The Assassin’s Creed series can be considered in two halves, one being the games that featured Desmond Miles as the character whose story we followed, and the other being the self-contained sequels who just do their own thing with no set storyline.
At the time this change was made, most fans were accepting of it since it brought something new. However, a lot of the elements about the Desmond games have aged well, which makes us appreciate certain things about the story and gameplay. You’ll find five of each that we either miss or don’t have any sadness about being let go.
10 Miss: Desmond And Lucy’s “Will They/Won’t They” Relationship
The AC series itself has only a few couples that everyone loves. Desmond and Lucy’s relationship not only was engaging, but it was also the most complex one we’ve seen.
It’s been the only romance we’ve had in the series that has carried forward multiple games, and it added well to Desmond’s characterization to be influenced by another person. Plus, it added a layer of humanity to the lead character, something that hasn’t been at all in a while.
9 Don’t Miss: Desmond’s Dynamic With His Father
Speaking of layers, the series had attempted to make Desmond’s backstory more fleshed out by introducing the role of his father, which turned out to be a bust. There just wasn’t much material present for players to be invested in their conflict, so Desmond’s angst over this issue only came across as annoying.
The gameplay also tried to engage players in this, with Lucy’s laptop messages showing correspondence with Desmond’s father, and Assassin’s Creed III dedicating several scenes toward those, none of which were memorable or entertaining in the slightest.
8 Miss: Parallels Between Desmond And The Main Assassin
There’s been a definite sense of detachment between the current present-day protagonists and the assassin whose memories they access in the Animus, mainly because there’s no connection between them and because there’s nothing to suggest the characters have anything in common.
In the Desmond games, his path could be correlated to Altair, Ezio, and Connor. For instance, Ezio and Altair shared the scar lip with Desmond, as well as them being thrust into the life of an assassin; with Connor, Desmond shared the intense father issues. These connections got players invested in both the main assassin and Desmond, rather than feel as if it was packed in for no reason.
7 Don’t Miss: Boring Present-Day Sequences
If you don’t count Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood’s opening, and a few Assassin’s Creed III sequences, the present-day gameplay was a fabulous bore. That’s because the player basically had to make Desmond walk around and talk to his friends for immaterial conversations.
There were hardly any action sequences here, with the worst of situations being the entirety of the first Assassin’s Creed and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations’ gameplay where we had to arrange a bunch of blocks for Desmond. Not only were these a big chore, they also interrupted the pacing of the game.
6 Miss: Following Main Assassins’ Storylines At Length
The main reason why present-day gameplay was annoying was due to the past storylines being particularly intriguing. In the games following Desmond’s death, though, every game has had a singular storyline that hasn’t crossed over to the next, making it next to impossible to be attached to the main protagonist.
For the most part, the newer games have focused on exploration and side missions, forfeiting the attachment that players had to the protagonists in the Desmond games since those characters were followed right from their young days to their old times.
5 Don’t Miss: Constant Cliffhangers
The series has always had a liking toward leaving fans wanting more, but there was always a big gaping hole left in a player’s satisfaction level during the Desmond games because those stories tended to end abruptly.
They started becoming more frustrating as the games went by, with some kind of huge revelation uncovered, only for the following game to make it seem like it was never a big deal. Even the past assassins in Altair, Ezio, and Connor had their endings be ambiguous.
4 Miss: Slower, Subtle Gameplay
If you notice the differences between the older games and the newer ones, you’ll find that the latest games play more like your general third-person feature, while the Desmond era had gameplay that was about feeling like an assassin.
There was more focus on interactions with the crowd, indulging in the location’s economy, and earning victory in side missions where one had to take their time to complete them. This kind of subtlety has been absent in newer games, as those feature easy solutions and faster gameplay. However, we do miss the Desmond games giving us the opportunity to immerse ourselves with the environment.
3 Don’t Miss: Relearning Controls In Every Following Game
The series has made sure that gamers don’t have to sit through many minutes of tutorials, mainly starting from Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. In the Desmond games, though, the beginning of the campaign always had lame missions where players had to learn the controls.
Pretty much nobody would be missing these sequences, especially those during the Ezio Trilogy, where the controls were identical in each game yet dedicate a lot of time for the player to relearn them. We prefer the new games either making things simpler from the get-go, or just eliminating a bunch of tedious gameplay options.
2 Miss: Travelling To Multiple Cities
While Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood started the trend of having one big map to explore, Revelations did feature a new place to uncover, much like the first two Desmond games, where the player could take the protagonist in separate areas and different maps.
What we miss here is how the maps all had a style of their own, with some cities feeling like they belonged to a higher class community, while others indicated we had arrived at a poverty-stricken location. It was also exciting to uncover a new area to travel to, as it gave the games a refreshing change of pace.
1 Don’t Miss: The Appearances Of The Isu
Everything about the Isu and their Pieces of Eden were blown out of proportion in the Desmond games, since we now know they weren’t big of a deal in the long-run. All those teasing appearances from Jupiter, Minerva, and Juno only confused players with little to no pay off.
Having to sit through more of the Isus’ monologuing isn’t something we imagine anyone would miss, and these used to dominate quite a lot of the present-day setting in the Desmond games. Despite the majority of the Isu not having appeared in a long time now, we have no inclination to see them again.
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