The other November outing for Ubi’s stabtastic series
If the game’s title doesn’t make it entirely obvious how Ubisoft views this game, then its PR might: released on the same day as Unity, and given a fraction of the publicity, Rogue sneaked under many people’s radars as stealthily as the titular character on a mission. It’s been thrown out there – on last-gen, no less – as a sort of nod to those who saw Black Flag as the greatest innovation in Assassin’s Creed since Altaïr hid knives up his sleeves, but it’s clear that Ubisoft is still much more willing to back the safer, iterative style of Unity.
Where Unity focuses on polishing up the looks of back-to-basics gameplay, Rogue instead aims to bridge the gap between Black Flag and future storylines. Taking its foundation from IV’s free-roaming ocean, but with a map almost three times the size, it’s almost disappointing to see this ambitious scale simply employed to join the dots between grander entries rather than as a canvas for its own killer yarn. Story missions are perfunctorily presented: sail from isle to isle, watch 30 seconds of dry dialogue delivered in wonky accents and sail to another. Rinse and repeat, throw in a couple of stabbings for good measure, maybe tail a boat or two – but it rarely gets more exciting than that, except for naval battles, shaking TV speakers to their core as violently as last year’s game.
Sea plus
As is Creed’s way, side missions provide the real meat, the story introducing a range of activities, such as infiltrating gang hideouts or taking out guards to access supplies for ship upgrades. Oddly, much of the stuff is unlocked as you go along, as if the game’s worried you’ll binge on sidequests and spend the rest of the game napping it off. The number of times you’re dragged out of the immersive seafaring fantasy by the game grumpily declaring you need to “progress further in the story” is distracting, especially when it isn’t always clear what you’re missing out on. Like an overly aggressive younger sibling’s ‘KEEP OUT’ door signs, it only makes you feel sad and confused.
The story in general is so poorly paced you’ll wish the game just let you go and explore. Exposition is spewed at you while sailing, making it very hard to concentrate on or care about. Your first mate drones on about how Man X is very bad and needs to die, while Man Y is very good and should be protected, in that typical Assassin’s Creed way of randomly assigning good/evil badges to generic dudes who couldn’t be less interesting if they tried.
At least Rogue experiments with the established Creed formula, as doubtful assassin Shay realises he’s essentially an attack dog that never questions the validity of a target and decides to join forces with the Templars. Of course, that nuance is lost when he ends up doing the same thing on the Templar side and using the same assassin’s tricks to do it. Turns out both groups enjoy hiding in bushes and stabbing people. Can’t they be friends?
Rogue also compares favourably in the visual stakes. While last-gen tech can’t throw around Unity’s new-gen beauty, its great art design can almost compete. From cutting through frozen ice sheets in the north Atlantic under the green glow of the northern Lights, to the urban sprawl of colonial new York, what Rogue lacks in sharp edges, it makes up for in variety. Geographic range lends itself well to the side quests, too: hunting is rarer in colder climes, but they do have snow-covered shipwrecks to explore, whereas cities and towns tend to have a higher population of gangs to take out.
Servers you right
Unfortunately, the appealing adventure on the open waves occasionally gives way to repetitive first-person Abstergo sections, stuffed to breaking point with self-referential jokes and awful server - fixing mini-games. The personalities of the Abstergo staff are all so cloying that it takes great restraint not to give them the ol’ sleeve-knife treatment.
Back in the Animus and the biggest problem is the uneven difficulty level. Clearly the game wants you to use your utility belt of tools and stealthy tactics to succeed, but when your opponents can climb buildings, shoot you from a distance and swarm en masse, it can be tricky to get it right. Cheap tricks are often the easiest way to win – our top tactic involved hiding in a haystack and shooting the target with a berserk dart, watching as he killed all the guards and then himself, before going over and looting him for whatever nonsensical narrative doodad we were supposed to fetch. Regenerating health means you often have to resort to running away and hiding mid-battle, which is never a fantastic mechanic, but makes even less sense in the context of a stealth game. All of a sudden Unity’s reliance on life bar-replenishing medicines and its introduction of a standalone sneak button are greatly missed – Shay feels like a less capable killer than Arno.
Rogue is hard to judge because it’s hard to categorise. As a sequel to Black Flag, it’s more of the same and it’s brilliant for it; as a challenger to Unity’s upgraded looks but slightly conservative gameplay, it’s different, and not always in a good way. There’s plenty to do, but the sizeable map has clearly taken priority over the story – the scale never feels justified – and bad pacing and some truly godawful accents let the game down. It’s by no means terrible, but given that Ubisoft has been treating it like something to be ashamed of, we seem to have come away feeling more ambivalent than perhaps the game deserves.