The pizza crust might not be anyone's favorite part of a delicious, cheesy pie – but it is an integral part of the munch experience. They're a break from the main event that helps you appreciate the foundations of each bite. And, they can be killer with dip. That's exactly what Assassin's Creed's modern day sections and storytelling does for a complicated series like this – and it was a mistake for Black Flag Resynced, as a remake, to remove the 2013 original's present-day chapters.
Only with their removal do I really appreciate how important they were to grounding the overall package. A crustless pizza sounds all well and good until you're trying to lift it.
A hood in time
There's a lot I loved about Assassin's Creed Shadows, the first game to offload almost all of its 'modern' storytelling (it's now shifted to a few decades in the future). But when I look back on Naoe and Yasuke's adventure, it feels like a forgettable and insubstantial part of the series as a whole.
In fact, the further away Assassin's Creed moves from its overarching modern day stories – explaining why you, as a player, are using a digital device to relive ancestor memories from across time – the more adrift I've come to feel as a long-time fan of the franchise.
The first five Assassin's Creed games follow Desmond Miles as he's forced to use the Animus to relive the DNA-stored memories of his Master Assassin ancestors, helping the evil Templars locate mythical artefacts capable of reshaping reality on a whim in the present. The side effect of this device is that it awakens the skills and abilities of those ancestors within Desmond himself, leading to a handful of linear modern day missions where Desmond gets to show off his parkour and assassin skills.
It always felt like this set-up was building towards a modern-day blowout of 21st century Assassin action (which feels like it wouldn't be a stone's throw from something like Watch Dogs 2, in all honesty). It never came to pass, as Assassin-like gameplay in modern times was de-emphasized after Desmond's story concludes in Assassin's Creed 3.
Yet this bleeding effect, and the modern sequences, still serve a purpose. Through Desmond, the connected quest between Altair, Ezio, and Connor to protect the Pieces of Eden and unlock the Grand Temple, pivotal for humanity's survival, forms a cohesive whole. Bouncing between the Crusades, Renaissance Italy, and the American Revolution would feel random and directionless without the modern day sections creating a throughline.
The original Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag's modern story was a big shift, becoming narrative-heavy first-person sections with light puzzle-solving as you're goaded into investigating your evil game developer employer, Abstergo Entertainment. But, it still contributes to what we've been doing in all the previous games.
These aren't just brief palette cleansers that provide space for Edward Kenway's pirate journey to more naturally have some big time jumps, but important moments that deal with the fallout of Assassin's Creed 3's storyline. Poking around the office has you piece together what happened with Desmond and his friends, and new lore elements with the precursor Isu civilization even create some direct connections between the Age of Piracy and the time in which you find yourself.
With Black Flag Resynced especially, because it was originally designed to connect to the other games in this way, excising that content creates unsatisfying pace issues. As I mentioned in my Black Flag Resynced review, it even means one character arc is missing its bombastic ending and just fizzles out.
Speaking of fizzling, it's all the modern day storylines have managed to do since they've become de-emphasized. Rather than fixing any issues, the step back has made me feel directionless as a fan who wants to appreciate Assassin's Creed as a whole. While even Assassin's Creed Syndicate managed to somewhat incorporate the narrative thread around Juno (a digitized entity from the Isu civilization) escaping her prison, the conclusion of this was instead wrapped up in comic books as the series' RPG era entered the picture.
New modern day protagonist Layla Hassan wasn't perfect, but exploring the origins of the Assassin and Templar conflict at least gave the games some direction, especially through her connection with Assassin's Creed Odyssey's Kassandra. She, like the Isu Civilization's constantly reincarnating Sages, gives an additional timeline-spanning hook alongside the Animus' memory exploration.
Like it or not, past threads connecting is vital to Assassin's Creed DNA – and those threads have to connect somewhere. But, these plotlines struggled to mesh with Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and while Basim's own connection to the modern day through Valhalla and Mirage are super interesting, once again they peter out with Shadows.
New sections set within the Animus Ego attempt to connect Black Flag Resynced and the other, recent open-world RPG era of the games together. But, even within these segments of play, the all-digital world means all it can muster is gesturing towards these historical memories sitting together in a space almost as disconnected as the launcher-like menu that opens when you boot up either Black Flag Resynced or Shadows.
Assassin's Creed's modern sections were the glue holding the whole thing together – doing a lot with just a little. Assassin's Creed 2's morsels of action with Desmond, and absurd reveals about who throughout history has been on the side of the Assassins and Templars, can easily be forgotten about if it's not your thing. But, to others like me, they're an invitation to revel in the sometimes-absurd, sometimes-engrossing spiraling worldbuilding of the series.
It makes me feel like part of a club as a fan. Ubisoft acting self-conscious about that part of the series identity can feel off-putting in its lack of confidence, and make it feel like the clubhouse door has creaked close for business. How can I be a fan of something that isn't sure what it even is anymore? I need something to nibble on again. I need my crust.
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