Released on October 23, the newest installment of the Assassin’s Creed franchise, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate (the 9th game in the series) hit consoles everywhere, giving a new meaning to what it is like to be an assassin; or at least to play like one.

Based in London, England during the Victorian Era, Syndicate follows the life and adventures of twin sibling assassins Jacob and Evie Frye. Working alongside Henry Green, the leader of the London assassins, the twins seek out the Templar presence within the city. The twins represent the inner conflicts that the previous protagonists, Altair Ibn la Ahad, Ezio Auditore da Firenze and Connor Kenway, would have faced throughout their lives.

Although the Frye twins have the same motives and focuses in the game, Jacob is a more confrontational and “run and gun” type of character. He directs his actions and attention toward freeing the city of London from Templar control, through the recruitment of civilians. By comparison, Evie is a stealthier character, who follows up on various leads to find the piece of Eden and progress the assassins as an organization. The gameplay is what one would expect from a classic Assassin’s Creed game. There’s jumping from roof to roof to get around the city, and hiding in flower beds waiting to assassinate the nearest Templar. Although the gameplay is very similar to previous games, Syndicate introduces some new aspects to liven up the game.

The primary gadget of this game is the grappling hook. This new tool allows assassins to hook onto ledges, enabling them to run up walls rather than free-running up them. The grappling hook also gives users the opportunity to shoot it horizontally to nearby buildings, creating makeshift power lines between the two.  In order to traverse this line, the character hangs from it, going hand over hand and gliding after a few pushes. This makes sense when descending downward toward the ground, but it uses the same motion to go upwards, unrealistically defying gravity.

In the game’s defense, the reality of the game was already out the window when players could jump into flower beds from many stories up, or assassinate enemies by jumping down onto them and stabbing them from similar heights, while remaining unscathed. The science behind the grappling hook is not the only aspect of the game that doesn’t make sense, though. One other new feature to put with inaccurate science would be the horse and carriage that players can drive. Drivers can tell the horse where to go, which direction to accelerate and potentially use it as a tool for mass destruction. Players can use the carriage to take out other carriages, or really any other object that’s in the way. Players are able to use a bash  system, which allows the carriage to whip to the side, in a very unrealistic way, to inflict damage to anything nearby.

With many other new aspects brought into the game, Syndicate also introduces an entirely new way to sneak around. Being a game revolving around assassins, it should include a good system for sneaking. However, it was not until this game that Ubisoft included a wholly separate system dedicated just to sneaking. With the users in mind, Ubisoft gives players the ability to choose when or when not to sneak around. “Sneaking” crouches the character and it makes less noise when moving around as well as reducing the visibility. This add-on makes the gameplay of being an assassin more realistic.

Along with the new sneaking system, Syndicate introduces a leveling system to the playable characters. Experience points would come from doing tasks and missions such as killing enemies with style or winning in the fight club, which also award skill points. Skill points can be spent to unlock new attributes and skills like new assassination methods or health upgrades. Unlike Assassin’s Creed: Unity and other previous games, which include many different weapon types to appeal to a wider range of players, Syndicate only has three different weapon types: brass knuckles, kukri swords and cane swords. The main differences between the weapon types are the attributes they possess.

The last new feature in the game is part of Eagle Vision. Anyone playing can now keep NPC’s (non-playable characters) in their field of view, with their rank above their head, even when out of Eagle Vision. As far as graphics go there isn’t much improvement, but it’s not a bad thing since Unity had good graphics and Syndicate has better character movement.  Even if the graphics don’t compare with the  current standard for a console game, they don’t deteriorate the game.

My personal rating of the game is a 9/10. After having some disappointments with the previous game, Unity, this is a step up for the series. There are some imperfections I think should be fixed, but other than that it’s fine. All in all, I enjoy the game and will for a good while. Overall, I think Ubisoft did a good job with this game and I can’t wait for the next one.