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AC4 Black Flag is peak

I've played pretty much all but the most recent. They have their ups and downs. The first was almost like a proof of concept. Kinda boring, but the story sets up the sequels. There was a good overall story arc in the Desmond/Ezio trilogy (Assassin's Creed II, Brotherhood, and Revelations) that hasn't been duplicated since.

AC3 was a bit of a breath of fresh air, being part of the American revolution, but it wasn't for everyone. The story was being deviated from earlier games too much. AC4 is, for me, still the best single-player pirate game out there. It continues with Rogue. Both of those games I highly enjoyed.

Unity (Paris during French Revolution) and Syndicate (Victorian London) both have fantastic maps and character design, but gameplay and story just wasn't as interesting to me. The series was feeling stale.

To Ubisoft's credit, they knew that too and entirely revamped the gameplay and menu system starting with Origins (Ancient Egypt), then Odyssey (Ancient Greece), and Valhalla (Vikings during 9th Century). Valhalla was really fun. I love how they change certain villages up throughout the year... adding festivals/challenges depending on when you play. The maps were just getting too huge and overwhelming at this point.

I play the games now mainly for exploration. Gameplay and story are secondary as they aren't as interesting anymore. They really put a lot of detail into their surroundings and do their research on history, whether real or fantastical. It's escapism to another land in another time.

Ubisoft is not Rockstar. The story is no longer the reason to play these games. They are forgettable. The Desmond/Ezio storyline of the earlier games are no more. However, we don't have to wait several years to play a sequel.

Valhalla was the only one that I paid full price for since it was 2020 and we were still basically trapped in our homes, but definitely got my money's worth. They seemed to take more time making Mirage so I'll check that out eventually. They are remastering some of their old games so I'd play those over the dated originals.

The Far Cry series has a similar feeling for me, but with a first person perspective. New lands to explore, new stories and characters, but some are better than others.

Obviously subjective, but I was a very big fan of the series for the first several entries, kinda began losing interest around Unity (although in hindsight, Unity is probably one of the best ones in a few ways, but at release it was a very buggy mess).

I am not personally a fan of the way they have ignored the modern day story line after around 3, as I am one of the few on the planet that actually found that part of the narrative compelling and the part I was really playing for.

I don't like they gameplay changes since Origins, and it has increasingly become more of an action game over time and less of a dope assassin game.

AssCreed4 is the best game of the series. Black Flag's combat was great and the ship combat keeps me coming back to the game years on.

The first one was meh, the second one was good. Haven't played most of the others but people seem to enjoy them.

There's two or three good ones in the series. Thankfully the rest aren't as bad as Far Cry which is just about the shittiest franchise I've ever had the displeasure of playing.