After my six-week infatuation with The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, I turned my attention to a beloved franchise: Assassin’s Creed. I think I may be the only person in the world who genuinely liked the first one, perhaps due to the way I played it (I’m no completionist, I did a few side-quests and moved on). I’ve played them all up to now, and thoroughly enjoyed the series, especially Assassin’s Creed II, which I still mark as the strongest of the series.

As is pretty much accepted wisdom, there will be more iterations in the franchise, though one hopes to finally see a new character after the close of the Ezio trilogy. Perhaps we will see more of Altair, but that thread could be more or less finished now too. I look forward eagerly to the next title, but there is a niggling concern that began in Brotherhood, and has grown significantly as I played Revelations. I worry that Assassin’s Creed is getting too big for its britches, and that the next couple of games might collapse under the weight of their own increasingly baroque game design.

Now, just because I liked the first Assassin’s Creed doesn’t mean I didn’t observe its faults. The evidence-gathering missions were very dull and repetitive. There were far too many, designed to pad out the length of the game presumably, so there was definite room for mechanical improvement. The various combinations of mission format found in Assassin’s Creed II goes a long way towards alleviating the formulaic pattern of the assassination missions in the first game. Further, the integration of these varied missions into what I consider to be the tightest narrative in the franchise ensured I felt a sense of motivation towards each of the tasks.

Group shot

The Thief, Mercenary and Courtesan guilds are, for me, the start of the dilution of the series though. Hiring goons to do the dirty work seems rather beside the point when the player-character is meant to be the finest assassin in Italy—why does he need the help of some thugs with hammers? Every time I pondered hiring any of the groups, I wondered, why? Why do I want to hire and direct this little band of helpers, rather than sneak across rooftops and drop like an avian raptor on the unsuspecting guards myself?

Brotherhood presents us with the building up of the Assassin’s Guild. Narratively-speaking, this is a much more sensible addition to the game than putting development resources into the three other guilds. It makes sense that Ezio, on his lonesome, would be interested in rebuilding the great Assassin clan which has, apparently, no foothold in Italy since the execution of his father. Still, there is the niggling sense that the experience of creeping through the shadows was being diluted by guild management tasks, mechanics not unlike those found in a sports team management game. Still, at least this major addition made sense.

The one that really gets me is the tower defence in Revelations. Has there ever existed a single person who says to themselves: “You know, I didn’t play the first games in Assassin’s Creed, but now that there’s a tower defence minigame, I’m totally going to buy this one!”? I really can’t process the thought that what players really wanted, and what this story really needed, was for Ezio to stand still on a rooftop and point at things, letting other Assassins do battle as he watches from above, twiddling his hidden blades. You can avoid these minigames by installing a master assassin to defend each den, but that requires you to complete quite a lot of the Mediterranean defence missions—another questionable set of mechanics in my view. If I really wanted the experience of looking at menus instead of free-running and assassinations, I would be playing Final Fantasy.

I haven’t even touched on the economic system built into the Ezio trilogy, partly because it baffles me, and because I find it so deeply uninteresting. In Revelations I noticed I had over 100,000 Akçe, so I... bought a mosque. I guess? Why in the world would an Italian Assassin buy a mosque? Why are they for sale? Who is selling it? Similar questions can be asked about the trade shops, blacksmith, tailor etc. Especially in Constantinople, the Grand Bazaar makes me think their retail economy is working just fine, but I have to go around and set up these particular shops individually, which I theoretically then own - but whose services I still pay for.

I find myself wishing that Ubisoft and Bethesda would sit down and have a big long talk about what works in their respective games, and what doesn’t. Assassin’s Creed could benefit seriously from the insights found in the systems of an RPG, and Bethesda could learn a thing or two about player-character (that’s a story for another time I think).

Ezio has become a man of many, many talents, and I can’t help but feel the game would be more interesting if the player was forced to choose between them in an RPG-like way, rather than have this incredible arsenal available simultaneously. The more abilities Ezio acquired throughout the trilogy, the less like an assassin he felt to me. Certainly the less often I had to play him like an assassin. I could always just hit the trigger and watch other characters play assassin for me.

It's all so complicated

I don’t mean sound so negative—I really like the Assassin’s Creed games, but unfortunately I’m having to work harder each time to find the parts I like amid the chaff. I’m afraid of what mechanics Ubisoft might believe are necessary to layer on top of Revelations, for the big ‘III’ that’s probably already well under way. Will we see more tower defence? What about a rhythm game, or a catapult-related physics puzzle? In the end, Ubisoft either need to decide who their Assassin is, or let the player express it for themselves through mechanics. A character that is all things is inevitably nothing - a boring amalgamation of super-fun videogame badassery with no sense of purpose or direction. I really hope they take the milestone of Assassin’s Creed III as a moment to reflect, pare back and reinvigorate (what I consider to be) the core of these games.