The churches of Rome and Paris give way to London’s glistening train stations and infernal factories, its cathedrals to industry and progress. It feels like a different type of place to those Assassin’s Creed has visited in the past. In one mission, I was playing as Jacob and it would’ve been really useful to unlock a specific door to make a quick escape, but because I’d only unlocked advanced lockpicking for Evie – who was unavailable – I had to take a longer, more hazardous route out of the building.Īh, London… in 1868, it was a bustling, heavily industrialised city, the heart of an unprecedented Empire. But since you can’t switch between characters within campaign missions, that’s not a viable approach. At first, I exaggerated the differences by investing all of Evie’s points into the stealth skill tree and Jacob’s into combat, thinking I could switch between the two depending on the situation. But the rest of the abilities are identical. They each possess three high-level abilities designed around their supposed strengths of stealth and combat, respectively – Evie can effectively become invisible when stationary, for example, while Jacob has more deadly combos. Given their differences, I was disappointed with how similar Jacob and Evie are to play. Watch our PS4/Xbox One Graphics Comparison above. But their contrasting worldviews have the greatest positive impact on Syndicate’s structure, which is both engaging and meaningful. They’re both extremely likeable, well-drawn protagonists, and the interaction between the two is laced with a lively sibling rivalry that brings levity to otherwise-earnest cutscenes.

Her brother Jacob, however, is a pragmatist – a social reformer who rails against the Assassin’s burdensome legacy and wishes to help his city in more immediate ways, seemingly embodying my desire to move on from the tangled mysticism. The former is a devout Assassin, intent on stopping the Templars by tracking down the remaining pieces of Eden.

Syndicate smartly negotiates this internal conflict by dramatising it in the form of its twin playable characters, Evie and Jacob Frye. Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate chooses wisely, leaves out multiplayer entirely, and pushes a lot of that baggage into the background, largely freeing itself up to make the most of Victorian London and have fun with sneaking, climbing, and stabbing. Like its Templars and Assassins, who are locked in a never-ending struggle for relics, each game picks a side in the question of how strongly should it lean into its now-convoluted ancient lore and incorporate the still-underdeveloped present-day elements. Every year, the Assassin’s Creed series struggles with the idea of inheritance.

Assassin's creed syndicate pc graphics