac game, story isn't amazing but love the setting, the gang stuff, the controlling boroughs, definitely could've gone so much further but it's great

Just discovered your channel a couple days ago and I've been watching your videos like crazy! Excellent content. New subscriber earned

I wrote this piece to an AC Syndicate fan explaining why I didn't find Syndicate as great as the prior titles While I haven’t played the DLC, I enjoyed my time with Syndicate the base game. I loved the world, the details, the designs, some of the characters, the premise and the city. Ubi has put the kind of effort into building their city that few companies can come close to (several tens of millions and thousands of employees can do that) The gadgets and equipment (especially the poison blade and grappling hook). Many missions were particularly cool (especially the main assassinations) Sadly, I feel that the game was a bit of a step back overall compared to Unity and Rogue: Firstly the tone and approach: Syndicate is channeling AC 2 and Brotherhood more than any recent titles. The thing is, after AC3, the series took a turn for grander things: the games had a more layered, complex and morally grey story and world that was better explored. For example, 3, Rogue and Unity were quite poignant as they didn’t hold back in their critique of the time period. 3 showed the racism and flaws inherent at the time, Rogue showed the stretch of the 7 years war, and Unity was quite brutal with its depiction of the French Revolution. These added weight to the worlds. Syndicate by comparison, by going for a more black and white world, sacrifices a lot of those nuances that prior titles had. We don’t see the the extent of the brutality that the working class suffered, or the crimes they did, we don’t see the scope of industrialization of the time, or the prostites. Syndicates London looks better than what it actually was. In other words, Unity and 3 felt like a brutal documentary of the Time, Syndicate feels like a high school history textbook in how the material is covered. I feel that the lighter tone robs AC of a lot more than it gains. Onto the story: I felt it was decent but nothing as poignant as prior titles. The quest regarding the shroud and the quest regarding the Rooks don’t expand or feel extravagant. For example, we don’t get much time with Jacob chilling with, Exploring and personally expanding his crew. No moments of relaxation, barley any heist or team sections. With no management features like in Revelations to 4, the gang feels more like a last minute addition than an integral part of the experience. (By contrast AC3 adds a lot of “relax” quests with the homestead. This really made the place feel alive). Recall the story ends with Jacob and Evie just racing off to their hideout with not a care in the world (I thought this was an AC game, not a Marvel movie). This highlights the lack of stakes or real tension in the plot. The final fight with Starrick was a joke. By hopping back in forth when one character gets unconscious it feels quite ridiculous when it happens. Plus, compare that to GTA V, the final mission with all 3 characters are intense and brings all the characters together in interesting ways and methods. Syndicate somehow felt strapped for time there. The Assassinations were quite fun if a little less open than Unity’s. I really liked the one at the opera for how Joker esque the target was. Regarding Starrick, I felt he and many of his crew were pretty one dimensional as we don’t see much of their humanizing traits and motives beyond be evil and get artifacts (again, the black and white tone at work here). That’s why that Joker like target was so great, he stood out, was complex and even surprised Jacob at the end. Gameplay: Generally good. While climbing and running are pretty good, combat has been degraded. Gone is the Arkham Like 3-Rogue or Unity’s more finesse based style. Instead, a button mashing and counter style gets old really fast. I would have liked a Unity or Arkham like combat to be present to make fighting less tedious. (Though the multi combat takedowns are amazing). We also get fewer creative Assassinations in the side quests: We get fewer of those “optional: poison one target to kill another target” and more “optional: hidden blade use it”. Not to mention that some of these areas for side Assassinations were not as open as I would have liked. The arrest missions were great. Those involved a lot of good thought and options to stealthy kidnap a target. The soundtrack was fitting but not as creative or memory as prior titles but that’s subjective. So Yeah: that’s my take on Syndicate. A really good game that plays it too safe by sticking to a good vs evil plot and tone

I liked Syndicate a lot ( Pc edition ) more than most, mostly because of how detailed the Landmarks we’re & Evie with her Secrets of London armor + Stealth perks 🎮 the rest i understand, butt the main story was Cool. The Repetitive Gameplay did get me after two or three hours.

I don't fucking care how good your intentions are, no giant corporate magnate should be in charge of or "controlling" a nation. That's some dystopian shit.

If Ubisoft were to do a World War I or II ancestor character, that means the modern day protagonist could have plausibly met them, albeit as a much older person, and have a proper familial relationship. That offers up so much more scope for how the protagonist interacts with the animus storyline, like seeing a history their grandparent didn’t tell them or realising their grandparent wasn’t who they thought they were. Imagine sitting on your grandmother’s lap when you were a kid and she’s telling stories about her exploits in World War II, and when you’re an adult be able to relive these stories first hand and have some degree of foreknowledge within the simulation or spot discrepancies perhaps pertaining to the Assassin/Templar conflict or family history. Maybe you were in possession of the Apple the whole time as something you dismissed as an unremarkable gift from the grandparent and abandoned in the attic years ago.

I love this game and I dont mind the repetitiveness at all being I love the gameplay so much. Also, that bit about Churchill saying he'd grant her request for women the right to vote....I thought that was very well executed and I'm sorry to hear you thought that was some feminism crap. I thought it was written well, voiced well, and really did a great simple way of showing that he cared about Frye's cause/relationship with her.

The point of Syndicate was to continue where Unity left off, fill in the 2015 gap, cover the industrial revolution, and make way for Watch_Dogs Legion

Are you pre-ordering the $800 cashmoneybrothers snail eater edition ?

Yo I love your critiques, so in depth and well put together. Seems as though you are gradually working through the Assassin's Creed games, would you consider looking at Assassin's Creed 3?

That would've been cool if the you could choose with Frye twin you want to play as and the other is a NPC that helps you on every quest or 2 player coop. Jacob "distracts" guards while Evie slips by undetected. Both players has their own detection meters.

7:30 well do you think child labor, no social security, medical experiments on living beings is right ? Clearly not aware of the 19th century working class' situation here...

I think the whole "everyone was working together in world war 2" thing is non-canon.

i respectively disagree with your Starrick's opinion. I think Starrick is the coolest templar in assassin's creed universe and he did have an evil masterplan to enslave people in factories and make huge profits by doing so. But that's just my opinion

The proble of AC:S is only one: the font size.

The witcher 3 animations can be annoying when traveling between game worlds

Your videos are the absolute best 👌🏻 I watch all of them and your critiques of these games are so well done I watch even the critiques of games I will never play 👍🏻. I’m currently on unity and I am looking forward to syndicate and even more excited to play Origins and Odyssey because my favorite game is The Witcher 2 Assassin of Kings and The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt. I would love a critique if the Witcher 2 or Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker or any MGS game to be honest lol 🙏🏻🤞🏻🤙🏻

Wish I had a penny for each time you mention Witcher 3 in your critiques

*Cough* outsourcingISneveragoodthing *Cough*

So, so dark Ubi, making siblings kill each other. *Edit*: I haven't looked yet, interested to see if you recorded a similar video on AC Origins.

Hey Luke I was wondering if you made that critique on the Jack the Ripper dlc?? Also do you think as I do that this dlc could be used as ground work for AC Hexe (and perhaps some of the wrath of the Druids dlc from AC Valhalla)?

I look forward to your critiques and analysis! I support your Jack The Ripper analysis. Also, could you critique Sleeping Dogs? The gaming community is still debating whether it deserved to have underperformed.

I liked starick because he is a good person at heart because he wants what's good for London and he wants London to succeed, and to clean up the city

Really good video ! (Hope to see a Jack the Ripper video BTW) ! Thank you so much for informing me that Origins is directed by the Black Flag guy ! I was kind of on the fence but now I've fallen off of the fence !

to me, Unity and Syndicate screamed of wasted potential and they were marketed with façade tactics - Unity dragged about a unique open world when really, it was one really unique island and a few scattered palaces, I still had to climb eight copy-and-paste church towers in the outer districts, the same tactics used in AC2 Venice and the multiplayer aspect was a handful of missions you could play with a group of Arno clothes instead of, you know, fully customizable French assassins! Meanwhile, Syndicate screams of ideas borrowed from other games (I see a lot of Batman Arkham in ACS in particular) and wasted potential with two characters, additionally, I feel Unity is about as late as AC can really go, I just don't buy it when Industrial London cops don't just shoot me and instead rush at me using nightsticks like swords. I haven't played Origins but I plan on getting Odyssey and I hope it's fun, however, I feel that Ubisoft have lost scope of Assassins Creed, I personally feel the story shouldn't begin before The Crusades and I wish they'd be more ballsy with Templars and Assassins, set a game in 16th century Prague and have the Templars as Catholic zealots or something like that

I enjoyed syndicate. The fact that it had less mission bloat compared to unity was an overall positive to me. Even the idea that the Templars can easily be seen as being right to a degree is a GOOD thing. They arnt all specifically evil. Morally wrong in their methods, yes. But they arnt actually the bad guys. That said i enjoyed the lighthearted tone far more than the depressive story of Arno. But thats my perspective. I often see so many people shout for a modern day AC game but we know it wouldnt work. It would be more akin to a watch dogs experience rather than the normal AC experience. Expeciallt with how big buildings would be, the climbing would get rediculous.

its like gangs of new yorks meets the warriors.

Chalk up another good review, keep up the good work

Just finished 100 % on syndicate on pc and honestly, i had more glitches in this game than in ac unity. No game braking, rather immersive breaking. Like for example horses and carriages flying up in the air for no reason. Still, had a great time with it

Since the very first game they’ve done exactly what you describe in this video, as you assassinate your target they say things that make you question everything. While the initial games did this much better. I think that’s what Syndicate was trying to achieve. the Assassin’s Creed series and more specifically the assassin characters that exist within it have always been more of a revolutionary than a politician. If you kill the right people at the right time sure it’ll shake things up now, people may die now, but you’ve saved many many lives in the long haul. I think back to the real life French Revolution, if that hadn’t happen, France wouldn’t be as free as it is today.

Most impressive commentary. New subscriber.

My favourite AC game

AC games aren't bad, they're kinda like a roller coaster. It's fun, short, jerks you around but never quite finishes you off, and you usually don't want a second ride.

I quite loved this games setting only because I’m from the UK (Not England) and enjoyed seeing the monuments, society (they created) and significant figures. Will admit though, the skill tree is a bit ridiculous, especially Evie with the invisibility cloak lmao

the loading screen story reminder was in batman arkham knight too

i loved Syndicate. by far its my fav AC game. we shall see if Origins shall top it when it comes out

I haven't really played any AC games, but i just wanted to comment on one thing you mentioned about the bad guy: Does it really have to be a "badly written bad guy", only because he isn't plain evil but for some is actually likeable/reasonable? Cause i haven't played the game i can't really comment on this specific case, but i feel like there are way too many "just plain evil" bad guys in video games, and someone like this guy sounds way more interesting.

Well. I liked Syndicate but only because I played only first, third and Rouge so I didn't feel much repetitive in Syndicate. I also liked city design in Syndicate. It is more open, looks more natural etc. This is first AC game where I liked just wandering around rather than just run from point to point. However I'm little tired that assassins are good, templars are bad concept and you need just deal with it, no interesting plot twists or changing generic plot that, I think, is mostly same in every AC game.

Who's disagreeing with Starrick being a poor villain? Genuinely, I'd love to hear your take, if so.

It is my least favourite ac but i must say that it should be a good thing that you are agreeing with a lot of what the templars are saying. They share the same goals as the assassins but at their core they seek to control humanity as a way of saving it. This method is in contrast to the assassins. The characters recognise all this.

I mean, I really liked Black Flag (even though it felt outdated playing it in 2018) and Unity was actually kinda cool, but Syndicate felt too outdated and safe, even though I love the idea of two characters, I will sadly leave this one on the shelf unfinished. Time to play Odyssey I guess!!

I would love to see you critique any Zelda game game

Great videos! Keep up the good work:)

I love syndicate because I'm a huge fan of the victorian era. I agree with your review also the points that are not so good. The only AC I enjoyed more is black flag. But AC Origins is nothing for me. Graphics will be great, gameplay will be great - the new combat system. BUT AC is all about environment. I absolutely don't like the setting in egypt at all, and especially bayek - oh no I don't like this guy. AC Origins will be nothing against black flag and syndicate for me.

Starrick uses child labour tho. Granted, that might have been pretty standard back then, but still. I also don't think he pays great wages nor care one bit about working conditions in his factories. I believe these are some of the things making him a bad guy.

Honestly i remember this game having some memorable assassinations, however the villain and missions were very basic, it felt like a unity 1.5 but somehow less advanced over unity

I waited so long for this

Actually the outsourcing of the jobs was a bad thing for the workers cause the jobs went to India or Africa and the industries in England went away and many were jobless, this actually happened in England during the 20s and 30s and iirc Oswald Mosley talked alot about it aswell as Communists in England The outsourcing brings wealth into England but it's only in the richer people and isnt distributed well enough to the worker and creates a bigger wealth gap between the Rich and well off to the Poor and Working class So actually alot of the Londoners would NOT be happy with losing their jobs and the job going all the way to India or Africa, it would only benefit richer people who were in other areas of the Empire and not the people in England who would cost to much to employ compared to people in India or Africa which can be easily exploited and paid little or even nothing as during this same time Worker rights groups were tryna get higher wages so they would want to cut out the more expensive worker for someone who will do the same work or even more dangerous work for less money and benefits

Not into AC saga, but this setting makes me interested in getting it, is this the right one? Im betting Odyssey or Origins will be on top of this but as I said im not into de gazillion repetitive missiones on an eternal map (there are exceptions ofc) will still probably try them now that they are all coming to gamepass (Valhalla coming soon?).

I really enjoyed Syndicate. It isn’t the best but it definitely isn’t the worst. Evie Frye is one of my favorite assassins but the story did seem to jump around a bit and the repeativeness of it did get tiresome at times but overall I enjoyed it far more than Unity.

Alan Wake would be nice.

Black Flag was 90% a pirate game, 10% an AC game, and had some of the most repetitive gameplay since AC1. Jack the Ripper DLC is one of the best DLCs in all of AC's lineup. The microtransactions are null and void to plenty of the playerbase. I've played every main AC title, and not once bought anything that is an option (helix credit purchases). They are not necessary, and are merely there to provide different ways for certain players to spend their time. I liken it to the shark cards in GTA:Online. You can play the game and enjoy it without _ever_ buying a single shark card, however, there are players who do not have the time to *GRIND* to make the in-game money for things they want, and therefore are given the option to buy money with real money. It's not a big deal.

Would love to see a Jack the Ripper Video!

Would love a wwi or ww2 assassins game,I know the lore Is complicated in that time but many games change lore to do a new game.

It was weird for me because i was playing as the combat brute using the stealth character and the stealthy assassin with the brawler character.

Who else doesn't have a life and watched the whole thing like me? :P

Syndicate doesn't run "pretty much flawlessly" on PC. That is a straight up lie! The game, by default, locks physics to 30 fps and after you change this in the ini files, it's obvious that the physics weren't meant to be 60fps as Evie's cloak will go clip through her legs and act bizarrely when moving too much. Also, this game came with my GTX 970, for a game to come with a graphics card, you'd expect it can handle it. It cannot. In the worst areas of London I'm into the 30s with med-high graphics 1080p. As with Unity as well, buildings at any distance just turn into a blurry, flat mess with the game's distance fog lazily used to try and cover it up. The game's anti-aliasing options are also really poor, combining FXAA with every option which gives you two choices when it comes to aliasing, nasty looking FXAA or a total loss of quality and 20 fps with FXAA + MSAA 2x/4x. They are BAD aliasing options and Black Flag had about 10 different options which were perfect. I had to use ReShade which is some kind of post-processing filter injector thing to try and tweak with the aliasing. I'm with you so far but I couldn't let that slide lol, I think these observations are pretty objectively poor PC performance issues which are prevalent in 2018. Flawed. ;)

The head tycoon, true would work well as a leader. The issue is his extreme as he says in that very same cutscene to continue their debts into their children's lives, endless depts and control of a person's life, needs to be removed in one way or another

I’d like to see coverage on the dlc as well

the new trend of assassins creed is that there isn't "really" a good guy, and that following a creed to the letter isn't always a good way to live.

What did you say you were studying? Economics perhaps?

But who did you rip off this video from? To my knowledge hbomberguy didn't make an AC: Syndicate video?

Would be interesting if you were to review the Arkham series!

I actually tried artificially capping the skills for evie and jacob and it kind of worked out.

Ummm outsourcing is not a good thing. Get better historical analysis. Companies outsource jobs overseas to countries with lac labor laws so they can exploit them for less money than if they would have to pay english ppl fair wages