After Revisiting The First Assassin’s Creed, I’m Realizing How Much Was Lost

The first Assassin's Creed game is far from perfect, and I'll probably never forgive it for giving us Ubisoft towers. That said, I've always held a soft spot for the game, and have found myself lamenting how much of a departure some recent entries in the series are from the original Assassin's Creed concept. Not knowing if I was simply blinded by nostalgia, I watched a few gameplay videos of the original game after Assassin's Creed Shadows got delayed, and was pleasantly surprised to see I wasn't fully wrong about the series having lost something special.

Grabbing the Assassin's Creed Director's Cut Edition on Steam, I decided to return to the game myself. While I wouldn't say that it was the best time I've ever had, there were aspects of the game that held up better than I expected. While I didn't fully finish the game on my revisit, it did take me longer to put it down than some recent Assassin's Creed titles, which have struggled to capture my interest. It may be too late for the Assassin's Creed series to revisit its roots, but I think it's still worth acknowledging them.

Assassin’s Creed Had Fascinating Ideas At The Start

Assassin's Creed's Original Tone Was Much More Engaging

I'll be honest, I never used to like the Animus sections of Assassin's Creed, and in most games, I still don't. I actually forgot they existed after taking an extended hiatus from the series, and when I revisited Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag and was tasked with touring Abstergo before I was allowed to sail my pirate ship, my eyes rolled so hard I nearly did a cartwheel. So, I was very surprised to find that I was actually interested in the present-day sections of Assassin's Creed when I revisited the game.

The atmosphere in the Abstergo building in the first Assassin's Creed game is wonderfully creepy, and the mystery elements helped keep me interested in Desmond's story. Similar to something like Lost, I can still appreciate the craft of setting up an interesting mystery, even if I know the payoff is going to ultimately disappoint me. The slow drip-feed of information spread between the present and past sections of the game made me eager to switch back in a way I never quite was in later Assassin's Creed games.

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I also found the gameplay in Assassin's Creed somewhat refreshing. The game emphasizes its stealth elements, which feel appropriate for a game where you play as an assassin. As much fun as I used to have taking out a town full of guards with my bare hands in Assassin's Creed 4, the ease of combat made stealth feel somewhat irrelevant. I like that I often felt I actually needed to hide or approach things more carefully in the first game.

Also, while there are some hints at supernatural elements, and the entire concept of the Assassin's Creed game is science fiction, I appreciate how grounded the first game felt. Story elements like the Isu (introduced at the end of Assassin's Creed 2) were a bit much for me. It's not that I don't like fantasy stories, but I hadn't really expected or wanted fantasy elements to be such a big part of the Assassin's Creed games.

The First AC Game Isn’t The Most Fun

The Gameplay Loop In The First Game Gets A Little Old

While there are elements and concepts from the first Assassin's Creed game that pleasantly surprised me upon revisiting the game, I won't pretend that it was my favorite of the franchise. I dislike Assassin's Creed 4's overly long introduction, but that's only because it's holding me back from some of my favorite bits of gameplay in the series. I don't like the shift Assassin's Creed games made towards being more combat-heavy and the inclusion of enemy health bars, but I would still rather play Assassin's Creed Odyssey again for its setting and story.

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The first Assassin's Creed game's setting isn't terribly exciting anymore. Although I was impressed by it when I first played Assassin's Creed in 2007, I was disappointed upon revisiting it to find that the game's cities all felt largely the same, minus some visual cues like color grading to set them apart. And, as much as I appreciate the emphasis on stealth, the basic gameplay loop started to feel a bit too repetitive.

Killing a target, then running through similar-looking streets just to find one of many identical hiding spots got a little old after a while. Assassin's Creed's combat also feels somewhat repetitive, even if I do appreciate how quickly enemies go down when compared to the hard modes in games like Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Still, despite having a good number of complaints about the original game, I'm not entirely convinced that the series as a whole has gone in the right direction.

Assassin’s Creed’s Evolution Makes It Almost Unrecognizable

Newer Assassin's Creed Games Feel More Generic

Close

The Assassin's Creed franchise evolved over the course of the last 18 years and nearly as many games. Though the evolution was gradual enough that I didn't question the changes being made as they were happening, revisiting the first Assassin's Creed shows the stark contrast between the series' origins and where it has ended up. Honestly, at this point, the games are so different that even calling recent entries, like AC Odyssey or AC Valhalla, Assassin's Creed games feels more like a marketing decision than anything else.

While Assassin's Creed 2 and Assassin's Creed 3 did a good job showing how the original formula could be improved upon without losing its core identity, things started to go downhill with Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag (even if it is one of my personal favorites). It's hard to retain the original game's emphasis on stealth when you're spending a good chunk of gameplay time sailing around blowing up boats and even forts with your cannons.

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The addition of enemy health bars in Assassin's Creed Origins was perhaps one of the decisions that most changed how I looked at the series. It felt like Assassin's Creed was trying to emulate games like Dark Souls, which only stood to highlight how much less satisfying the combat is in AC ​​​​​​​games. I also found the difficulty settings to be frustrating in these games, since the only real difference seemed to be that making the game "harder" just increased enemies' health totals, turning combat into more of a slog.

I haven't played Assassin's Creed Shadows yet, so I have some hope that the novel-looking combat mechanics from the new game can recapture my interest in the series a bit. Still, I have a hard time imagining that any new game will be able to fully recreate what made me interested in the original Assassin's Creed game. After all, it's somewhat hard to go back to grounded, stealth-based gameplay after an entry where players can take out crowds of enemies with the use of Thor's magical hammer.