In Assassin’s Creed: Rogue we follow the story of Assassin upstart Shay Cormac. He was an Assassin that obeyed the Creed’s orders without question until one huge moment that blurred the lines between good and bad, and made him question if the Creed really are what they seem. This epiphany plagued Shay and resulted in him being banished from the Creed and led him to the Templar Order. Shay continually asks himself if what he’s doing is right, he’s certainly a man with the best intentions, but is he fighting for the right side? Assassin’s Creed: Rogue may feel like you’re treading on old ground at times with it having many similarities with ACIV: Black Flag, but the Templar perspective is certainly an interesting one.
If you’ve played ACIV or ACIII, then you will be able to pick up and play AC: Rogue with practically no learning curve. Depending on which way you look at this, the lack of change maybe a good thing or bad thing. Over the years the AC franchise has changed subtly with each instalment and while I like to see a fresh approach with almost any new game, I think considering the we’ve had both a new gen and last gen game this year, I’ll cut Ubisoft a little slack in that respect. Plus with the fact that we are now playing the game from the perspective of a Templar, this approach alone makes this game feel at least a little fresh in comparison to the previous two games.
However, we are still plagued with the ever persistent problem of running up walls/trees that we do not intend or when trailing an NPC, you will still unwillingly jump from a rooftop and land smack bang in the middle of enemy guards, too much frustration. But for fans of the series, this will be nothing new (not that it’s a good thing of course). In AC: Rogue, we will spend much of our time in various locations such as New York, the European continent and even sailing the seas in the frosty North Atlantic. Crashing through the icebergs can be oddly therapeutic and you may just find hidden items within some of them.
It wouldn’t really be possible without talking in-depth about all the gameplay elements, without treading on old ground with what’s already been said in my Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag review, so for the benefit of this review, I’ll just talk about some of the new (ish) elements included in Assassin’s Creed: Rogue. For example there is an enhanced version of the dart pipe, only this time it’s more like a silenced rifle with slightly better range. You can also shoot fire cracker darts from the rifle which are not only great at causing a diversion, but their also particularly handy when firing at explosive barrels, in comparison to the standard gun that may attract more attention to your location due to the noise that it generates.
During cities such as New York, you can also renovate certain buildings that you not only make the districts more visually attractive, but they will also help generate and increase an income, for which you can then spend on various items such as weapons and so forth. Though to make the most out of making the district that it can be, it would be wise to takedown the gang hideouts, which we’ve seen variations of this throughout the series over the years and in a sense with Watch Dogs. To takedown a gang hideout, you must locate and kill the gang leader. But be careful, because their slippery bunch, so you’ll have to utilise your best stealth and assassination skills. You may also find that they will use a gas bomb to get away, which will prove successful, unless you equip your gas mask (which is new to the series).
Though even when you’ve successfully taken over the gang hideout, you will be kept on your toes by the gang stalkers. They will mingle within crowds, sit on benches, and hide in cupboards with their slyness. You will know when one is near when you hear the sound of whispering, and then by hitting the eagle vision button, an indicator will give you hits of their location. This very much reminded me of the multiplayer of Assassin’s Creed with previous games, where players will hide among the crowd in the hope of taking out the player controlled target.
When not on land, much of your time will be sent sailing on the Morrigan. Like most aspects of this game, not much has changed since ACIV: Black Flag. Again, that will come down to you if that’s a bad thing or not, but I get the feeling that AC: Rogue is very much a fan service game for those that perhaps loved Black Flag and were unable to upgrade to the new gen systems. There is however new weapons equipped in your sea vessel such as the puckle gun. This weapon will allow you to target and inflict damage on multiple targets with one shot. It may not deal great damage against larger enemy ships, but it’s certainly handy against the smaller targets.
Visually AC: Rogue is to the same standard as ACIV: Black Flag on PS3 and Xbox 360. You will certainly see better looking games, but also to counter that, you won’t see many bigger games on this system too. So while some key console exclusive titles look far superior, many are not at the great scale to AC: Rogue and that should be taken into consideration. It may be running on a slightly ageing engine, but odd skin blemishes aside, this certainly did not hinder my enjoyment of this game one bit and is still somewhat pleasing on the eye.
I have to say, that other then AC: Rogue having a very intriguing story, the game also has a sublime soundtrack, especially with the main theme. It takes influence from the beautiful tune of “Ezio’s Family” composed by Jesper Kyd from Assassin’s Creed II, but with the main lead Shay being from Ireland, it has that Irish twist makes it truly mesmeric. Major kudos from me must go to the work done by Elitsa Alexandrova for composing the soundtrack for AC: Rogue so well, it’s also worth mentioning that she was also the sound designer for the game. I certainly look forward to hearing more work from her within the videogame industry in the near future.
However not all is good in the sound department for Assassin’s Creed: Rogue, well at least in my humble opinion anyway. As you know the protagonist of AC: Rogue is an Irish man named Shay Cormac, who is in fact one of the most interesting characters within the universe of Assassin’s Creed for some time. The man behind the voice of Shay is Canadian Steve Piovesan and his accent of an Irishman is very questionable indeed. As soon as I first heard the accent when playing the game, I instantly thought it sounds like someone putting on a fake Irish accent.
I could be very wrong and perhaps Canadian Steve Piovesan does have a natural Irish accent (and I apologise if I am wrong). Dodgy accent aside, Shay is a believable character that makes you want to know more about him. But it completely puzzles me as to why Ubisoft didn’t just bring in an Irishman with a natural accent, surely that’s common sense? For me it would be no different in casting an Englishman, with a strong Midland accent and asking him to perform a Japanese accent for a Japanese character, when you could just hire a Japanese actor in the first place, it just makes little sense to me.
As with most games in the series, there is plenty to explore. Though for some reason, I never felt quite as enticed to explore the world in AC: Rogue as I did in Black Flag, but there are still plenty of side-missions to partake if you choose. The campaign length for AC: Rogue is also a little shorter then what you might have been previously used to. You may find it odd that AC: Rogue only has 6 sequences, but it’s still not as short as you might assume. Obviously it’s all down to the gamer at hand, but as long as you don’t fast travel too much and you embrace the open sea and the various side activities, you could easily get around 10 hours worth of campaign time and that’s not even taking in consideration all the collectibles and other extras that you have to take on. In that respect, as with other games in the series, you will still get plenty of value for money from this game.
But what happens if you should 100% the campaign? Will you delve into its multiplayer? Well sadly if you’re a fan of the AC multiplayer, you won’t find it here as AC: Rogue is a singleplayer game only. For me this is not a great issue, because no matter how much a tried, I could not get into the competitive multiplayer from previous games. But that’s only me, as there are a lot of fans that enjoy AC’s competitive multiplayer. So that once again all comes down to the gamer at hand, whether or not this will be an issue for you. There also does not seem to be any plans by Ubisoft to release any story expansions for AC: Rogue, which I do find a little disappointing, as it’s something that I’ve enjoyed with most AC games. That ship may have well and truly passed now, but a 4-5 hour expansion telling more of Haytham Kenway’s story would have been sublime and a great addition to AC: Rogue in my opinion.
Many could begrudge Assassin’s Creed: Rogue for not having any multiplayer and they could dismiss it in favour of Assassin’s Creed: Unity if you own a next gen system, but that would be a sad mistake, as this is a more then worthy entry into the series. As already stated Shay Cormac is a very interesting lead and with that lead protagonist being a Templar, it’s a breath of sea salty air and is certainly a strong and unexpected alternative within the series. Does Assassin’s Creed: Rogue warrant a £40 purchase? That’s debatable, perhaps a £30 would be a little fairer, but should you skip this entry? Most certainly not.
Whether you pick up Assassin’s Creed: Rogue for the PS3 or Xbox 360, or if you decide to pick up the PC release early 2015 (hopefully we’ll see it on PS4 and Xbox One at some point too), this game deserves your attention and I have no doubts it will be leaving wanting more of Templar Shay Cormac. We’ll just have to wait to see what the future holds for Shay in the series as to whether we’ll get to see him again one day. But while you ponder those thoughts, I would certainly recommend adding Assassin’s Creed: Rogue to your gaming collection.