It's not nothing revolutionary at all. It's just a solid core Assassin's Creed game. Most of the glitchy jank and framerate issues from Unity have been removed, leaving behind a game that won't win more fans to the series but will remind those of us who got hooked on the franchise why we got hooked in the first place.

Traversal is the best it's ever been. Unity's one good feature was streamlining freerunning up and down to separate buttons. That's been maintained here, but it's even better because the game actually runs smooth. Plus dat hook to scale buildings and cross broadways is crucial. The carriages are fast too, and they control car-like (it's some Victorian GTA shit), but I never use them because I'm so used to freerunning in these games.

Combat is more Arkham, like it's been the past few games. Dodging, guard breaking, and ducking projectiles are buffered better, though. Soon as you see the prompt pop up, you hit the appropriate button and continue wailing on whoever you're beating up. Your character will keep the correct timing for you. It's real fluid.

Stealth feels more intuitive and there's an actual sneak button now, so you don't have to worry about not hugging a wall the right way to make a guard ignore you no more.

The leads are charming in the Ezio and Black Flag way. And London is URBAN, which is what AC needs to be. I wanna climb roofs and jump on necks. I wanna ambush people in alleys. This setting does that.

I'm only a few hours in, but they've set the twins up to cater to two the two main play styles: rush in and kill everybody, or sneak around and take down your target cleanly. The missions seem to be balanced toward this too.

The story is still phoned in like it's been since they killed Desmond. My dream of modern day assassinations ain't coming true, but they've nailed the historical sandbox aspect of the series this time around. It just feels good to play again.