We're still working on our full review of Assassin's Creed Unity, but with all of this speculation as to how the game actually looks and runs on the PlayStation 4, we thought that it'd be a good idea to put forward a report on the matter. We're a reasonable way into the sandbox adventure, and by this point, we reckon that we've seen enough to give you a relatively quick verdict. Does it look next-gen? How does the framerate hold up? We'll attempt to answer these questions below, and we've even provided a handful of screenshots taken directly from our console to help showcase the Paris that Ubisoft has so lovingly crafted.
The publisher has stated in trailers and during gameplay presentations that Assassin's Creed Unity pushes the PS4 to its limits, but honestly, if this statement turned out to be true, we'd be bitterly disappointed. By no means is Unity a bad looking game, but it certainly doesn't reach the level of visual quality that we'd expect from a title that's exclusive to next-gen systems.
Let's start with the graphics themselves. As we've come to expect from the franchise, there's quite a lovely art direction at work here, and the title does a great job of capturing the period. Paris in general looks great – at least, until you start to look a little closer. When you're out and about, hopping over rooftops and dashing through the streets, you'd be hard pressed to notice anything too bad, but stop to take in some details, and you'll catch some jarringly blurry textures, even during cutscenes.
Of course, Unity plays host to a massive game world, so some muddy visuals are to be expected in places, but there appears to be a huge difference in visual quality depending on whether you're inside a building or outside on the streets. Inside, everything's nicely detailed, and there are usually some incredibly pretty, dynamic lighting effects to gawk at. Outside, however, where spaces are far busier, pop-in is a fairly frequent issue.
As you draw closer to crowds, you'll notice their details pop into existence, with facial features and more detailed clothing textures forming over the ugly basics. One of the title's most talked about points, the city is absolutely bustling with activity – if you imagine Dynasty Warriors set in a built up European setting, then you're on the right track – and at times, the amount of characters on screen is thoroughly impressive, but perhaps, unsurprisingly, this seems to have a direct and noticeable effect on the game's performance.
Capped at 30 frames-per-second, the release has already come under fire from those who expect more from their machine, and unfortunately, those same people really won't be happy when that framerate drops into the 20s. These annoying dips occur on a frequent basis, particularly when you're weaving through the aforementioned crowds. It's a real shame, too, because as far as fluidity of movement goes in an Assassin's Creed game, Unity has set the benchmark with some superbly slick animations – but it's ultimately belittled by such a frustrating framerate.
And that's without mentioning the bugs and glitches. Peasants popping out of the ground and then disappearing a minute later? Check. Opponents suddenly dying and getting caught in looping animations during combat? Check. These issues aren't anything new to the series – and they're hardly enough to ruin the experience – but with so many more NPCs roaming the city, they're more likely to catch your attention. Unfortunately, to top it all off, the loads times after finishing missions or restating from a checkpoint are rather lengthy, too.
All in all, Unity seems like another solid sandbox romp in the gameplay department, and there's no doubt that some of its flaws have been greatly exaggerated – don't worry, it's perfectly playable – but when a developer is so keen to point out the technical and graphical prowess of its creation, we expect much better than this.
Are you planning to pick up Assassin’s Creed Unity this week, or are some of its abovementioned problems forcing you to reconsider? Draw your sword in the comments section below.
Comments 49
Well that explains the 900p then , Apparently the fps rate is mainly between 20-30 fps from clips I seen most seem have it at around 23 on ps4 xbox seems fair slightly better at 25
In short rubbish
Yep they were too ambitious in their approach.
Oh well, still looking forward to this and hopefully a patch to fix it soon
Hyped junk
Thanks for the write up, Robert. It sounds like they've just been too ambitious with this project. Perhaps it would have benefitted from a few extra months in the oven?
Am I wrong or AC games have never been faous to be perfectly optimized for the systems they run on?
And it's a pass from me!
If ever a game deserves to be delayed its this one. Amazing in principle but releasing it in this state only hurts the game and the developers, not to mention the people who pre ordered. Thanks for the honest article and let's hope they can fix it.
@arnoldlayne83 I thought Black Flag was impressive on both PS3 and PS4.
Still I want this, if I can handle liberation just fine, of course I can endure this
Aaand that's why I grabbed Hyrule Warriors instead of this, sadly.
Did 'parity' play a part In this ? Lol j/k ...
the game is good, been playing all day. sure these things could be noticed, and will be but it is not game breaking. it's still a great game. i was however extremely disappointed with the graphics. upscale last gen.
Well, I just picked up my preorder. Fingers crossed !!
As usual with Asscreed, the concept sounds amazing but the execution is lacking. Not hard to believe when they have to churn it out in less than a year.
@Stargazer they have been developing this one for three years though apparently
This is exactly why I had expected from this game. Probably not going to get it. I loved sailing around and sinking ships and singing sea shanties, but halfway through blakflag I or bored with the story. Just done with assassins creed me thinks.
I'm disappointed. Black Flag was my first purchase for the PS4, and I've been looking forward to this game. Maybe it can be fixed??? I'm hopeful but won't buy until I hear something has changed.
Single player any good? I sadly don't have internet...
Reading these things is only reinforcing my decision to buy the mcc over this sadly. After ac3, which had everything going for it but needed at least a 6month delay i was hesitant on continuing my ac purchases. Then i played black flag on ps4, and i completely fell in love again. Not in the story which was paltry at best, but in the gameplay and the world. Unity was a day 1 buy after that in my opinion, but everything i saw of it just slowly whittled away at my interest. Ill be picking it up via black friday buy 2 get one deals but im hoping these issues are resolved by then.
I hoped they would use the transition to the new generation of consoles to take the time to create a game with less glitches and bugs...however those graphical issues are there and with other issues as well. They should have focused on making the game run fast and smooth and not on stuffing the streets with so many NPCS/puppets.
I've found assassins creed to be dissapointing since the 2nd game...Revelations and Brotherhood took what I loved in 2 and stretched out thin. 3 was forgettable. Black Flag was, I felt, a lot better and getting back to how the games should be...lacking Desmond and his daddy issues was certainly a good move.
I would like to know how the time out of the Animus is handled in the one...is it still the FP office based style of Black Flag? I really quite liked that.
I'm so sick of half baked releases, I'll switch to buying games 2-3 months after their release to actually play a finished game and eventually, if lucky, shave a few quid off the price too!
@Bad-MuthaAdebis Exactly right man, its been a rubbish series forever, Metacritic needs a shake up: gets an 81, but users are giving it a 58.
Most sites review it without even mentioning performance, which is disgraceful. One has to check numerous sources these days before buying a game. Hope FarCry is better.
@Mrskinner I remember Ubisoft saying the same thing about Watchdogs and that was pretty half baked even with the delay. I wouldn't be surprised if they are fibbing & Unity has only been in development for about 18 months.
Someone mentioned in an article earlier for Unity that it could be down to how poor previous entries have performed on PC and with these consoles being closer to PC than ever before, it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case. I remember Black Flag only making use of 2 cores, regardless of the user having a quad core or higher, so it wouldn't surprise me if they've clearly borked the ports to console from PC by not multi-threading the code to fully make use of the extra cores. If there's parity between the consoles, then the Ps4 is being underutilised and shouldn't be performing this bad. Pure speculation, but I'd hazard a guess that Ubisofts previous track record with regards to CPU optimisation on PC has possibly eked it's way to the console release of Unity
This is thoroughly disappointing news, considering my copy of the game just arrived today.
Well, back to Bayonetta 2 and Halo Master Chief. Maybe they'll patch it before I get around to playing it
An update maybe? It's not as bad as I've heard previous AC game without their update run.
Just to point out, this article was written after downloading the patch that released today. Clearly, it hasn't helped much.
We just have to hope that Ubisoft patches the game again, and really polishes it up. As it stands, it's pretty inexcusable.
For example, here's a recording straight from my PS4. The stuttering is directly from the game, not the recording:
@ShogunRok That video... how they even DARE to release it in that state...
Damn, this kind of killed my hype a little bit.
I can't help but think they just got way to crazy with the number of npc's and the whole scope of the game. Why do you need a thousand npc's on screen. Why not cut that in half and make the game run better.
I feel like people have been obsessing over graphics instead of making good games that play well and are fun.
@baldybill
The ridiculous shape this game was released in along with the 'parity' nonsense shows just how much Ubisoft d*cked PS4 owners. And they will be rewarded with millions of sales and even more next week when Far Cry 4 comes out. Just sad.
@Scollurio
Are you really surprised though? Not all, but most of the big releases this year have disappointed. I'm honestly at the point where I think my PS4 and Xbox One are going to end up just like any Nintendo console and will be used for the exclusives only. Exceptions will be made of course for devs that try. The Witcher 3 seems like a must purchase as does Metal Gear Solid V.
video shocking amazed they gave it to beta testers let alone sales, I suspect that ubisoft assassins creed will eventually do a tomb raider and move to new publisher after it's overkilled with another few years substandard games as sales demised to nothing
It's not about just graphics what makes a game but when a publisher sets there primary goal to be interpreted as such and delivers this it's not cricket
I won't buy this this ill do what I do with most ubisoft games wait to see it on ps plus I have every faith I'll see it there free within 18 months
I'm disappointed with the state this game is in. All my temptation for this game just evaporated. Like going from a lovely lass to a 30 cent prostitute.
If I play this, It'll probably be a few years from now.
Forget the MS paid Ubisoft conspiracies, this is just an unpolished gem rushed out for the holiday season, like Assassin's Creed 3. I might get it for my PC when it goes on sale along with the patches and mod potential.
@ShogunRok Damn. Takes me back to Assassin's Creed 3 and that first battle sequence on the ship where the guy started glitching out after the battle cutscene. Quite the comical end to a staged sequence.
So ubisoft was telling the truth about ps4 being 900p!!! I didnt believe them until this. They should have had fewer ai in the game. Its cool, but i would rather have 30fps than a few more people on screen.
If it was going to be this lackluster, Ubisoft REALLY should have done a combo pack with ACU and Rogue for the Wii U. I mentioned it before, either on NintendoLife, PushSquare or PureXbox, that since they should have done so to give Nintendo some love, and that hopefully with such a bold and risky move that it might pay off for both gamers and developers alike.
@ShogunRok well that vid has sort of annoyed me.. considering some games I like have way way way better frame rates/dont judder like that when there is allot going on and ppl say its "Game Braking" (one of the games being Hyrule Warriors) *(oh and Monster Hunter sometimes has it all be it Rare and ppl still complain its Game Braking) -I was considering Unity as I quite enjoyed Black Flag on my WiiU. Im also intrested by the Co-Op and that you can make your own charicter. Now thogh il probably get it when its price drops..
@DerMeister : interesting analogy
Now I am seriously worried about Farcry 4, on which I have a preorder.... Are you testing it at Pushsquare? Is it also an halfbaked release? I do not trust ubisoft anymore...
It's amazing all you complainers that haven't even played the game for yourselves. This game totally destroys AC: Black Flag.
@BloodyBill actually the complains are almost on every videogame site/review.... you know, we are slightly worried.... I saw some videos where the game is barely unplayable
Was on the verge of pre-ordering but decided to wait for it to plummet to $20 at some point next year.
@hadlee73 how has Nintendo shown this time and time again? By selling far, far fewer consoles then their competition each generation (N64: 32m vs PS1: 102m , GC: 21m vs PS2: 155m) or by selling roughly 30% less consoles with each new generation of their hardware? (With the notable exception of the Wii). I would say that Nintendo is the example that shows for consoles its quite the opposite. The mobile market, however, is a different monster entirely.
Granted most of my favorite games are indies, so I don't really care about visuals at all (I still love MUDs!) But Nintendo history in the console space shows that they are out of touch with what most gamers want (what that is is open to debate...)
@get2sammyb It most certainly was. I think the performance issues are mostly due to the larger number of NPCs than previous titles (ACIV included) and the AI required to run them and from what I have been reading its no picnic on the PC side either so me thinks this is just a shoddy job at optimization by Ubisoft.
Hopefully they'll be able to fix some of the issues in the patch(es) we know will be coming for this game.
@hadlee73 exactly. The modern gamer as you said, goes with what looks best, rather than what plays best. So Nintendo sales are relevant because it shows what gamers want (eye candy with little substance), which is not what Nintendo provides. What this means is that if you are a huge developer, your focus should be on eye candy, because that's what the consumers want; and if you don't have this, your game is nothing. Much to the detriment of gaming in general.
@hadlee73 I don't know where your replies went, but that's exactly my point. You say that Nintendo proves you can still make quality games without cutting edge gfx but the vast majority of gamers don't buy their games which shows quite the opposite. I personally believe they are quality games but the vast majority of gamers (those which don't tend to visit sites like this) have voted time and time again with their wallets, so sales numbers are very relevent.
I like my gaming experiences as high quality as possible. Stuttering fps drops, bad storyline, random difficulty spikes, awful music, low cheap mp3 clips, strange bugs are a massive turn off for me. If I want 20fps or crappy bugs there's plenty of junk to pick up on PC, Saturn, ps2, xbox era, wii for pennies. Until this game is patched it'll stay on my 'maybe' list whilst I play my 'uber want and play' list. Too much choice and so little time nowadays. No time to waste hours on a sub par product!!
Tap here to load 49 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...