I think it was a good decision on Ubisoft's part to take a year off from their annual releases of big-budget Assassin's Creed games. This game shows a polish and attention to detail that has been missing from the franchise for a while now, plus it marks the second major overhaul to the typical Assassin's Creed gameplay (the first being with Unity). Whether the changes to core gameplay are a positive or negative for the series, that is up to the individual consumer to decide, but I personally feel it is a welcome change.

Inspiration from other major adventure games can be felt in this entry of the franchise, most notably Witcher 3. I am not saying this game rips it off in any sort of way or that it is a bad thing. I am actually of the opposite opinion. The developers took the time to make the world feel large but alive at the same time. This is accomplished through random events (mostly animal attacks or prisoner rescues), various points of interest you earn experience from simply discovering, side quests (ranging from well-made additional plots to glorified fetch quests), and a main plot that is surprisingly lengthy and only covers roughly half of the available world.

The plot has a couple of twists that aren't too far-fetched, though compared to other games the story does feel a little mundane. The modern-day story especially feels a little forced in but towards the end I got the sense that they are setting up a multi-game, Desmond-esque character progression which may or may not live up to fans' expectations (just like with Desmond). I won't go too far into details on either parts of the story for fear of spoiling anything important.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with this game and feel it shows Ubisoft stepping in the right direction for the franchise. At the very least it made me feel confident enough in the franchise that I didn't roll my eyes as hard at Odyssey's announcement, and that's an accomplishment in my opinion.