Not everyone, after a year, has switched to the new generation of consoles and Ubisoft, unlike other houses, has not opted for the creation of cross-gen titles such as Shadow of Mordor or The Evil Within. In fact, to continue the Assassin's Creed saga, it was decided to release two distinct titles: Unity for the new generation and Arrogant for the "old".
This decision was made well by some and badly by others, fearing that the release of two titles of the same saga in a few days could mean little care in the development of both titles. Let's go and see together if for Assassin's Creed Rogue it really was.
Things are not always what they seem
In Arrogant we will play the role of Shay Patrick Cormac, one of the faithful to the Assassins creed but who, following certain events, has decided to change side of the fence. For the first time in the Assassin's Creed saga we will therefore take on the role of a Templar for the entire continuation of the title.
The set of all the events related to the plot will once again be the New World and as the first hours of the game show there does not seem to be anything new compared to the previous chapters, Rogue does not seem to deviate from them that much. It will be only later, just when we see the conversion of Shay that the title will completely change its appearance. On balance it is almost a shame that the fact of interpreting a Templar within the title was revealed before the release as this would certainly have marked the change even more, giving even more flavor to the events.
Playing at Arrogant we realize that in the war between Assassins and Templars there is no "good" and "bad" side: following Shay's story we will realize how everything that happened in the previous chapters of the saga does not belong to a faction pure and clear good but simply the development of the facts by one of the two "creeds".
Unlike the previous chapters we will take part in the various crucial episodes of Shay's life in a fragmentary way: the narration will not be continuous: we will skip periods of the Templar's life and then fall back on it later, a bit like in Beyond Two Souls. This narrative stratagem has its motivations but in any case it makes the understanding of the plot slightly more difficult, due to uploads or interludes that lead to distraction and confusion, without however removing the bite.
A point in favor of Arrogant surely it would have been to have a charismatic and unique protagonist but unfortunately this is not the case: although Shay is undoubtedly courageous and anything but naive he cannot leave his mark, he ends up being almost thrown by chance into the middle of events, without capturing the our attention as it should.
The usual Assassins ... and Templars
Going to examine the gameplay side of Arrogant you notice from the first minutes of the game that in fact it is a clone of the previous chapters, which nevertheless manages to get rid of some technical problems, even if not in an excellent way. For example, the combat system is in fact more fluid than in Black Flag and much more often the opponents will attack us in groups rather than alone. However, the number will be small and we will still see other opponents wait their turn to jump on us. News also on the approach to the battles themselves where several times we will be forced to resort to the Eye of the Eagle or a primordial filtering mask to identify our enemies.
After a few small positive notes it must be said that from Black Flag, however, many models of NPCs, buildings and flora are also retrieved that will even have the same identical animations. In the arsenal we will have special clones of some AC IV weapons such as the air rifle that replaces the blowgun. Same story even in small naval quests: missions of attacks on the fort, recruiting pirates, exploration etc. will be available. However, there are some small innovations in sea battles where we will be able to take advantage of new upgrades for our sailing ship, making it lethal to the point of even being able to throw boiling oil to defend ourselves, which we will also have to do when the enemy ships attempt to board our ship.
The old Eye of the Eagle
With Arrogant we will travel in a good part of America and even in the Old Continent, as old as the graphic sector of the title. We have already mentioned previously what was the strategy adopted by Ubisoft regarding the graphic models of many elements of the title, that is to take them shamelessly from Black Flag but it must be said that the environments are however varied and fun to explore and get to know man as we will have the opportunity to take a tour, in short, they certainly do not tire. What probably bothers us the most are the freezes and drops in frame rate that can happen to us every now and then during the most excited moments or the appearance of some particular warning. Obviously the graphics quality is visibly lower than the comparison with the latest generation consoles, but this is almost superfluous to point out.
As for the sound, even here the OSTs are very reminiscent of those of the previous chapter, both during sea voyages and during exploration: we do not disdain them, but they certainly cannot be awarded for originality. Even the dubbing has neither infamy nor praise, or rather it has both: the voices of the main characters are fully enjoyable, while when we hear the background characters speak we will not help but think that certainly no particular effort has been made to realize them.
The expectations of Rogue from the players were not very high, no one expected the masterpiece or who knows what milestone of the video game and indeed it was: Rogue is a title that is certainly not the apex of the Assassin's Creed saga but that succeeds but to defend themselves well enough. The adventures of Shay manage to overturn the vision that until today all fans of Assassin's Creed had made on the universe of the series. One would think that if Ubisoft had focused a little more on Rogue, not remaining fixed on the Black Flag scheme, something really innovative and fresh could have come out. Could it be a start?
