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Buyer Beware: Assassin’s Creed Syndicate Will Be Buggy at Launch

Buyer Beware: Assassin’s Creed Syndicate Will Be Buggy at Launch

I admit it, I’m a sucker for the Assassin’s Creed series. It hits my history buff and travel enthusiast buttons by letting me play tourist (and shiv bad guys) in gorgeous historical locations. When I got Assassin’s Creed Unity last year, however, I felt like I’d really been suckered.  The game was a buggy mess and utterly wasted the opportunities presented in one of history’s most fascinating moments.

Still, the Ubisoft annualization machine marches on, and it looks like Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is actually going to release on October 23 as scheduled. This one should be less of a glitch-fest, right?  Ubisoft’s developers have had an extra year with Unity ‘s engine and promise they’ve learned lessons from

Well, you might want to hold your horses on that assumption. For starters, I’ve heard rumors of frustration out of Ubisoft’s QA department. They hint at the need for a day one patch for the game, at the very least. While it seems like most AAA games ship with at least a few identified but unfixed bugs these days, Ubi’s launch bugs have a tendency to be large and conspicuous. That’s not always the case – Black Flag was pretty smooth at launch, as was Rogue – but I’m inclined to believe that where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

Rumors or no, however, it’s not difficult to guess that Syndicate will need some post launch TLC before it’s a smooth gameplay experience. There is, of course, the fact that Ubisoft’s annual release schedule doesn’t give a lot of breathing room to development teams. Then there are the mixed reports we’ve heard from people who played demo versions of Syndicate over the summer.  While some suggest it plays much smoother than Unity, others have encountered game-breaking bugs and performance issues.

Buyer Beware: Assassin’s Creed Syndicate Will Be Buggy at Launch

I have no doubt that the Assassin’s Creed Syndicate team is working hard to ensure a stronger launch than Unity experienced. There are fewer moving pieces for them to deal with, as there’s no multiplayer component and the notoriously unstable companion apps have been nixed. Everybody will probably have faces this time around, (though honestly, that was the best bug because it was hilarious) and hopefully there won’t be any completely gamebreaking bugs like the unwinnable QTE issue that stopped me in my tracks in Unity .

Still, we’re dealing with a, “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” situation here. There’s no guarantee that Ubisoft has ironed out all the rough spots in the current Assassin’s Creed engine. Microtransactions still appear to be present, and that means constant UPlay connectivity is probably mandatory, and that means instability at launch. Go ahead, prove me wrong, Ubisoft. I beg you.

If there’s any AAA release this year that you absolutely shouldn’t pre-order, it’s Assassin’s Creed Syndicate . There are too many risk factors here, there’s too much bad history from Unity and other troubled Ubisoft launches, and the game is almost certain to be cheaper and far more bug-free a few months out from launch. My heart might belong to Assassin’s Creed , but that’s exactly why I think it’ll be better to play Syndicate after the reviews are out and the bugs are fixed. It’s going to be far more enjoyable that way.

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