The 10 Most DISAPPOINTING Moments In Assassin's Creed Games

10 Most Disappointing Moments in Assassin’s Creed Games

Welcome to MojoPlays, and today we’re looking at the times “Assassin’s Creed” didn’t live up to our expectations.

Helping Connor

“Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation” (2012)

While Aveline spends most of “Liberation” down in New Orleans and the surrounding bayou, she goes further afield at certain points; down to Machu Picchu and even north, to the snowy frontier. There, she encounters Connor, who helps her go after one of her targets. But not before he inexplicably forgets how to do parkour, and then needs Aveline to defend him in combat. Yes, what could have been a fun dual-combat experience, maybe more akin to the “Arkham” games, becomes an absurd mission where Aveline needs to escort Connor despite there being no reason why he can’t hold his own. She even needs to make platforms for him to cross a bridge.

Jack the Ripper

“Assassin’s Creed Syndicate” (2015)

Twenty years after the main story of “Syndicate” and Jack the Ripper is terrorizing the streets of Whitechapel. This beloved DLC adds new weapons, gameplay mechanics, and maps, but it didn’t exactly end with a bang. As we’ll see, most of the old “Assassin’s Creed” games don’t excel where boss fights are concerned, and “Syndicate” was no exception. Because the fight is heavily scripted to take place in stages, there are times when you can’t injure Jack at all, even if you’re countering all of his attacks and not taking any damage. This leads into a brief stealth section where you need to perform an assassination to make him vulnerable – clearly aping the Mr Freeze boss from “Arkham City”.

All the Bosses

“Assassin’s Creed Rogue” (2014)

The problem with “Assassin’s Creed Rogue” has always been that it’s too short. With another year or two to cook and be developed further, with more time given to all of its story beats and characters, it would definitely be up there with some of the series’ best. But because of its lightning-fast length, we just don’t get enough time during the intro to get to know the Assassins that Shay will be hunting down. This means that the encounters with them throughout the game don’t feel as meaningful as they do in other games. And some of them are just badly designed, too, like the mission where Shay assassinates Hope. Worse, the legendary ship battles recycle all the models from the legendary ships in “Black Flag”.

Showdown with Deimos

“Assassin’s Creed Odyssey” (2018)

From the moment you see him in the Cult’s base in Delphi, you’re waiting for your chance to finally go up against Deimos, your villainous sibling. Canonically, this is Alexios, taken by the Cult as a child and raised into a weapon. But you don’t have to fight Deimos at all. In classic RPG style, there’s the opportunity to talk down the final boss of the story and bring him back into the fold. Except, because “Odyssey” doesn’t really have a speech or charisma skill to build up, it’s extremely easy to determine the correct dialogue options. And even if you don’t, “Odyssey” actually encourages you via the loading screen tips to save scum if you mess up the dialogue trees.

Fighting Roshan

“Assassin’s Creed Mirage” (2023)

“Mirage” was a true return to form for the series, by making its combat system extremely limited and tool-based and giving you a poorly designed final boss. Though there’s a lot of narrative weight behind Basim’s final encounter with his mentor, Roshan, and the entire story builds up to this as Basim abandons his duties as an Assassin to learn the truth about who he is, the actual fight isn’t executed that well. You can’t hurt Roshan at all until you’re able to use a throwing knife to hit a very specific weakpoint, and that weakpoint isn’t telegraphed all that clearly. This means you have a climactic boss battle that you primarily spend spamming throwing knives, with an on-screen pop-up telling you what to do.

Élise’s Death

“Assassin’s Creed Unity” (2014)

Since the whole game was concerned with the “Romeo and Juliet” element of an Assassin and a Templar falling in love, it’s understandable that Ubisoft would decide to kill one or both of Arno and Élise off during “Unity”. But considering Élise should have been the main character instead, as she was about a hundred times more compelling as a character than Arno, the fact she was killed off doesn’t sit right. Worse, she dies because she just won’t listen to Arno as they try to fight Germain at the end, running directly into danger and getting herself killed. Sure, she wanted revenge for her father’s murder, but why didn’t she just help Arno so they could fight him together?

Sigurd’s Fate

“Assassin’s Creed Valhalla” (2020)

The entire ending of “Valhalla” is tied up with Sigurd, Eivor’s adoptive brother. How you treat Sigurd at various points determines what happens, as Sigurd will abandon the Raven clan completely if you cross him too much. But the game gives you minimal reason to care about Sigurd. Throughout, he makes nonsensical decisions, leaves the clan under Eivor’s control, and behaves like a child. So, even if you do anger him by punching him in the face, delaying his rescue, and seducing the wife he’s left behind, it’s hard to feel too bad about it. We really needed to spend more time with Sigurd at the beginning to care about treating him properly, and the emotional conclusion of his character arc inevitably fell flat.

Fighting the Pope

“Assassin’s Creed II” (2009)

Yet another unfortunate boss battle, this might be one of the most notoriously awful bosses in video game history. After spending the entire game hunting down Rodrigo Borgia, and discovering that he’s now become the Pope, Ezio chases him all the way to the Vatican. There’s a climactic sequence where he rides along the walls of Rome and climbs through the Sistine Chapel, before being taken to an Isu vault. Then, the Pope decides that it’s going to be a fist fight, which leads to Ezio kicking the life out of him for about five minutes. The hand-to-hand combat is so barebones that you spend the whole fight whaling on him, and he has no way to fight back.

The Truth About Lucy

“Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood” (2010)

We were all left in shock after “Brotherhood” gave us that cliffhanger, with Desmond manipulated by Juno into assassinating Lucy Stillman, his partner-in-crime. Rumors suggest that this happened because of behind-the-scenes disagreements between Ubisoft and Kristen Bell, but these have never been substantiated. Regardless, Lucy was all but erased from the continuity, with her death rarely dwelled on. But we didn’t get confirmation that she was a traitor at all until a DLC for “Revelations”, which definitely doesn’t do the character justice. The modern-day storyline really never recovered from this moment. They should have at least revealed she was working for the Templars in the base game.

Juno’s Death

“Assassin’s Creed” franchise (2007-)

We all remember that moment in the “Assassin’s Creed” games where you finally take on Juno, the big bad of the first half a dozen games. Except, no, we don’t, because that moment isn’t in ANY of the games – it happens in the “Assassin’s Creed Uprising” comic book series. While that’s a great comic and definitely worth a read, it’s still shocking, years on, that Ubisoft decided to kill off the series’ main villain like that. And Juno’s absence has been seriously felt in the years since, as the overarching mythology and lore gets increasingly aimless. But they do bring Juno back occasionally for cameos, like in the Jotunheim sequence of “Valhalla” – so, clearly, there are some people at Ubisoft who are still fans of her.

Let us know in the comments a time when YOU felt let-down by Ubisoft.