Assassin’s Creed Unity probably should have been taken to the gallows rather than store shelves. There’s a reasonable game at the centre of the Parisian escapade, but performance hiccups have thus far prevented it from breaking free. However, following the addition of a gigantic 6.5GB patch, has Ubisoft managed to salvage anything from the historical package – or is it still somewhat grotesque?
The great news is that after “refurbishing” the adventure’s open world, the studio has finally managed to unlock some improvements. Digital Foundry reports that, while drops to 20 frames-per-second still occur, the title holds much closer to its intended 30FPS now, and sees significant boosts in performance even in crowded areas. “As such the controls feel more responsive, with less judder in the overall experience,” it wrote.
The publication’s still keen to point out that the patch doesn’t provide “anything like the near-solid 30FPS update that one would expect” from a PlayStation 4 title, but it’s a definite improvement over previous versions. Moreover, it adds that visual detail hasn’t been sacrificed to attain this. In even better news, it sounds like the studio has squashed a number of key bugs, including getting stuck in geometry.
To be honest it’s hard to commend the developer for getting the bare essentials right, but it sounds like this is a slightly more playable product these days. We scored the French publisher’s latest a 5/10 in our review, praising elements of its plot and world building – but damning its overall performance problems. The firm was eventually forced to apologise for the title’s issues, offering Season Pass owners a free game to compensate.
[source eurogamer.net]
Comments 21
So what they're saying is that somewhere, the basics of the game are a bit wonky, especially since they can't fix it with a patch that's over 6GB in size.
I waited for Patch 4's release until I started playing and even after that I get long pauses in cut scenes etc of about 5+ seconds. I can't imagine to think what it was like before these 4 patches on release day!
Overall I'm enjoying it but you can tell it's badly optimised and rushed for release. The 2 week delay was pointless, it needed 3-6 more months!
The game has been a complete mess and I hope Ubisoft don't do this again (wasn't The Crew also bad?) otherwise they will be putting consumers like me off buying their products at all. I am increasingly cautious over any Ubisoft title as it is...
Edit - lol, check out the very first story I see on another site immediately after writing this comment!
http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2014/12/23/ubisoft-respond-to-tetris-ultimate-issues/
[sorry for the competitor link Sammy ]
Also - http://i.imgur.com/NFjTmxt.gif
@Dodoo Haha, good to know they're working on it.
I still have seen none of these issues and I have had the game from day one. Weird how some get them and others don't
I guess Ubisoft used up all the disc space, then they are adding the missing parts, 6GB at a time.
@Dodoo
I hope they keep putting off customers from buying their games, so they actually finish them before release, as it should be the norm.
If they need a 6.5GB patch shouldn't someone at Ubi - anyone really - known the game wasn't ready to go gold? Who signe don of this going gold? Don't they quality test? I understand almost every game ever made has glitches and maybe they are so obscure they can't be helped before release, but how did this get released? It's the PS4, the most powerful home console known to man, and they cant get 30FPS on it?
They should all be horribly ashamed and embarrassed.
@Mrskinner
I'm with you, had from day one but none of these issues. I put it more down to expectation. Some ppl these days play games to look for the imperfections it seems. Some expect perfection in every part of the game and when that falls even slighty below they bounce onto the net and voice their findings whereas the ppl who play the game for the enjoyment of it don't see or miss or dismiss these problems because they are enjoying said game, these ppl are not on forums b*tchin about the little problems. (example: the arno missing face issue, it's for about 5 seconds in game, it hardly retracts from the gameplay or anything ffs)
Well that what I put these problems down to. Everyone has a easy way of voicing any gripe and tend to voice it upon immediately finding faults instead of playing game and them commenting on the overall.
Still, a brill escapade.
For the same price as Call of Duty you get tons more content without many more issues.
Id be lying if it didnt have issues, but not a single bug in Unity was enough to deter me.
They took a huge leap forward on new hardware with a new engine and a lot of changes and new additions, and it nearly didnt pay off.
But thats what I pay for, innovation, new ideas.
Not to play the exact same thing year on year, whatever game that may be, because it "works".
And that compo for SP owners was a huge thing to do, not yet seen any other company take that kind of step.
"To be honest it’s hard to commend the developer for getting the bare essentials right." That statement just about sums it up really. All I can say is keep improving this disaster and don't EVER release a game before it is ready just to capitalise on the market, because you do far more damage to the brands future than the short term profits you gained. You have destroyed my trust so I will no longer be pre-ordering any future Assassin's Creed games on PS4. New instalments will have to stand on their own two feet after release before I commit a purchase.
@rjejr
Obviously their priority was to get the thing out for Black Friday. Maybe if they had only made an AC game this year, they would have released a complete product on time. So either way their greed got the best of them.
Glad to see. Doesn't sound like the squeaky clean performance they would like, but if the game actually functions like a game should, I wouldn't be complaining. Hopefully this doesn't happen again. Ubi really crushed a lot of gamer's trust with this and I hope they can redeem themselves in the crowd's eyes. Personally I feel a little more confident about getting this game in the future.
@get2sammyb Out of curiosity, would you consider doing a second review of a game if it was buggy at launch but got fixed later on? You did say Unity was bogged down by it's performance, and now that the game is getting a tune up, would you do a second look? I'm not requesting that you do, I'm just wondering if you and the team would do something like that if you wanted.
@ToOGoodOfAPlaya agreed.
@ToOGoodOfAPlaya
Just so you know, that "free game" offered to season pass owners was a ploy to avoid lawsuits. The free game comes with a string attached- a EULA, which must be agreed to before you can play the free game. In this EULA, there is a sneaky clause hidden within stating that you forfeit and waive any right to file a lawsuit against Ubisoft for Assassin's Creed Unity.
They weren't being generous, they were tricking people into waiving their right to sue.
No one should ever buy an AC game full price unless its the perfect AC game we've been waiting for.
Still see a lot of unity bashing going on. My one question, all of the people slating the game, have you actually played it to form your own opinion or are you jumping on the bandwagon and slating it without first hand experience? If you have played it and found there to be issues, fair enough you are entitled to have a go about the game. I have played it, owned it since day one and I absolutely enjoy every aspect of it. No bugs have hindered my play throughs. Just a question to be thrown out there, how many people write a game off before actually give it a go?
Last Xmas I got AC 1, 2, Bro, Rev, 3 and owned 4 by then too. I still can't bring myself to finish 3 and 4, let alone even start B/R! Now there are two more full games that I won't get to for ever
@Mrskinner Probably a lot — it's a stupid thing that happens with every game. But when you've got videos like this floating around:
It certainly makes you question just what the heck happened. I mean, I reviewed it, and this was basically what co-op was like for me and @get2sammyb — and that was just two player.
You're right, there's always cases of people bashing games when they haven't even tried them, but when a game is performing like this, even for just some players, I think it's important to make a noise.
@Mrskinner
The bashing is deserved because the idiots at Ubisoft did everything they could to sabotage the game themselves. From the dumba$$ who admitted the PS4 version was scaled back to releasing a game in an unacceptable state, everything was handled piss poor. Now, after it was patched up and I was able to get it dirt cheap, I decided to take the chance and I'll give Ubi this. Unity actually is a very good game. What's disappointing is they botched the launch so bad that that part gets overlooked, but again it's deserved. Part of the problem is the imbeciles in charge have to have a yearly AC release. It's just f'ing stupid.
@ShogunRok I agree with you because you have played it and actually had those issues. That lag seemed really extreme and if you have played it and found that then yes, every right to complain. It is really strange how I actually haven't had lag like that playing. All of the co-op and heist missions have had slight lag but nothing that makes it unplayable like that.
I know everyone expects everything they pay for to be perfect, but things rarely are. A modern video game launch especially on new hardware with a new software engine is an very likely to have serious challenges that are not going to be fully understood before launch. If you've played Unity, I think you'd have to agree that it is a fairly ambitious title in regards to detail and especially the number of NPC 's for an open world game. Plus to me it is clearly a labor of love for these French developers to have their top series in their beloved Paris.
I' ve seen the laggy video above and agree, that it looks unplayable, but I doubt Ubisoft expected that result at launch and released the game anyway just as a cash grab. I am sure they are just as dismayed as some of you are pissed. But consider, there are some (perhaps many?) of us that have seriously had close to zero of these issues. Ubisoft is obviously a company that relies on repeat business, and I doubt they knew it would be so bad.
Anyway, if you are the type that can't deal with a game being buggy, or the possibility that a game might have issues at launch, DON'T buy games at launch. And if you're the type of person that would sue over a 60 dollar video game FOR ANY REASON, congratulations, you are among the very dregs of humanity.
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