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The story of Ezio"s trilogy holds up, but I don"t know who to recommend this collection for.
By Marty Sliva
Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection does a wonderful job of reminding me how great the three-game arc of Ezio Auditore"s life story was on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, while also reminding me just how much the series has evolved and improved over the past seven years. But while the frame rate and load times in the Xbox One and PS4 compilation are a big improvement over last-gen’s original games, there are some baffling lighting and texture degradations throughout the trilogy.
Experiencing Ezio’s life from literal birth to death is still every bit as exciting and emotional as it was back in 2009. Watching him grow from a brash rogue to a contemplative elder remains fantastic, and aside from the dynamic between Syndicate’s siblings, my favorite story in the AC series. But playing through Assassin"s Creed 2, Brotherhood, and Revelations highlights just how much the series’ gameplay has improved over the years. The horizontal and downward parkour of Black Flag and Unity made moving through their respective worlds a joy, which is something I can’t say about the ample moments where I found Ezio unintentionally clinging to surfaces around Italy. While I feel like I was able to forgive these hiccups back in 2009, it’s tough to stomach them in a post-Syndicate world.
The trilogy runs in 1080p at a steady 30 frames per second, which is great considering the framerate hiccups that existed across the original games, but disappointing in that Ubisoft couldn’t wring 60 frames out of a last-gen game. At least some of that power goes toward better draw distance, which alleviates some of the pop-in issues we saw on PS3 and 360. Sweeping shots of Rome and Constantinople when you unlock a viewpoint still look gorgeous, even in 2016. Also, the lengthy load times of the original games have also been vastly improved. This is especially noticeable and appreciated when you’re hopping back and forth between your villa and the open world.
But while the games generally use what appear to be the same hi-res textures as the PC versions from back in the day, there are lighting and texture issues peppered throughout the collection, most noticeably in Assassin’s Creed 2. This makes the world feel somewhat flat, and removes some of the life from the otherwise-bustling cities. Ubisoft hasn’t really improved how these games look, and certain NPC character faces look downright bizarre. Both of those issues pulled me out of the immersion.
Like the Uncharted Nathan Drake Collection, the Ezio Collection isn’t quite complete. It bundles in all of the trilogy’s single-player DLC, but strips away the multiplayer modes of Brotherhood and Revelations. That’s not a huge loss, since these were always single-player focused games, but something to be aware of. It also comes with Assassin’s Creed Lineage and Embers, a pair of short films that help fill in the corners of Ezio’s life story. While these are appreciated, it would’ve been nice to have some concept art or behind-the-scenes documentaries that let fans of the trilogy dive deeper into its development and legacy.
The biggest issue is I don’t know who to recommend this collection for. It doesn’t include enough improvements or bonus material to coax fans of the trilogy to jump back in, and it’s also hard to recommend it to newcomers to the series when later games like Black Flag and Syndicate look and play so much better.
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