I’m a fan of the Assassins Creed franchise and have played all the mainline games except for one, Assassins Creed 3. When released, AC3 was deemed as a poor addition to the series and even today, it’s regarded as probably the worst AC game of all.
But not playing it revealed a void of sorts and begged the question “Should I play Assassins Creed 3 – 13 years after it was released, after I’ve played all the newer games in the franchise?”.
I went ahead and did!
But whether you should or not is not a straight answer – there are good points and bad points to the game, and yes playing it after the newer games in the franchise does create a biased opinion, but to help you decide whether to give it a shot or not, I’ve put down 10 great and 10 bad things about the game so you can decide whether it’s really worth playing today or not.
Spoilers alert.
1. Good Point – It has an interesting start.
You don’t start the game as the main protagonist, you start as Haytham Kenway. He’s a clever, gutsy, distinguished tough guy who can free run, use a hidden blade and has a temperament to bend the rules – a certain cockiness expected from an Assassin except you soon find out that he’s not one, he’s actually a templar.
I’m sure that would have been a major shock to those who played it early on in 2012, and it’s a nice attempt to do something different after AC2.
2. Bad Point – Playing as Haytham Kenway is clunky
When you play as Haythem Kenway, you’ll find that he is a bit clunky to control. His running and mechanics are a touch sluggish, and at this point you don’t know he’s a templar and maybe that’s why they made him that way.
If you were jumping into AC3 after playing AC2 Revelations, you’d probably think that this game was a bit of a downgrade based on this point. On one hand Haytham’s clunkiness is quite clever, working as a subtle indication that Haythem is not an Assassin. On the other hand, it creates a bad impression at the start of the game.
3. Good – It gets better when you play as Connor Kenway
After the first act, you finally become the main protagonist Conner Kenway and that’s where the game begins to come into form. You can freerun, fight and assassinate with more fluidity and pace, reminiscent of the earlier AC games. If you do play the game, give it until you start hunting as Conner to see the improvement in gameplay.
4. Bad – Even remastered, it’s a buggy game
I played the remastered version of AC3, and I can definitely say that this is by far the most buggiest AC game that I have played. General bystanders make a real effort to walk into you for no reason, invisible walls stop you from manoeuvring between big gaps or over lakes, and interaction options disappear if you move ever so slightly out of position. That’s just to start with! Weapons get put into wrong slots, horses get stuck everywhere, and some missions fail without you even knowing why.
Playing AC3 reveals that there was no finesse when creating this game and overall it takes it a step down from Assassins Creed 2: Revelations which was released 1 year prior.
5. Good – A lot of other AC games have a connection to AC3
I loved AC2 not just for the gameplay but the storyline and lore behind it. It was intricate but not overly complex, and you felt a part of the narrative – that’s why most people fell in love with the franchise in the first place.
AC3 continues the whole concept of Assassins, Templars, Isu’s and Artifacts and it does pull it off, if not so remarkably, but the game itself represents an important part in the franchise as many of the later games connect to it in some way.
- AC Black Flag is centered around Edward Kenway, Haythems father and Conner’s grandfather.
- AC Rogue is a prequel to AC 3, featuring some of the same characters in AC3 in their younger days.
- AC Liberation features Conner Kenway in a mission
- AC Syndicate touches on the Kenways in general, featuring a mini-mission in Edwards London house.
- Last but not least Valhalla sets up the whole plot justifying why AC3 exists and bringing the storyline full circle.
In that respect AC3 is an important part of the entire franchise.
6. Bad : Walk here and walk there.
AC3 has some terrible missions, uninventive and a lot of the time pointless such as walk 20 steps just to face another loading screen that continues the game thereafter. Then there’s the typical time stretcher where you need to travel all the way to the top of a building just to do a 5 second task and come all the way back down again. Coupled with previously seen missions such as chasing, racing, tailing and stealing, it’s by no means a hugely entertaining game in fact it can be frustratingly boring and fruitless.
7. Good – The rare unique mission
Amongst the boring old missions, there are a few interesting ones, particular when you set sail in naval combat – setting the stage for the Black Flag chapter, or when you enter a modern day Arena as Desmond Miles and cause some havoc through a variety of tasks..
8. Bad – Fight mechanics are dodgy
In AC3 countering is very buggy because it works in favour of the game mechanics as opposed to the players . As your midframe through attacking one opponent you’ll be attacked by another and the counterattack just does not work – you have no option but just to take the hit. On one hand countering is challenging which makes it a skilled move, but it’s also pointless if it doesn’t work right.
An additional problem when fighting is the camera work. In AC3 the camera is typically behind you but in fight mode it pulls itself back allowing you to see yourself at all angles. The bad thing is the camera goes back beyond other objects such as trees, boxes and boat sails leaving you fighting blind!
9. Good – You can free-run, assassinate and double-assassinate again with the hidden blade.
The thing I hated about the newer games were the missing details that made AC so great. In newer games there is no hidden blade. You might be able to level yourself up enough to stealthily assassinate someone but the opportunities to do so were slim and selective – it became a bonus feature rather than a main mechanic. Free running in newer games is also down to minimum with the focus being more so on climbing, so if you’re missing that ol’ skool slash and dash with ease gameplay then AC3 may just fill that void for you.
10. Bad: Most of it has no point
When I played AC3 my goal was not to explore every area of the map or do every side mission – I played just to fill in the holes to the story which I had missed, but nonetheless AC3 didn’t really make me want to do a side mission or anything extra because the controls, instructions and flow of gameplay were so bad. There was never any clear point as to why I would do a side mission, home mission or anything other than the main storyline because the narrative or instructions didn’t engulf the player enough to do so. Side missions and side features were like quick sidenotes explaining their availability but the gameplay showed no real reason to any of it.
Things like crafting and Assassination groups were also misinformed. I had no idea what to do, how or why I should do it, even though I’d done it before in the AC2 series. It felt like these features were all added onto the game for the sake of extending the game, but leaving the player oblivious as to how to do any of it.
Things like calling your horse was a mystery too. On one map, your horse would be ready and waiting, and a whistle button was there too to call it over. On the next map all horse functionality was gone – I had no idea if it was even supposed to be there or not.
11. Good – You free run through trees
When I first saw the concept for AC3 I was a little perplexed! I thought “Where the hell are you going to free run in colonial America?” – I thought it was mostly empty plains? Surprisingly Ubisoft made free running through trees the answer. Admittedly, in AC3 free running through Boston or New York is nowhere near as elegant or exciting as free running through Italy in AC2, but extra effort was put into free running through trees and it’s a smooth and pacey experience.
12. Bad – You forget to free run in trees
A lot of AC 3 is forest based, and as nice as it is to free run through trees, you pretty much forget to because you need starting points to do so and they are rare to see. That’s the problem with using a forest as the main location, it’s too vast and varied to add starting points and free running tracks everywhere – it would just be too big and too difficult to do so. Because of that, starting points for free running are actually pretty limited and carefully placed within the game to progress the story but not enough to let you free run from point A – B at will.
In the end you don’t even bother with it. In AC2 you could pretty much climb everything if not free run almost anywhere. In newer AC games free running is down to a minimum but you can at least climb anything. In AC3 climbing is also minimal, restrictive and buggy. You can climb certain buildings, trees and small rocks, but cliffs, boats and even some small buildings are off bounds.
13. Good: It has a good story
The story of AC3 is typical of any AC story revolving around family, betrayal, murder and character development. The point of the game is also very much inline with the older games – identify templars in hierarchy and kill them one by one – it’s not perplexing like the newer games which muddies the waters with different names for different factions, and having as many as 4 concurrent stories and goals running throughout.
AC 3 is fairly simple which I quite like – it’s clear what your objective is and everything else is also tied into one single main storyline.
Likewise Conner and Haythem’s story is also likable as they bounce off of each other’s character. Altogether it’s not complex, a bit different and a nice twist on what had been done before.
14. Bad: Terrible Mini-map
The mini map styling for the menu systems is inexplicable – you have no idea what is water, land, road, or building. Likewise the Hud system was also just uninspiring with AC2 being far superior.
15. Good: It’s a short game.
Todays’ newer AC games are huge, taking tens of hours just to complete the main storyline, let alone any other running stories, goals or challenges. AC2 was not a short game either and neither was Brotherhood or Revelations.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a deep narrative and game but at some point it does get tiring, so one of the best things about AC3 is that it is a pretty short game, if you’re playing just the main story.
16: Bad: Connor Kenway
Connor is neither a good or bad protagonist. He’s by no means as charismatic as Ezio, but definitely not the worst in the series. Overall he felt a little underwhelming and monotonous at times but overall, he’s still better than Unity’s Arno Dorian.
17. Good: More interactions with ISU & Precursors
Normally, in AC games you only meet a precursor at the end. AC3 features them through every act, I suppose a way to speed up the ending and create a greater finale to Desmond’s story, as well as setting up a new one.
18: Bad : You can’t speed up cutscenes
Speeding up cutscenes in the newer games is a godsend. It means you can move through in-game conversations quickly to keep the pace up, and when necessary get a gist of a side mission without having to hear content that doesn’t really mean anything. This was probably a feature added to newer games due to the size of these games, but unfortunately this feature is not in AC3, meaning you have to either listen to dialogue fully or skip it altogether.
19. Good: Modern day story
AC3 attempts to liven up the modern day story, pulling Desmond out of the Animus to carry out modern day missions. These missions are not imperative to the storyline though, so once again pointless, but the modern day gameplay is certainly better, allowing you as Desmond to kick some modern day butt every so often.
20. Bad: It could not live up to AC2.
After playing AC2, I couldn’t wait to see what happens next so when AC3 was revealed, it was definitely a game I wanted to play.
After release most players gave their opinion that AC3 was in fact not a great follow up to AC2, in fact it was garnered as terrible.
AC3 could not and did not live up to the greatness of AC2 making it an immediate failure in players eyes, but….truth be told, AC3 and probably every other AC game has not managed to live up to the AC2 Saga, neither in free running, assassinations, story telling, narrative, lore, characters or gameplay.
It’s the main reason why players are so split about the AC Franchise. Truth be told most of the AC games are good if not really good, but their just not AC games or what people want or expected from them. Nonetheless these games are quite individualistic, creating their own scene, mechanics and storyline. They add another layer of narrative to the whole lore.
The problem with AC3 is that it had the hardest challenge to overcome, and that it came straight off the bat after AC2 revelations and overall it just doesn’t do anything incredibly well, whether that be new or old. It had to live up to and surpass AC2, but overall it falls fairly flat in that respect.
Conclusion:
AC3 is a mish mash of a game. One on hand it’s the grand finale for Desmond Miles which is great. On the other it’s a panic response to….“Shit, where can we take the franchise now” – scraping a way to connect it to a new lease of life, which it doesn’t do too well.
The chosen setting was strange! It didn’t seem like an ideal location for an AC game, and it’s not. Then again, imagine an AC game that could have put much more focus on the Native Americans, rather than the colonists, but it seems like they wasted the opportunity.
Everything about the game was kind of “okay” or less but nothing was excellent. It felt like a fully fledged concept, character and storyline but just didn’t execute that well. Things that could have been better were not. And things that were trying to excel the game into different areas are just sidekicks. Overall it was kind of a filler entry, an ending for those who played AC2, but it could have been a great entry instead.
Is it worth playing AC3?
I played Assassins Creed 3 to fill in the story gaps and maybe rekindle what AC use to be like, and if you do that after playing newer AC games then you will have to put up with the big differences. You may complain about how different the new AC games are but you know what, they are better than AC3.
If you do play it then yes, you will get a little of that nostalgia back of playing an AC game where you can actually assassinate, free run a little and understand the story without it being overly complex. It is a much shorter game in comparison to the new ones too, so it won’t take forever to finish.
If you want to play a great AC game then AC3 a miss.
If you want to fill the gaps in the story, and rekindle what assassinating used to be like then yes, definitely give AC3 a go (but be patient with it) it is an old game.
