[Review] ASSASSIN'S CREED 3 REMASTERED REVIEW

[| TG |]

- A lot has happened to the Assassin’s Creed series in the seven years since Assassin's Creed 3 first came out. It was quickly overshadowed in 2013 by the follow-up, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, which remains one of my all-time favorites – but that’s in part because of how well AC4 built upon the naval combat concepts introduced by its Colonial predecessor. Since then, our expectations for the series have been changed yet again by the RPG-influenced Assassin’s Creed Origins and Odyssey, which revamped combat control in a way that’s hard to go back from. So while I'm glad to say Assassin's Creed 3 Remastered does do a great job bringing the appearance of this 18th-century world and its characters of this 2012 game up to 2019 standards, there's a lot of creakiness to it that even the gameplay tweaks it makes can’t entirely smooth out.

- The whole package includes all the DLC (including the Tyranny of King George trilogy about an evil George Washington), as well as Assassin’s Creed 3: Liberation HD (originally for the Vita) and extra behind-the-scenes content. It’s a nice touch by Ubisoft that everyone who bought the season pass for the excellent Assassin's Creed Odyssey gets AC3 Remastered for free.

-The first and most obvious upgrade comes by way of the graphics. Assassin's Creed 3 and Liberation are both available in 4K, provided you have an Xbox One X or PS4 Pro, though only at 30fps. On PC, with an EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB FTW and Intel i7-7700K CPU, I was able to crank all the settings to Ultra and run in 1440p at a steady 60fps (where it appears Ubisoft has locked it), and wow: What a difference it makes.

- Outside the cities, the wilderness, too, has a new life about it. The forests in the spring and summer are teeming with plant life, and the snow in the winter sparkles like its real-life counterpart. The frontier isn't nearly as breathtaking as the one Rockstar crafted for Red Dead Redemption 2, but it's almost on par with Ubisoft’s two most recent Far Cry games.

- With Assassin’s Creed 3 Remastered, Ubisoft does everything in its power to bring one of the weaker games in the series up to modern standards, and it’s full of sights worth seeing. The main improvement is graphical, and the scenery of 18th-century Colonial America looks fantastic. There are even some meaningful tweaks made to stealth mechanics to make it feel a little more up to date and less aggravating. Where this remaster falters are places where AC3 can't be changed without fundamentally remaking the entire game from the ground up, namely a stiff animation style, repetitive mission structure, and that goddamn final sequence.

Edited March 29, 2019 by | TG |