Assassin’s Creed Syndicate aims to fix Unity’s awful “entry into window” system

By Brenna Hillier

Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate will be slightly less likely to make you want to snap your controller over your knee.

Assassin’s Creed: Unity introduced building interiors to the franchise, which was pretty cool – but getting inside buildings was more of a nightmare than was really acceptable.

Speaking to Resero in a video interview, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate creative director Marc-Alexis Côté said this precise problem is one of the improvements Ubisoft Quebec wants to target with its new navigation system.

“In terms of navigation, we’ve improved the entry into window, which was something players were complaining about last year,” he said.

“We really took that to heart, tried to find solutions to make it better and make the navigation more fluid over all, so that players would stick less on objects that they don’t want to, [and it would be] much more driven by where the player wants to go.”

Similarly, Ubisoft Quebec introduced the rope launcher to make navigation more fluid. Some purists have grumbled a bit about this grappling hook-like device, which seems to begate the need for climbing, but Côté said it helps players get into the game and enjoy themselves since the cityscape is so different to past games.

“Victorian London is a very different city than what we’ve built in the past – the streets are much wider, and with modernity comes much higher buildings. We’ve got the tallest building we’ve ever had in the franchise,” he said.

“One of the things we know for a fact from all the years of experience we have on Assassin’s Creed is: the easier it is for players to get onto rooftops, the more they enjoy the game. This is really what we’re focused on.”

Côté also discussed the positive reception to the introduction of a “stealth button” in Assassin’s Creed: Unity, and how Ubisoft Quebec has added more button inputs and reduced dependency on sticky cover (“snapping”) to further refine the system.

The rest of the interview has some great stuff about how Ubisoft Quebec designed Victorian London and the focus on capturing the city borough by borough. Watch for yourself below:

Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate launches on PS4 and Xbox One on October 27, with the PC version expected a few weeks later. Is it just me, or does it sound pretty good? I’m trying not to get my hopes up, but even with all the criticism, Assassin’s Creed Unity did have some great ideas: the story was great and Elise was a bad ass, too.