Needless to say, the Nintendo Switch has proven to be a good platform for re-releases. Whether it be Doom, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, many older games have been getting new life on the portable console. Earlier this year, Ubisoft jumped on the bandwagon with Assassin’s Creed 3 Remastered, a two-game collection which didn’t make much of an impression on account of it focusing on some of the series’ less popular games. That’s a mistake the newest set of remasters, Assassin’s Creed: The Rebel Collection, doesn’t make.
Coming just a few months after AC 3 Remastered hit the Switch, The Rebel Collection puts a better foot forward with a more interesting pair of offerings in the form of 2013’s Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag and 2014’s Assassin’s Creed Rogue. These games mark the stealth-action series’ swan songs on the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 console generation, the generation Assassin’s Creed got its start in, and as such, they make for an interesting time capsule for fans who’ve come into the series with its later titles and haven’t yet had a chance to experience last-gen Creed.
However, they’re going to need a Switch to do so, because this new collection is exclusive to the console, unlike the multiplatform AC 3 Remastered. That might disappoint some fans, but then again, since both games are already on current-gen consoles, a new collection isn’t entirely necessary on, say, the PS4 or Xbox One. Focusing on the Switch was also a smart decision, not just for its popularity, but as it marks the first time much of its content is available on a Nintendo console, opening the door for a whole slew of new gamers to get into the series.
Included here alongside the two main games are the rest of their single-player DLC (tough break for those who remembered that Black Flag originally had multiplayer), which includes Black Flag’s hefty standalone DLC, Freedom Cry, and its bonus missions staring Aveline de Grandpré from Assassin’s Creed Liberation. Throw in some bonus content including a concept art/trailer gallery, an illustrated journal written by Black Flag’s version of Blackbeard, and the first volume of that game’s manga adaptation, Assassin’s Creed Awakening, and there’s plenty of goodies to round out the package.
Best of all, The Rebel Collection runs like a dream on the Switch. Whereas the Switch version of AC 3 Remastered suffers from a number of performance issues, here all of the games run without any serious hits to graphics, frame rates, or load times, looking just as good, if not better, than they’ve ever been in the process. Improving things further are console-specific quality-of-life improvements like motion-control aiming and the ability to navigate menus via the touchscreen, as well as a clean general menu layout that makes moving from one game to the other a breeze.
It was honestly pretty smart of Ubisoft to pair Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag and Assassin’s Creed Rogue together like this. “The Rebel Collection” accurately describes how these games and their stories offer different perspectives on the series’ centuries-long war between the Assassin Brotherhood and the Templar Order. With Black Flag, we have pirate captain Edward Kenway, who only happens into the conflict when he sets his sights on mythical treasure that the Templars are after. With Rogue, we get to see a darker turn as Shay Patrick Cormac goes from a disillusioned assassin to an embittered Templar hunting his former comrades.
There’s also the more prominent gameplay element tying these two together: seafaring. While AC 3 introduced the ability to sail a ship and engage in naval combat to the series, Black Flag and Rogue put it front and center by making it the main way of traversing their large maps. In this way, these games really compel players to explore the high seas, plunder other ships to gain the resources to upgrade theirs, and occasionally sail through storms. It makes for some of the most engaging forms of travel in any game, not to mention some of the most fun gameplay the series has to offer.
Outside of the naval aspects, though, the games in Assassin’s Creed: The Rebel Collection, have plenty to offer, as longtime fans already know. While these games might not sport the more nuanced map design, improved mission structure, and gameplay depth the series would eventually gain with more recent entries like Origins and Odyssey, the open-world sandboxes they provide offer plenty to do and plenty of ways to get around via the well-implemented parkour system. Players are never far from a new item to collect, a new treasure chest to open, or a new sidequest to take on no matter which of these games’ many cities and island locales they happen to be in at any given moment.
Overall, then, these games offer a very strong offering. Chances are most players are probably going to gravitate towards Black Flag above the other offerings, which shouldn’t be surprising. Many to this day consider Black Flag one of the best Assassin’s Creed games, if not the best. Rogue, meanwhile, still offers a solid experience, even if it mostly retreads what Black Flag did better and doesn’t ultimately do as much with the “Assassin vs. Assassins” angle as it could.
In fact, if there’s any major problem with The Rebel Collection as a whole, it’s that, gameplay-wise, it can feel pretty samey. Since all of the games are going off the same version of the classic AC gameplay formula (with the same mission scenarios, items, and ship upgrades showing up multiple times), it can really make more tedious elements, like climbing high places to unlock fast travel points, a bit of a slog at times.
What saves the experience in the end is the strength of the stories these games tell and the characters players follow. Even when the gameplay fails to differentiate itself from one game to the other, there is enough difference in tone and personality between the journeys of Edward, Shay, and Freedom Cry’s protagonist Adewale to make the going worthwhile and see where they end up.
Without a doubt, Assassin’s Creed: The Rebel Collection offers the strongest selection of AC games on the Switch so far. The titles are more engaging, the Switch port works wonderfully, and the overall package has dozens of hours of content, all for just $39.99. With the Assassin’s Creed series shaping up to be evolving even more than it has in the last few years, this is a very good way to experience some of the finest examples of what made it so beloved in the first place.
Assassin’s Creed: The Rebel Collection is out now for the Switch. Game Rant was provided with a Switch code for this review.
