I love Assassin’s Creed Unity. I want that stated clearly, early, and without qualifiers. I love its version of Paris, I love its parkour, and I love the way it asks you to think about assassinations rather than simply sprinting at a target and hoping for the best. I also only recently platinumed it. Yes, this is a brag. I earned it the hard way, long after the patches, long after the memes, and long after the internet decided what Unity was allowed to be remembered as.
Which is exactly why jumping straight from Unity into Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is such a fascinating experience. The difference between the two is not subtle. It is not a matter of preference or tone. It feels like watching Ubisoft learn a very expensive lesson in real time, then immediately apply it to the next game. The jump in quality between these two entries is so stark that it deserves to be studied, not to shame Unity, but to understand what Syndicate is actually doing with it.
Unity was ambitious to a fault
Unity launched in 2014 as the first mainline Assassin’s Creed built specifically for new generation hardware. It was Ubisoft Montreal swinging big. Paris during the French Revolution, rendered with unprecedented crowd density, layered verticality, and a brand new movement system that finally separated upward and downward traversal into deliberate inputs. On a design level, it was trying to evolve the series rather than just reskin it.
The problem is that ambition came paired with a launch that completely overshadowed everything else. Bugs, performance issues, broken co-op, and visual glitches became the story. Ubisoft apologised publicly, halted sales of premium editions, and ended up giving away DLC as compensation. That damage stuck, and it stuck hard.
But here is the part that often gets lost. Underneath all of that, Unity was doing genuinely interesting things. The assassination missions were some of the best in the series, offering multiple entry points, tools, and opportunities to improvise. Paris felt alive in a way no previous city had. The parkour system had weight and intention, asking you to think about where you were going rather than simply holding a button and letting the game figure it out.
Playing Unity now, in its patched and stable state, makes one thing very clear. The game was not bad because its ideas were wrong. It was bad because it shipped before those ideas were fully ready.
Syndicate feels like a response, not a sequel
Syndicate arrives less than a year later, developed by Ubisoft Quebec, and it immediately feels different in philosophy. Where Unity pushes outward, Syndicate pulls inward. It narrows its focus. It simplifies systems. It makes deliberate choices to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
One of the clearest signs of this is what Syndicate removes. There is no multiplayer. There is no co-op. There is no companion app nonsense woven into progression. This is not a lack of ambition so much as a recognition that too many moving parts made Unity harder to polish. Syndicate is a game that knows exactly what experience it wants to deliver and cuts anything that might interfere with that.
The result is stability. Not perfection, but reliability. You boot up Syndicate and it works. Missions trigger correctly. Combat behaves predictably. Systems explain themselves clearly. After Unity, that alone feels like a massive step forward.
Using Unity’s potential rather than replacing it
What I do not think people properly acknowledge is that Unity had a lot of potential. Not imagined potential, not “maybe one day”, but real, visible potential already embedded in its systems. The movement, the assassination structure, the density of the world, and the idea of cities as layered spaces were all there.
Syndicate does not discard those ideas. It uses them.
London is less vertically dramatic than Paris, but it is designed around the same principles. Streets are wide, buildings are tall, and traversal is treated as a problem to solve. The rope launcher exists precisely because of this. It is a practical solution to the environment, even if it sacrifices some of the purity of climbing. It speeds things up, reduces friction, and makes navigation readable. That is the theme of Syndicate in a nutshell.
Even the mission design reflects this mindset. While Syndicate leans more heavily into territory control and repeatable activities, its core assassinations still echo Unity’s black box philosophy. The difference is that Syndicate presents these ideas in a cleaner, more approachable way. You are rarely fighting the game to see what it wants you to do.
Combat, clarity, and control
Combat is another area where the shift is obvious. Unity’s combat can feel punishing and awkward, especially when multiple enemies are involved. It demands patience and positioning, but it also suffers when animations or inputs fail to behave consistently.
Syndicate opts for speed and spectacle. Fights are faster, more fluid, and more forgiving. It is not necessarily deeper, but it is clearer. You understand what is happening on screen, and you understand why you failed when you do. This is not about making the game easier. It is about making it readable.
The same applies to progression. Unity’s gear system is deep but messy, full of overlapping stats and unclear trade-offs. Syndicate streamlines progression into something more immediately understandable. You always know what upgrading a weapon or skill will do, and that clarity feeds directly into player confidence.
Tone and identity
Narratively, the two games could not be more different. Unity is sombre, inward-looking, and often bleak. It is more interested in atmosphere than charm. Paris feels heavy with unrest, and the story reflects that weight, even when it struggles to fully capitalise on its themes.
Syndicate swings in the opposite direction. Victorian London is presented as a playground of personalities, with lighter dialogue, twin protagonists, and a clear good versus bad structure. It is more accessible, more playful, and far less interested in moral ambiguity.
This tonal shift is not accidental. After Unity, Ubisoft needed a game that people could enjoy immediately, without baggage. Syndicate is designed to be welcoming, even if that means losing some of the edge that made Unity distinctive.
The real lesson of the jump in quality
The jump in quality between Unity and Syndicate is not about which game is better. It is about execution.
Unity is a game bursting with ideas that did not get the time they needed. Syndicate is a game built with restraint, shaped by a very public failure, and focused on delivering a smooth, dependable experience above all else.
That is why the difference feels so dramatic. You are not just seeing two different design philosophies. You are seeing a studio course-correct in real time.
And that is why I will always defend Unity, platinum trophy and all. Not because it was perfect, but because it showed what Assassin’s Creed could be. Syndicate simply proved what happens when that potential is finally used.