Review: Assassin’s Creed III Remastered

I fell in love with the concept of Assassin’s Creed from the first second I laid my eyes on the clip at E3 2006. I was fully on the hype train and like many a bit disappointed with the final game. With Assassin’s Creed II, Ubisoft redeemed them fully and I fully emerged in the whole Desmond Miles/Ezio Auditore story for years. Assassin’s Creed III introduced a new story arc and I decided it was time to let the series rest for a while only to never really return to this one. Assassin’s Creed III Remastered seemed like a perfect excuse to fill that void.

I think the reason why I never started my Assassin’s Creed III adventure was that I was afraid the highs this series reached with Ezio’s story could never be reached again. Some reviews further established that idea and I must’ve felt it would be best to let this one pass. Although I did try out Assassin’s Creed III much later, I was too pre-occupied with other games to spend the time to fully submit myself to this one. The thing I remembered from that short test ride was that I had to do a whole bunch of (masked) tutorial missions before I got some degree of freedom I was used to from the previous games.

Two for one

Assassin’s Creed III Remastered comes with a nice surprise when you start the game. You’re welcomed with a new menu where you’ll soon find out, you’re getting two games for the price of one. Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation, the (at the time) PlayStation Vita exclusive AC game released on the same day as Assassin’s Creed III and is also included. Every bit of DLC made is included with The Tyranny of King Washington as a nice alternate reality take on history. For the truly fanatic, this remastered game comes with “making of”-videos, concept art, and other goodies.

Assassin’s Creed® III Remastered – Horseback riding
Ratonhnhaké:ton and Aveline

Assassin’s Creed III remastered still takes almost forever until you get control of the main character, Ratonknhaké:ton better known as Connor Kenway. It didn’t feel as bad as Final Fantasy XIII but AC3 surely is a contender for the most lengthy tutorial. Once you do get control of Connor, the game really opens up. In Liberation you get to play as Aveline de Grandpré and she introduces some new mechanics. The main one is the changing of outfits to fit your situation better. Full assassin’s gear to go on a rampage or dressing like a society lady to better infiltrate the New Orleans society.

Assassin’s Creed III Remastered – Liberation
Remastered

Assassin’s Creed III Remastered takes place during the American Revolution. Towns like Boston, New York but also the wilderness where the Native Americans lived are depicted throughout the game. These mostly spacious backgrounds looked good on the previous generation’s consoles, but you could see that it was rough on the CPU of that time. This remastered version underwent many visual updates. The upscaling to 4K is perhaps the most noticeable. Newer textures, re-rendered character models and an improved lighting engine make this the best-looking version of this game by far.

Assassin’s Creed® III Remastered – Young Connor
Still rough around the edges

Despite the definitive improvements, the game still looks very much like an improved older game and nothing like current gen games. The upgraded character models still had those dead-looking eyes in them, giving them a very eerie look. The newer textures (especially those in the snowy areas) weren’t always rendered evenly, showing a grid-like pattern of new patterns and older ones. Other characters would still “fall” through me which is a shame if you considering the time Ubisoft had to fix this.

Assassin’s Creed® III Remastered – Dead eyes
Conclusion

If you want to experience the final chapter in Desmond Miles’ arc you can’t go wrong with this remastered version. The intro/tutorial chapters still take way too long, but all the rest had major improvements. Assassin’s Creed III Remastered is released for PS4, XBOX One and later on Nintendo Switch owners will get their version too.

8/10

Tested on PlayStation 4