Another day, another remastered collection of last generation games for current gen consoles. In the past couple of months alone, BioShock: The Collection and Batman: Return to Arkham came to Xbox One and PS4. Now, on November 15th, Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection will drop. This is actually a remaster of an already preexisting compilation–The Ezio Collection was released on PS3 and Xbox 360 back in 2012. While many gamers may not be interested in shelling out their hard earned cash for a full-priced collection of games that have been available for years now, there are reasons to pick this one up.
If You Haven’t Played/Finished Them Already
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzjCC7Uwnj0
This one seems obvious. Of course, if you haven’t played Assassin’s Creed II, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, or Assassin’s Creed: Revelations you should definitely pick up this collection. Also, though, the franchise, at least to me, is one of those ones that most people have tried, but never finished. The cornerstone of Ubisoft since 2007, a new title has been released each year since 2009 until 2016. Franchise fatigue for large, open-world titles is understandable, especially with a series that, frankly, has had a considerable amount of mundanity wedged into its efforts. If you didn’t finish Assassin’s Creed II, you likely weren’t engaged enough with it to work your way through the second and third parts of the trilogy. You’re missing out. Brotherhood and Revelations are considerably improved with a full background of its predecessor at hand. If you only gave these games a few hours of your time, it’s highly recommended that you give it another go this time around.
Because it Represents the Pinnacle of the Franchise
Over the course of the franchise, Ubisoft has struggled to consistently entwine the historical storylines with the futuristic aspects represented with the Animus. The long-running IP has had a hard time deciding if its entries are standalone pieces or parts of the overarching enterprise. Because of that, we have witnessed failures like Assassin’s Creed: Unity, surprisingly fun oddities like Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate and Black Flag. And while each game has triumphed or faltered on its own merits for the most part, the pressure to tie in individual stories with the franchise at large has hindered it in terms of the feeling of player progression across each game. But within the franchise there is a trilogy that tells the story of Ezio, and it can be seen as self-contained–separate from the rest of the series. Ezio is one of the most interesting protagonists in modern games, and playing through his entire life is well-worth your time.
The Definitive Experience
The Assassin’s Creed franchise, like many AAA games, hasn’t gone without graphical inconsistencies and glitches. Besides hiking up the resolution to 1080p, the trilogy has been optimized to limit screen tearing and visual hitches. The new coat of paint is definitely welcome, but the most notable improvement is the increased smoothness. While yes, the games have only been remastered–not completely rebuilt from the ground up–the post-processing effects employed fine-tunes the trilogy into a definitive, highly-playable package.
