In defense of Assassin's Creed Unity

One memorable sequence has you chasing Elise as she leaps into a Montgolfier hot-air balloon, cutting ropes while fending off pursuers and parkouring after the rising basket before leaping in for a dramatic escape. It’s the sort of over-the-top pseudo-historical setpiece the series does well—think Ezio with Leonardo’s tank or Lydia Frye shooting down biplanes.

Despite a few lingering oddities—NPCs that can hover, a finicky sidequest to collect guillotine pieces, and flicker with TXAA—Unity runs well after patches, including the removal of the mobile-app requirement to open blue chests. Play it today and Unity plus its Dead Kings expansion can be tidily finished in about 40 hours, a reminder of what the series can achieve when it concentrates on a single city; by contrast, Valhalla’s DLC demands similar time and the base game far more.

The Parisian setting is a highlight: the city feels like a Raguenet painting, with blue roofs, boats on the Seine and the downward parkour that Unity introduced.