izigame.me

After one hour I have refunded the game. I'm thoroughly disappointed.
First off, I don't get Ubisoft anymore. They delayed this game 3 months to supposedly polish the parkour system, implying that it had been changed compared to previous entries when it is just as clunky as always if not worse. The movement feels so on rails like I'm not allowed to get creative. Even though you're in a 3D space it feels so restrictive like you're only allowed to follow the game's predetermined paths. Imagine a game with a jump button and free movement like, you know, most other games.
Then they said from the beginning that the game would be shorter. On paper the game is shorter than previous entries but according to other reviews you're still looking at ~40 hours of playtime where roughly 80% is allegedly open-world bloat just as it has always been. If you can't tell a compelling story that draws me in for 40 hours, then just don't and make the game shorter. I really don't see the issue with this.
They tried incredibly hard to sell this to people as something new for the franchise but the released product doesn't deliver on any of their marketing points.
My biggest gripe though is with the gameplay. I feel bad for the artists and musicians who pour their blood, sweat and tears into these games only for the gameplay designers to just lean back and go "Same as last time? Alright". The combat looks and feels boring and repetitive and paired with a clunky, hard to control parkour system, it just feels bad to play. Every single entry in this series feels the same and there's zero innovation to be found in any of its systems. Everything that is here has been done better in other games, so simply copying other games' mechanics and then neither innovating on them nor polishing them is sadly what we've come to expect from AC games. In a way, Ubisoft really never stopped making Far Cry games.
Yasuke also was a very bad call as he just does not fit this setting (from a gameplay perspective) and I have no idea what these devs were thinking dropping an absolute unit of a man who is slow and heavy as a playable character into an AC game. He is completely overpowered and just walks through enemies with ease while also being unable to engage with any of AC's interesting game mechanics. No climbing, he falls off of ropes because they can't hold his weight, etc. . Your job with him is to just walk into enemies and slaughter them. I don't care about historical accuracy or anything like that - he just feels bad to play.
I really like the idea of Naoe though. Playing an underpowered character that is fast and agile is a good idea and the new stealth mechanics like crawling and being able to hide in shadows are a step forward.
Instead of trying to do everything, the developers should focus on the core of what they want to achieve.
On a technical level there's little to complain about - for me at least. Ryzen 7700X, 32Gb Ram and a 7900XTX and the game runs at ~140 fps with all very high settings except ray tracing. I would have liked a film grain toggle though as some parts of the screen can look very ugly with it enabled. Also the cutscenes have a 30 fps lock (why on earth?) and I couldn't find a toggle for it.