Assassin’s Creed is one of the biggest video game series ever. With the release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, there are now 15 mainline titles in total if we account for Liberation. The launch of Shadows is the perfect moment to rank every Assassin’s Creed to date, from worst to best.
I’ve played Shadows for around 4 hours, and my (very) early impressions are positive. I love the stealth sections, and the combat is simple and pleasantly grisly, but I’ll have to spend at least a couple dozen hours more in Feudal Japan to decide the game’s place among its peers. Before you dig in, remember that this is my subjective opinion and that I encourage everyone to share their own rankings in the comments down below.
14
Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation
I was kind of jealous when I found out that Liberation is exclusive to the PS Vita. After trying it for about half an hour on the handheld, my jealousy intensified because New Orleans looked gorgeous, even on Vita’s tiny screen.
But reality set in after the game came out for PC, and I had the chance to play it. While Aveline is one of the better main characters of the series, and while New Orleans is indeed stunning, the rest of the game was middling at best.
The plot, aside from the ending, was loose and uninteresting. The gameplay lacked compared to the phenomenal Black Flag, and the hardware limitations of the system the game was originally designed to limit Liberation’s scope and make it a disappointing entry despite a few high points.
13
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate
Unlike Liberation, I’ve never beaten Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. While the visuals were, and still are, impressive, and while I love the period the game takes place in, as well as its two protagonists, Syndicate was just too bloated and too much of a collect-a-thon for me to persevere until the end credits.
Conversely, I loved the assassination missions and the redone traversal system (the zipline was a great addition to the free-running formula). But in 2015, I was too jaded with Assassin’s Creed, and I simply couldn’t force myself to finish the game. That moving train base was cool as heck, though.
12
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
Talking about bloat, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is the ruler of the realm. After the fantastic Odyssey, playing Valhalla was a chore, and I gave up after about 30 hours. The middle part of the game was just too tedious for me to continue, and medieval England was too bland of a setting to give me any compelling reason to push through the mid-game like its predecessor did.
I also didn’t like the combat that much, which felt worse than in its predecessor, and the endless raids wore me down quite fast. I guess Origins and Odyssey burnt me out too much to enjoy Valhalla because the game is considered one of the high points of the franchise.
11
Assassin’s Creed Mirage
During the early game, Mirage felt great. An old-school, succinct Assassin’s Creed entry that brings back the gameplay of yore and doesn’t overstay its welcome. But the title’s limited budget had reared its head after about a third of the game.
The story is forgettable, and the game looks solid, but the animations look like they were taken from Assassin’s Creed II. Basim is a blank character, and while parkour and the return of stealth and social stealth mechanics are very enjoyable, the game fails to become anything other than just another entry in the franchise without any part that truly stands out.
At least Baghdad, with its bustling markets and faithfully recreated architecture, impresses while traversing its rooftops.
10
Assassin’s Creed Rogue
Rogue‘s elevator pitch piqued my interest, but the game was too similar to Black Flag to become more than just another notch on my wall of finished games. The missions in which you prevented assassinations, along with the plot, were the game’s silver lining, but the rest was so-so.
You’d sail around the world with your ship, battle other ships, and do everything else you did with Edward across a less interesting map that wasn’t as alluring to explore as the Caribbean. Overall, I enjoyed playing it, but its highs weren’t riveting enough for me to place the game higher on the list.
9
Assassin’s Creed Revelations
I didn’t play Assassin’s Creed Revelations until a couple of years ago, when I beat the game on my Steam Deck. It was very satisfying to finally see the conclusion of Ezio’s trilogy and traverse Constantinople with the hookblade that made parkour faster and more satisfying than in earlier games.
At its core, Revelations is a repackaged Brotherhood, with the game offering the same collection of gameplay features that made it enjoyable throughout, but a lot of recycled content combined with any real progress in terms of gameplay and game mechanics, aside from the hookblade and that annoying tower defense mini-game, made this entry less entertaining than Brotherhood.
Still, Revelations is a pretty solid game and a worthy addition to the franchise. I like the story very much, and seeing Altair make an appearance was a pleasant surprise. The main reason for visiting this entry was to see what happened to Ezio and, without spoiling any details, I can say that the ending was very fitting for him and that I don’t regret spending a few days in the digital recreation of Ottoman era Constantinople.
8
Assassin’s Creed III
Similarly to Assassin’s Creed Revelations, I didn’t play Assassin’s Creed III in 2012 when the game came out. I had waited for the release of the remaster to embark on Connor’s journey across the US during the American Revolution.
While the change of scenery is welcome, Connor just didn’t have the same screen presence as Ezio, and that multi-hour intro sequence almost made me give up.
But I persevered, and the payout was definitely worth it. The colonial cities you explore in the game are so different from the collection of Renaissance cities from the Ezio trilogy. Completely different architecture, married to the unique atmosphere of the American Revolution, was a breath of fresh air. I also really liked the “back to the basics” approach since I played this one after finishing the reinvention of the franchise that was Assassin’s Creed Origins.
The missions were mostly great, but the story wasn’t as impactful as in earlier games. However, seeing the American Revolution from the imaginary angle of the eternal battle between the Templars and Assassins made up for Connor’s lack of charisma. On the other hand, the modern portion of the story nailed it, and I was very happy to see the conclusion of the original trilogy I started playing back in 2008.
7
Assassin’s Creed Unity
Assassin’s Creed Unity was, for years, the odd one out of the series. Utterly broken at launch, with unreal system requirements, the game was to be avoided for years. But in early 2021, a few months after I bounced off Valhalla, and equipped with a gaming PC that could eat Unity for breakfast, I finally decided it was time to experience the imaginary retelling of the French Revolution.
While Arno was not as strong a character as Ezio, he was charismatic enough to give me a reason to push through the early game, which was a bit dull. But once Paris opens up to the player, and you get to explore one of the prettiest cities of the series and enjoy the refreshed free-running mechanics, Unity turns into one of the best Assassin’s Creed games to date.
The story’s great, the relationship between Arno and Elise is convincing, without feeling stilted or phony, combat is simpler than in newer games yet challenging, and the mission design is a clear win. It’s too bad the game’s legacy is that of bugs, poor optimization, and technical deficiencies because Unity is, to me, an excellent game.
6
Assassin’s Creed Origins
Origins starts rather slowly. It wasn’t until I passed through the gates of Alexandria for the first time that I started to truly enjoy the game. Then I climbed the Pharos of Alexandria, looked at the massive expanse that awaited me in the desert, and decided to go out and explore all of it.
Origins is, like every other Assassin’s Creed game, a collect-a-thon, and the decision to reinvent the formula by introducing modern RPG mechanics and level-gated areas worked against it during the early game. But once you become powerful enough to freely choose which area of the game to explore next, Assassin’s Creed Origins turns into an excellent RPG-lite.
The redesigned combat is a bit clunky, but I liked it because it was, dare I say, pleasantly challenging and a clear opposite of the one-dimensional design of past titles. The exploration was very rewarding thanks to the massive size of the game coupled with a ton of cool equipment to obtain, and the story was some of the best of the entire series.
The only two nitpicks are frustrating parkour that makes Bayek do the exact opposite of what you planned to do and the dull modern part of the story.
5
Assassin’s Creed
While most fans of the series don’t like the first game much, I love it. I remember getting a new gaming PC powered by a GTX 8800 GT a couple of weeks before the game came out on PC, with Assassin’s Creed being the first proper test for the new machine. And, oh man, was I impressed.
The game’s visuals were unbelievable back in 2008. Densely packed cities with tons of minutiae details, huge crowds of people found everywhere, detailed textures and character models, and rich, warm, meticulously detailed lighting made Assassin’s Creed a looker like no other open-world game before it.
The mission design was simple yet very effective. The process of arriving at the local Assassin chapter, gathering clues about Altair’s next target, and embarking on an assassin mission felt so good.
Then you’d locate the target and be free to approach it in whichever way you want. You could lie low on roofs and then do an air assassination, find a hole in the security and try to make a run for it, or just silently approach the target and kill it without anyone even noticing it. Brilliant!
Yes, the game was barren regarding side content, Altair wasn’t the best main character ever, and the story was fun, but far from the highs we’ll see in the sequels. But I love the first Assassin’s Creed regardless and consider it one of the best games of the franchise.
4
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
While many fans prefer Brotherhood over Assassin’s Creed II, I’m the opposite. While I like what Brotherhood did in the gameplay and game systems aspects, I feel like part of the second game’s magic was lost in the transition from a sprawling, multi-city playground of the second game to the vast city of Rome in Brotherhood.
This doesn’t mean I don’t like the game; I love it. The way you could upgrade stores around the city and slowly develop your own Assassin chapter, an excellent story with one of the best character developments ever, fantastic design of main missions, and a smorgasbord of side content that didn’t feel like it was artificially bloating the game made for a killer combo that kept me hooked until the credits rolled.
3
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey starts strong and doesn’t take its foot off the gas until the very end. The game’s greatest accomplishment is the unbelievably large and detailed recreation of Ancient Greece, one of the best digital worlds ever created.
The game constantly makes you explore new lands, and each part of the map has its own unique atmosphere. The golden islands of the Aegean, the warm, autumn sun of Makedonia, the vast urban areas of Atika, the mountains of Lakonia, each region brings something new and fresh to the table.
During my 100+ hour journey I hadn’t gotten weary, not even for a minute. While I had tried clearing every fortress and doing every piece of side content at the beginning, I quickly realized there was no need for it because the game offers so much content I shouldn’t force myself to finish stuff I don’t enjoy.
So I ended up clearing an occasional fortress only when I felt like it, only doing side missions that piqued my interest, constantly exploring new lands instead of being stuck in one area until I removed every icon from the map. This approach worked so well that I even beat all three expansions without taking a break, with the third and final one being one of the best DLCs I’ve ever played.
Compared to Origins, combat was better and parkour was also much improved. The game rewarded the player for going off the beaten path with brilliant boss fights, cool equipment, and well-designed side quests, and the story didn’t wow anyone, but it was interesting enough not to skip cutscenes.
My only nitpick is that the game went even further from the series’ roots; I wish I could insta-kill generals and other high-level NPCs with my blade. Sneaking up to a high-level NPC unseen and then having to fight against them instead of just silently assassinating them was very unsatisfactory. Other than that, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was a joy to play from start to finish.
2
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
Back when I saw the first trailer for Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, I thought the series had lost that lightning-in-a-bottle magic it had during the first three games, not counting AC III.
But boy, was I wrong. It was a good thing I was still in college when Black Flag came out because I was stuck inside for about two weeks until I finally finished the game. The perfect marriage of an Assassin’s Creed game and a pirate simulator augmented by a rewarding exploration loop begged you to play for just one hour even though it was already 4 am.
The game took you across the Caribbean Sea, with each island and settlement featuring its own vibe and a collection of unique missions and collectibles. You could also upgrade your hideout and turn it into a proper pirate town, which was even more satisfying than upgrading your estate in Assassin’s Creed II.
Sure, the combat was the same old, same old, the modern half of the story was the worst part of the game, and boarding ships did get tiring after a while, but Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is jolly good fun, and my second favorite Assassin’s Creed.
1
Assassin’s Creed II
After the great but a bit barren Assassin’s Creed, the second game made a massive step forward. If you ask me, Assassin’s Creed II was, along with Origins, the biggest step forward compared to a previous title in the series.
Ezio was a much better-written character than Altair; Florence and Venice looked gorgeous and were jam-packed with famous landmarks, and the game offered arguably the best side-story content in the entire series. Looking for the “Truth” motivated me to discover new secrets, and slowly unlocking the Eden video sequence was super exciting.
The story of Ezio and his dealings with the Templars was equally engaging. The clash with Borgias, becoming friends with Da Vinci, exploring two beautiful Renaissance cities, and meeting a bunch of other historical figures felt so fresh and unique back in 2009. No other Assassin’s Creed game managed to capture the excitement of the II’s story.
I liked the game so much that I 100% it, something I never do. Even today, sixteen years after I played it for the first time, I consider Assassin’s Creed II one of the best games I’ve ever played and the best Assassin’s Creed game to date.
Looking for more game rankings? Check out every 3D Mario game, ranked from worst to best.
