Every mainline Assassin's Creed game, ranked

For almost 20 years, the Assassin's Creed franchise has stood as one of the most popular video game series of all time, having sold over 250 million copies of its various titles across the globe since it first began in 2007.

While not every entry in the Assassin's Creed series has been universally well received, each game has substantially expanded the franchise in terms of gameplay and historical depictions of pivotal events, people, and nations throughout the planet.

With Ubisoft having recently released Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, the remake of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, now is the perfect time to look back at each mainline game in the AC series and rank them based on their narrative, gameplay, and overall fun factor.

Assassin's Creed Syndicate

A Waste of Victorian London

The eighth generation of consoles was a rocky time for the Assassin's Creed franchise as Ubisoft struggled to establish a narrative foothold in the series following Desmond Miles' death and struggled to launch games that properly expanded upon past titles, with one such game being Assassin's Creed Syndicate.

In terms of gameplay, Assassin's Creed Syndicate was a low point for the series as it launched with no multiplayer and introduced a new chaining attack system similar to combat seen in Batman: Arkham Asylum, which led to many enemies often surviving over 20 stabs and making combat very tedious.

While Syndicate was the first AC game to properly feature dual protagonists in the form of Jacob and Evie Frye, its story was depicted as frustratingly comedic, with Syndicate's main antagonist, Crawford Starrick, being comically evil, and its modern day segments were reduced to simple cutscenes whose story had no impact on future games.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla

A Deep Dive Into Norse Mythology

When Assassin's Creed Valhalla was first being marketed, it seemed like it would be the Viking AC game fans had long dreamt of. But when it launched in 2020, it turned out to be an obscenely large deep dive into Norse mythology, with the game's main protagonist revealed to be a literal reincarnation of Odin.

Assassin's Creed hasn't always been 100% historically accurate, but it established itself as being a fairly realistic and grounded series until the RPG games like Valhalla began diving arguably too much into mythology, with Valhalla allowing players to explore Asgard and other Norse realms whilst fighting Giants and other mythological creatures.

The gameplay for Valhalla was additionally disappointing as, despite reintroducing social stealth in a few cities, its stealth mechanics were significantly reduced, with Eivor improperly brandishing a hidden blade despite never joining the Hidden Ones and most enemies and bosses becoming simple arrow sponges.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey

The Discarding of AC's Tenants

Assassin's Creed Valhalla was a frustrating deep dive into Norse mythology, but it wasn't the first game in the series to primarily lean on mythology instead of historical realism, with the first game of which being the Ancient Greek-based Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

Odyssey was the first mainline AC game to not feature an Assassin or Hidden One as a protagonist and instead features Kassandra as a Spartan mercenary and literal Greek demigod who sets out to fight both Spartans and Athenians in the Peloponnesian War, as well as creatures from Greek myth like Minotaurs and Gorgons.

That may sound like a great game on its own, but that design completely discards longstanding tenants of the AC series, even going so far as to feature optional dialogue and the first person to wield a hidden blade, Darius, but not allowing people to play as him.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

A DLC Turned Mainline Sequel

In 2010, Ubisoft surprised fans by launching a new mainline AC game that continued the story of a previous historical protagonist for the first time, with that game being Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood following Ezio Auditore in 16th century Rome as an Assassin Mentor.

Originally designed to be DLC for Assassin's Creed II, Brotherhood turned out to be a fun, albeit fairly short, continuation of Ezio and Desmond's story, though I would argue that Brotherhood was the weakest entry in Ezio's trilogy, mainly due to its limited setting and behind-the-scenes issues that impacted the modern day story.

Brotherhood was additionally the first time the franchise implemented PvP multiplayer, which was arguably the best aspect of Brotherhood as it was unlike anything else in the gaming market at the time, featuring Templars training stealth assassinations in the Animus.

Assassin's Creed Unity

Assassin's Creed's Biggest Blunder

Following the success of AC titles in the seventh console generation, Ubisoft was poised for success in the eighth console generation with their first next-gen AC game, Assassin's Creed Unity, but a disastrous, bug-filled launch and false marketing led the game to be forever tarnished.

For example, Assassin's Creed Unity's cover art and trailers depicted it featuring PvE multiplayer, with several players being able to embody distinct, individual French Revolution Assassins alongside protagonist Arno Dorian, but in reality, Unity's multiplayer only allowed four clones of Dorian to play together in rather repetitive heist and assassination missions.

Despite Unity's poor multiplayer and disastrous launch state, it managed to tell a rather compelling story of forbidden love between the Assassin Dorian and Templar Elise de la Serre, though its modern day storyline was pretty much nonexistent and was mainly used just to have Dorian briefly appear in World War II.

Assassin's Creed Shadows

Naoe and Yasuke's Underrated Journey

The latest brand-new mainline entry to the AC franchise is also one I would argue is heavily underrated as it returned the series to its grounded roots following Odyssey and Valhalla, with that game being Assassin's Creed Shadows.

Set in Sengoku period feudal Japan, Assassin's Creed Shadows follows the dual protagonists of shinobi Fujibayashi Naoe and African samurai Yasuke as they strive to free Japan from Portuguese and Japanese Templar influence following the death of Oda Nobunaga.

While Shadows' story was unfortunately divided up into free story updates and paid DLC expansions, with some being canceled, Shadows features some of the best stealth and open combat gameplay in the entire franchise, with Naoe being more nimble and stealth-oriented, while Yasuke is a lethal 16th century samurai tank.

Assassin's Creed Mirage

Basim's Tragic but Enthralling Origin

Much like Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Assassin's Creed Mirage started out as a simple DLC for Assassin's Creed Valhalla, but it quickly evolved into one of the best modern AC titles in spite of its reduced size compared to the other RPG entries in the series.

Assassin's Creed Mirage essentially acts as a prequel to Valhalla, with it following Basim Ibn Ishaq as an up and coming Hidden One in his home city of ninth century Baghdad as he struggles with visions of a horrifying jinni and strives to make a name for himself within the Brotherhood.

Mirage is a fairly short AC game, with it only having one DLC in the form of the Valley of Memory expansion, but its gameplay expertly homages the series' stealth-focused roots and Basim's origin story turned out to be far more engaging than any storyline featured in Valhalla.

Assassin's Creed

Altair and Desmond's Series Defining Tale

In the early 2000s, Ubisoft dabbled with parkour-focused games like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, but it completely revolutionized parkour gameplay and historical fiction games when it released the first Assassin's Creed game in 2007.

The first Assassin's Creed established the foundation of the franchise, with the game being split between modern-day gameplay following Desmond Miles and historical gameplay of Miles playing through genetic memories of his ancestors such as Altair Ibn-La'Ahad during the Third Crusade to search for Isu artifacts and to gain combat skills.

While Assassin's Creed's combat and side activities are rather outdated by today's standards, the game's intriguing narrative of the millennium-long conflict between Templars and Assassins and Altair's journey of becoming a humble Master Assassin still holds up incredibly well.

Assassin's Creed Rogue

The Templar's Time to Shine

In 2014, most of Ubisoft was preparing to bring fans to the French Revolution-set Assassin's Creed Unity on Xbox One and PS4, but knowing that many fans were still playing on the Xbox 360 and PS3 at the time, a portion of Ubisoft was tasked with developing another AC game for last-gen consoles called Assassin's Creed Rogue.

Primarily built off of Black Flag's engine and gameplay, Assassin's Creed Rogue serves as a bridge between Black Flag, Assassin's Creed III, and Unity, with the game following the Irish American Assassin turned Master Templar Shay Cormac during the French and Indian War as he travels across the Atlantic Ocean aboard his sloop-of-war the Morrigan.

The gameplay of Rogue is essentially the same as Black Flag, so it plays great, but its relatively short story was brought down by a rushed development, resulting in a brief but fascinating Templar-focused story in the series that should be expanded upon should Rogue ever get remade like Black Flag was.

Assassin's Creed Revelations

Altair and Ezio's Perfect Sendoff

By 2010, Altair, Ezio, and Desmond had become some of the most popular gaming characters of the Xbox 360 and PS3 era, and while most of Ubisoft was planning to expand the AC series beyond those characters, the developer chose to release one more game to properly conclude Altair and Ezio's story with that game being Assassin's Creed Revelations.

Revelations doesn't have much of a modern-day aspect, as Desmond simply explores the animus while he's in a coma, but most of the game is split between Ezio traveling to Constantinople and Masyaf and Altair following the events of AC1 as he attempts to rebuild the Brotherhood.

Revelations may not progress Desmond's story much, but Ezio and Altair's mature journeys are nothing short of incredible and are perfect sendoffs for both characters, even if it comes at a cost for Constantinople not being as in-depth of a setting as previous Ezio titles.