Best Assassin’s Creed Games (According To Metacritic)
Assassin’s Creed is a well-known and beloved video game franchise that has seen its share of ups and downs since its inception. The original game provided an immersive and detailed recreation of a historical period, which helped to support the gameplay and story. However, the repetition of annual releases and franchise fatigue led to mixed reviews and vastly different entries in recent years.
Despite these challenges, the series has continually attempted to innovate upon its main formula, resulting in varying levels of success. As a result, the ratings of each game in the series are all over the place. This article provides a list of the best Assassin’s Creed games based on their Metacritic score.
Assassin’s Creed Unity, set during the French Revolution and featuring the stunning Notre Dame Cathedral, had a lot of potential but was plagued with bugs and technical issues on release. This affected its Metacritic score, but it still boasts many features that rank among the best in Assassin’s Creed games, including refreshing stealth-focused gameplay and parkour mechanics.
Assassin’s Creed Rogue, the first mainline game to star a Templar rather than an Assassin, was released when Assassin’s Creed fatigue was at an all-time high, resulting in a lukewarm reception. However, it is most similar to Black Flag and features a great story for those who aren’t bothered about the lack of multiplayer.
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, set in the Industrial Revolution during the late 1860s, had impressive graphics and a reworked combat system but flew under the radar due to the disastrous launch of Unity. Nevertheless, it is one of the best games set in the Victorian Era.
The original Assassin’s Creed broke new ground by providing a well-researched and historically accurate playground for players to run around in. While it may seem dated by today’s standards, it laid the groundwork for everything that came after it, and fans of the original installment will be glad to know that the series is heading back to its roots with Assassin’s Creed Mirage.
Assassin’s Creed III had a lot on its plate, including concluding the modern-day storyline featuring Desmond Miles and jumping way further into recent history than the franchise had ever gone before. While it ultimately failed to reach the heights of its predecessors, it still received a Metacritic score of 80.
Assassin’s Creed: Revelations attempted to do a lot of things but ultimately failed to resonate with fans as much as Ezio’s earlier outings, netting it a lower Metacritic score than some previous releases. However, the game looked good for its time, and players relished the opportunity to explore and soak in the beauty of Constantinople.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the most recent installment in the series, throws players headfirst into the 9th-century Viking invasion of the British Isles. While it is absolutely huge and even those who fall in love with the game will struggle to run out of content, the length of the story can be a downside for many players who find themselves burnt out by the repetitive and much too frequent combat. Nevertheless, it managed to bring back some of the stealth that was noticeably missing from Origins and Odyssey, and it is by far the best-looking Assassin’s Creed game.
Assassin’s Creed Origins turned in a drastically new direction, ditching the crowded urban environments of the games that came before it in favor of the wide-open deserts and elegant cities of Ancient Egypt. It also doubled down on the RPG aspects of the series, resulting in an Assassin’s Creed game that felt incredibly fresh and a protagonist, Bayek, who has gone on to become one of the franchise’s more memorable leads.
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag might not have been the most original entry in the series, but it remains one of the most beloved. Set in the Golden Age of Piracy, players took on the role of Edward Kenway, a pirate-turned-Assassin, as he navigates the Caribbean and takes on the Templars. It also featured one of the best sea-faring mechanics in any game to date, making it a fan-favorite.
Assassin’s Creed is one of gaming’s biggest franchises, and the series has seen its fair share of ups and downs since its inception. The original Assassin’s Creed provided an immersive and detailed recreation of a historical period, which did a lot to support the fairly standard gameplay and story.
The series has kept the same gimmick of setting players loose in a historical era over the years, but franchise fatigue and the repetition of annual releases left some Assassin’s Creed fans feeling burned out, leading to vastly different entries in more recent years. Assassin’s Creed is a series that has continually attempted to innovate upon its main formula, to varying success, and for that, the ratings of each game in the series are all over the place. These are the best games in the Assassin’s Creed series based on their Metacritic score.
Updated June 25, 2023, by Joe Grantham: The Assassin’s Creed series is one of the most iconic and beloved of all time and despite a few installments not quite hitting the mark, the series continues to thrive. With the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Mirage game set to return to the series’ roots and instill nostalgia in the player base, many fans are now looking back on their favorite and least favorite Assassin’s Creed games.
While determining the best Assassin’s Creed games is extremely subjective, the following list uses Metacritic scores for the games on PC seeing as other consoles have come and gone in the lifetime of the series.
12 Assassin’s Creed Unity – 70
Set during the French Revolution and featuring the stunning Notre Dame Cathedral, Assassin’s Creed Unity was a game with lots of potential. Sadly however the game was plagued with bugs and technical issues on release and this is reflected in its relatively low Metacritic score. Even though most issues were eventually fixed, the game has never really recovered its reputation in the eyes of the community.
Despite its bad reviews, Unity actually boasts many features that rank among the best in Assassin’s Creed games. First and foremost the stealth-focused gameplay was refreshing for fans of the original games and actually improved upon their mechanics. The parkour in Assassin’s Creed Unity has also been massively praised, leaving players, who aren’t experiencing bugs, extremely satisfied with how they traverse across the rooftops of 18th-century Paris.
11 Assassin’s Creed Rogue – 74
When Assassin’s Creed was transitioning to the latest generation of consoles in 2014, Ubisoft decided that it wouldn’t leave PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 players in the dust. While PlayStation 4 and Xbox One owners got the shiny new Assassin’s Creed Unitylast-generation holdouts received Assassin’s Creed Roguethe first mainline Assassin’s Creed game to star a Templar rather than an Assassin.
Unity was a technical disaster at launch, while Rogue was met with a lukewarm reception outside of the spotlight. Both games released when Assassin’s Creed fatigue was at an all-time high, and their reception suffered as a result. The game is most similar to Black Flagand still features a great story for those who aren’t bothered about the lack of multiplayer.
10 Assassin’s Creed Syndicate – 74
Following the release of Assassin’s Creed Unitymany fans were skeptical of the franchise, so tons of people elected to skip out on Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. Syndicate feels similar to Unity in many ways, boasting the same impressive graphics and a reworked combat system, but it sadly flew under the radar due to the disastrous launch of Unity.
Syndicate is unique in that it has the most recent setting of any mainline Assassin’s Creed title, being set in the Industrial Revolution during the late 1860s. As such, the game is filled with things that previous entries in the series could never include, like trains and factories. This setting wasn’t enough to save Syndicate from mediocre critical reception, and Assassin’s Creed took a gap year for the first time since the original game following Syndicate‘s release. Nevertheless, it is one of the best games set in the Victorian Era.
9 Assassin’s Creed – 79
While it may seem dated by today’s standards, the original Assassin’s Creed broke new ground by providing a well-researched and historically accurate playground for players to run around in. Being able to climb any building or structure opened up tons of gameplay possibilities, and the social stealth mechanics of hiding in plain sight echoed the best parts of Hitman.
Still, it was an awkward first outing even by the standards of the time, and the formula wouldn’t be perfected until the sequel. It might not be the best game on this list, but it laid the groundwork for everything that came after it and this series could not exist without it. Fans of the original installment will be glad to know that the series is heading back to its roots with Assassin’s Creed Mirage.
8 Assassin’s Creed 3 – 80
Assassin’s Creed III had an incredibly high bar to reach, and it ultimately failed to reach the heights of its predecessors. That’s not to say it’s a bad game, but it was a lackluster follow-up to the Ezio trilogy.
Assassin’s Creed III had a lot on its plate. It was the conclusion to the modern-day storyline featuring Desmond Miles that the series had been building up since the first game, and it jumped way further into recent history than the franchise had ever gone before. The hype leading up to launch also hurt the game, as fans had incredibly high expectations for the first numbered Assassin’s Creed game in a few years.
7 Assassin’s Creed: Revelations – 80
Much like Assassin’s Creed III, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations was hyped up prior to launch as the culmination of Ezio’s story. Not only would fans get to see the conclusion to a story they’d been following for two games, but they’d also get to see their favorite protagonist work alongside Altair, the protagonist from the first Assassin’s Creed game.
It attempted to do a lot of things, but it ultimately failed to resonate with fans as much as Ezio’s earlier outings, netting it a lower Metacritic score than some previous releases. Nevertheless, the game looked good for its time and while it can no longer compete with the best graphical games, players also relished the opportunity to explore and soak in the beauty of Constantinople.
6 Assassin’s Creed Valhalla – 82
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is the most recent installment in the acclaimed series and throws players headfirst into the 9th-century Viking invasion of the British Isles. The game is absolutely huge and even those who fall in love with the game will struggle to run out of content.
However, the size of the game and in particular the length of the story is also a downside for many players who find themselves burnt out by the repetitive and much too frequent combat. Regardless, Valhalla did manage to bring back some of the stealth that was noticeably missing from Origins and Odysseyand it is by far the best-looking Assassin’s Creed game.
5 Assassin’s Creed Origins – 84
Following the gap year after Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, the series turned in a drastically new direction with Assassin’s Creed Origins. It ditched the crowded urban environments of the games that came before it in favor of the wide-open deserts and elegant cities of Ancient Egypt, making it easily one of the best games set in Africa.
The different setting was matched with equally different gameplay, as Origins doubled down on the RPG aspects of the series, allowing players to level up, build their character, and accept tons of quests in a non-linear fashion. The result was an Assassin’s Creed game that felt incredibly fresh, and the protagonist, Bayek, has gone on to become one of the franchise’s more memorable leads.
4 Assassin’s Creed 4 – 84
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag might not have been the most original Assassin’s Creed game, but its namesake allowed for incredibly varied gameplay that the series had never seen before. Earlier games dabbled with naval combat, but Black Flag took things to the next level, letting players take command of their own pirate crew and sail the high seas at their leisure, exploring uncharted islands and pillaging enemy vessels.
Black Flag is just as much a pirate game as it is an Assassin’s Creed game, and that’s why so many people remember it so fondly. The flashiness of Assassin’s Creed‘s combat combined with epic naval battles and boarding made for one of the best pirate adventures in all of gaming.
3 Assassin’s Creed Odyssey – 86
Much like Assassin’s Creed II, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey took the foundation laid by its predecessor and expanded upon it in new ways. Origins introduced heavy RPG elements to the series, but Odyssey took those elements and ran with them, resulting in a game that feels more like The Witcher than Assassin’s Creed.
Being the earliest game in the timeline, Odyssey is lacking series staples like the hidden blade or even the Assassin Order, but everything eventually ties into the main series once the finer plot points are revealed. Odyssey is definitely a departure from the other games in the series, but the changes paid off in the end. With beautifully recreated historical structures such as the Parthenon, it is also a great game for history lovers to check out and explore.
2 Assassins’ Creed 2 – 86
Assassin’s Creed II is the reason why the series exploded in popularity over the past decade or more. It took the formula established in the first Assassin’s Creed and provided the necessary fixes and tweaks to create a fantastic game. Ezio is one of the greatest protagonists in all of gaming, and he’s a large reason why so many people fell in love with Assassin’s Creed II and the successive titles.
It also traded the dull and dreary Holy Land setting for a vibrant and much more interesting Renaissance-era Italy. Throughout Ezio’s journey, players would meet several famous faces such as Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolo Macchiavelli, making even the cast of supporting characters incredibly interesting and memorable. As opposed to much later titles, the game isn’t too big and allows players to concentrate on the main story without getting burnt out.
1 Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood – 88
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is the follow-up to the acclaimed Assassin’s Creed IIwhich marked the beginning of the series’ meteoric rise to success. As such, there were incredibly high expectations for the game, and it actually managed to deliver. Brotherhood sent Ezio to Romeand it naturally proved to be a wonderful setting full of intrigue and iconic buildings to scale.
While some people would argue that Brotherhood never quite reaches the highs of Assassin’s Creed IIit’s a worthy successor to the game in every way and happens to have a higher Metacritic score on PC, making it arguably the best Assassin’s Creed game of all time. It also introduced competitive multiplayer to the series, which was truly unique from anything available at the time.
