Assassin's Creed free download has fans celebrating underrated entry

Assassin’s Creed fans are praising a free download for one of the most underrated games in the series.

When Assassin’s Creed Syndicate was released in 2015 for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, it perhaps never achieved quite the critical acclaim that Ubisoft had hoped for. On the aggregate website Metacritic, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate scored a not-so-overwhelming 76 from critics and just 6.8 from users.

Check out the Assassin’s Creed Syndicate update trailer below!

“London, 1868. In the heart of the Industrial Revolution, lead your underworld organisation and grow your influence to fight those who exploit the less privileged in the name of progress,” reads the synopsis of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate starring the dynamic twin duo of Jacob and Evie Frye.

For its time, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate was a very nice-looking game powered by Ubisoft’s AnvilNext 2.0 engine. However, the technical demands of the game were too much for consoles to handle resulting in stuttering framerates.

Nine years later, Ubisoft has released a free new-gen update for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate which now performs at a smooth 60 frames-per-second on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, and it’s fair to say, fans are happy.

“It’s great to see the buzz for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate that Ubisoft has generated with a goodwill gesture of a free patch,” said Redditor Such-Possibility1285, kicking off the discussion on the thread.

“I’m delighted to see many new players discovering it, like a lost gem being appreciated by a new generation. Why did it receive a muted reception on release?” they asked.

“Assassin’s Creed burnout was at its peak,” explained nstav13. “2014 saw two AC games, one of which was rushed and felt like DLC [Assassin’s Creed Rogue] the other being completely broken at launch [Assassin’s Creed Unity] with numerous design decisions that didn't fully resonate with the player base.”

As a big fan of the series that may have consumed more Assassin’s Creed than I should have, I agree with the comments made by nstav13. This was during a time when Ubisoft was adamant about releasing a new game every year giving the series no chance to breathe.

But Ubisoft pushed the boat out further in 2014 by releasing two full games. While visually impressive, Assassin’s Creed Unity was released in a buggy mess and was perhaps an over-ambitious project.

Thankfully, over ten years later, Unity is in a much better state now and following on from Syndicate, I hope that it’s the next game to receive a free new-gen update from Ubisoft.

As for Assassin’s Creed Rogue, I feel this is another underrated game in the series, but it was one too many games from Ubisoft in 2014. What’s more, using the same engine as Black Flag, it felt very much like a last-gen game when compared to Unity.

“I definitely remember feeling burnt out by that point. It was peak “damn, we’re still doing this?” replied a Reddit user.

“I have got to say that this game was so under-appreciated. I had fun with it,” said TR1PLE_6. “The first time I played it was on Xbox One but I didn't like how long it took to load and it ran at just 30fps.”

“The same thing happened to Watch Dogs 2, another great game, that came out around the same time. I think it's partially due to the rough release of predecessor games, which were also two very underrated titles,” exclaimed another user.

If for whatever reason you’ve never played Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, now is a perfect time to check out this underrated gem.

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is out on PC, PlayStation and Xbox.