An Assassin’s Creed title that a lot of players skipped over back in the day has been remastered for the current generation of consoles. Assassin’s Creed Rogue originally released the same time as Assassin’s Creed Unity which was very different in terms of visuals and gameplay since they changed the parkour system and also upped the visuals a lot. Developed by a team at Ubisoft Sofia and published by Ubisoft, Assassin’s Creed Rogue is out now for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Pro, Xbox One and Xbox One X. So is this remaster of one of the most unique Assassin’s Creed games worth it or is it one that can be skipped over again, let’s find out.
Assassin’s Creed Rogue has you play as Shay Patrick Cormac, an assassin tasked with finding out about the Precursor artifices. However, he starts questioning the ways of the Assassins as they continue to resort to violent means instead of trying to have a discussion with the Templars. When a certain mission goes wrong, he decides that he has had enough and goes Rogue, wanting to stop the violent ways of the Assassins and bring an end to this decades-old war. This is a very different story compared to the older Assassin’s Creed games and honestly, was really good. It pits you against a lot of the characters they’ve introduced in prior games like 3 and Black Flag which is really good since they’ve already given those characters time to grow and use them as a way to help Cormac’s character develop. While the story does have a few issues with the pacing of it, it’s still a great story that offers a refreshing and new perspective.
In terms of gameplay, there’s no real change from the original game since they engine they’re using is still the same. However, for fans who haven’t played the original game, this game introduces a lot of little gameplay mechanics and elements that are very Templar-like. Shay has an air rifle instead of blow-dart to use tranquilizer and berserk darts which he can also use as a grenade launcher. There’s also a side mission series known as the Assassin Interception that has you stop Assassins from killing a target. It’s a neat inclusion that helps differentiate him from the Assassins that we’ve played as for so many entries of the series. Naval combat also makes a return from AC:3 and Black Flag.
Now the visuals have been worked on but don’t expect Origins level of visual quality. The base Xbox One and PlayStation 4 have the game locked at 1080 30fps but the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X have the game at a native 4k resolution locked at 30fps. With these new resolutions, the game also has reworked textures which look quite good on the higher resolutions and a reworked lighting system that really helps set the atmosphere quite well. The pop-in issues that were present on the original release have thankfully been fixed. Audio is still the same and is very reminiscent of the other AC titles but the soundtrack of this game really helps distinguish it from the other titles.
Assassin’s Creed Rogue Remastered is a game that fans of the series should absolutely play if they haven’t already. With the increase in visual fidelity and availability on current gen consoles, it’s a good way to experience a game that was skipped over by a large number of players. However, if you own a PC that is capable of running this game, there’s no real need to get this Remaster version since the PC can push it to look almost as good as this but not as good as it due to the lack of high-res textures and the lighting.
