I jumped back on this with the intention of finally getting the Plat trophy (the servers were miraculously hanging on for dear life despite a shutdown from Ubisoft in 2022). I was actually pleasantly surprised by the story at the start (which i’d all but forgotten) and I really like the twist that it manages early on. But whilst the rug is effectively pulled from under you, so is only charming and playable personality in the entire game. The replacement is Connor, an overly serious, Anakin-In-Attack-of-The-Clones style hero. His setup and history is interesting but his characterisation is anything but. As each cutscene starts it says ‘hold circle to skip’ in the bottom right, and I found that impossible resist eventually.

Then comes the atrocious performance on PS3. This thing chugs along like it might brick your PS3 at any given moment, regularly dropping to what can’t be any higher than 20fps (although if you’re swimming in the open waters with only the sky in your view, you will, for a moment, see a very silky smooth frame rate!

The gameplay has its usual Assassin’s Creed pleasures and problems; Parkour is fun and frustrating, and Connor will often clamber up invisible walls and make jumps in the wrong direction.

I think a lot of the music in here by Lorne Balfe is some of the series’ best, though, even if the samples he’s using are a little outdated now.

Anyway, I didn’t even manage to Plat it because the servers have officially died this time, right as I had one multiplayer trophy left to get.