Every Assassin's Creed Game RANKED

This is the only non-mainline game on our list, and it’s enjoyed an HD re-release on home consoles since being bundled with “Assassin’s Creed III: Remastered”. If you didn’t play “Liberation”, you’re sorely missing out on a well-made, classic “AC” story. It’s not as graphically impressive as its contemporaries, as well as being much shorter, but it’s still a very fun way to spend a few hours. Aveline operates in New Orleans, still a French colony, as an Assassin looking for her long-lost mother, exploring the city, the surrounding bayou, and eventually, Mesoamerican ruins down in Mexico. Though it’s got some jank – like those canoe missions – it’s still one of the best games ever released for the PS Vita.

You could argue that the first game is a bit of a sacred cow in the world of “Assassin’s Creed”. It’s true that it was a landmark title when it launched over fifteen years ago, but it’s definitely showing its age, and the truth is that all of its sequels improved the formula. But you won’t regret going back to where it all began, exploring three huge, open cities – Jerusalem, Damascus, and Acre – as Altaïr, a disgraced Assassin during the Third Crusade. What starts as a simple, historical romp with a sci-fi concept becomes something much greater by the end, with revelations about the Pieces of Eden and the First Civilization coming quickly. It’s a spectacular game and it undeniably changed the industry.

The awkward middle child between the seventh and eighth console generations, “Rogue” was a game a lot of people skipped in favor of playing “Unity” at launch on their brand-new consoles. At the time, that was likely a mistake, as “Unity” was rough around the edges and “Rogue” was an underrated gem. It has all the fun naval combat of “Black Flag” but much further north, in the Hudson River Valley and the icy, North Atlantic Ocean. But it did suffer a little from arriving on last-gen consoles, pushing the limits of what those machines could handle. It eventually got a remaster, but it’s clear that Ubisoft’s priorities were elsewhere; “Rogue” just didn’t get the attention it deserved, having underdeveloped characters and a much shorter runtime.

The true, black sheep of the franchise, “Assassin’s Creed III” is a difficult one to talk about. At launch, people weren’t as fond of Connor as they were of Ezio, and many didn’t warm to him at all. It also didn’t play as well, changing the controls to make countering trickier, making changing weapons very frustrating, and having unclear maps. Thankfully, all these criticisms were addressed in the remaster, albeit 7 years later – even if the convoy trading minigame remains immensely confusing. It still introduced many iconic characters, however, like Haytham Kenway, and took the franchise away from the Mediterranean to focus on the tumultuous American Revolution.

Like “Rogue”, “Revelations” is another game that many fans hold dear, but which could also have done with more time in the oven. Its vision of sixteenth-century Constantinople, a city still caught between the dying Byzantine empire and the rise of the Ottomans, is superb. But it’s definitely too short; we’d love to have spent even more time exploring the city. Learning about Altaïr’s legacy is a point in “Revelations’” favor, but its gameplay elements left much to be desired. The Assassin recruit minigame reached its apex, sure, but it also added the widely derided Den Defense missions. However, it’s still a lot of fun and a great, classic title.

The latest game in the franchise, “Mirage” is a return to form in many ways. But when you pit it against the greatest “AC” games of all time, it can’t really hold its own, unfortunately. It’s also hindered by the fact that you won’t feel the full weight of its story if you didn’t finish the extremely long story of “Valhalla”. Still, we can’t help but enjoy it for the raft of classic features it brings back. True eagle vision, “black box” assassination missions, social stealth, and even some more divisive mechanics, like tailing missions. It’s a love-letter to those classic games that doesn’t quite reach their lofty heights, but with the benefit of next-gen performance, excellent graphics, and one of the best cities in the series.

It’s perhaps the most divisive game of all them. On the one hand, it’s Ubisoft’s best-selling “AC” game ever, and seems to have a large number of fans who didn’t play the series at all before this. But hardcore fans didn’t all like the way it doubled down on massive amounts of content and such a huge, often bleak open world. But it’s still a lot of fun, supported by many DLCs that some said were actually better than the base game. Its story may sideline the Brotherhood of Assassins a little, despite introducing Basim, but it returned to the Isu lore in an even bigger way than “Odyssey”. At last, we’ve got a great Viking simulator complete with a settlement building minigame and longship raids.

The most infamous game in the series, it’s impossible to talk about “Unity” at all without mentioning the many bugs and glitches it was plagued with at launch. But that was in 2014, and if you play “Unity” today, you’ll find that it’s actually one of the best “AC” games ever made. The story is great, even if Élise is a more interesting character than Arno ever was, and the graphics are phenomenal. And if you’ve got an Xbox Series X, you can play it with FPS boost enabled for a rock-solid 60fps gameplay experience – something previously only a high-end PC could achieve. Its issues have largely been fixed, and it’s now potentially the most graphically impressive game in the franchise.

Ubisoft took a gamble with “Origins”, giving us the entirety of Ancient Egypt to explore as well as overhauling the combat system and adding Senu, the first playable eagle in the series. We travelled back to the demise of Ptolemaic Egypt and saw how the Assassins, originally the Hidden Ones, were borne from Cleopatra’s betrayal of Egypt in favor of powerful Romans. “Origins” is also gorgeous, up there alongside “Unity” as one of the best-looking releases in Ubisoft’s catalogue. It’s got some issues, like introducing grindy, necessary side content for the first time, but it was otherwise a wildly successful soft reboot of “Assassin’s Creed”.

Following “Unity’s” catastrophic launch, a lot of people seemed to skip “Syndicate”, the most modern mainline game in the series. But “Syndicate” is a perfect “Assassin’s Creed” game, with one of the best stories and two iconic protagonists. Jacob and Evie Frye are both a lot of fun to play as while you liberate Victorian London, with unique weapons like the cane sword and the kukri that have, sadly, never returned. It’s also got the grappling hook - the first big addition to the parkour since the hook-blade in “Revelations” - and one of the more detailed and lived-in maps. Finally, the “Jack the Ripper” DLC elevates “Syndicate” to another level.

It’s bigger than “Origins” and generally even grindier, but the pros of “Odyssey” easily outweigh its cons. Only a few, short missions in “Origins” utilized the series’ beloved naval combat, but in “Odyssey”, it was back and just as fun as ever, letting you sail across the Greek archipelago and sink ships to your heart’s content. The story is long and, at times, a little all over the place, but Ancient Greece is such a joy to explore that it’s easy to forgive. You’re going on a true odyssey, fighting dangerous beasts, mythical creatures, and tipping the balance of power in the war between Athens and Sparta. And Kassandra is still a fan-favorite protagonist.

“Odyssey’s” naval combat might be great, but it has nothing on “Black Flag”, which still may be the greatest pirate game ever made. You take on the mantle of Edward Kenway, a disillusioned privateer who turns to a life of crime on the high seas. Though he initially pursues wealth above all else, he eventually sees the error of his ways and joins the Assassins to rid the Caribbean of the Templar Order. And it really is the ENTIRE Caribbean – you’ve got nearly all of it to explore, with big cities like Havana and Kingston recreated. “Black Flag” is nearly perfect, and maybe it would be our #1 pick if it didn’t have SO many tailing missions.

“Assassin’s Creed 1” was already a world-class innovator on launch, but then “Assassin’s Creed II” did everything the first game did, only better. It gave us Ezio, took us from the darkness of the Crusades to Renaissance Florence, and had a plot following a conspiracy going all the way to the top of the Catholic Church. It’s difficult to come up with anything bad to say about “Assassin’s Creed II”, other than that we really wish Ubisoft would hurry up and remake it so we can explore those cities all over again. One of its only negatives is that some of its story content was left unfinished and released as paid DLC, but that’s more a strike against Ubisoft itself than the game.

Hopes were high for “Brotherhood” in 2010. Could “Assassin’s Creed II” ever be topped? The answer was a resounding ‘yes’, because “Brotherhood” was “AC II” multiplied by ten. It had everything good about “II”, with a great story, compelling characters, and a despicable villain, but it streamlined the experience significantly. Ezio had more weapons, more unique animations, he was more mobile this time, and focused on a single goal: stop Cesare Borgia from using the Apple of Eden for evil. It may have been shorter than “II”, giving us just one area to explore, but this was a case of quality over quantity. “Brotherhood” IS, undoubtedly, a masterpiece, and that’s why it’s our #1 pick.

Let us know in the comments what your FAVORITE “Assassin’s Creed” game is.