Assassin's Creed Syndicate - The Save Game Vault

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is a 2015 action-adventure stealth video game developed by Ubisoft Quebec and published by Ubisoft. Serving as the ninth major installment in the franchise, it holds the distinction of being the first mainline game led by the Quebec studio rather than Ubisoft Montreal. Moving the timeline forward to the onset of the modern era, Syndicate immerses players in the smog-choked, rapidly modernizing streets of London during the height of the Industrial Revolution in 1868.

The narrative introduces a franchise first: dual protagonists. Players control twin Assassins, Jacob and Evie Frye. Raised outside the city, the brash and impulsive Jacob and the calculating, stealth-oriented Evie arrive in London to find it completely under the thumb of Crawford Starrick, a ruthless Templar Grand Master who controls both the city’s legal industries and its criminal underworld. To liberate London, the twins decide to fight fire with fire. They establish their own street gang, “The Rooks,” to systematically dismantle Starrick’s monopoly, conquer the city’s boroughs, and recover a powerful Piece of Eden. Along the way, they cross paths with historical titans of the Victorian era, including Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Florence Nightingale, and Alexander Graham Bell.

Gameplay

Because Victorian London featured much wider streets and significantly taller buildings than the cities of previous games, traditional parkour alone was no longer sufficient for traversal. Syndicate introduced highly modernized mechanics to keep the pacing fast and fluid.

Key gameplay mechanics include:

Dual Protagonists: Players can seamlessly switch between Jacob and Evie while exploring the open world. While both share a core skill tree, their end-game upgrades diverge: Jacob excels at brutal, open melee combat, while Evie is a master of infiltration, capable of turning nearly invisible while standing still.
The Rope Launcher: A massive game-changer for the franchise’s traversal. Given to the twins by Alexander Graham Bell, this gauntlet attachment acts as a grappling hook. It allows players to instantly scale massive landmarks like Big Ben or create horizontal ziplines to cross wide avenues without touching the ground.
Vehicles and Trains: As a fully industrialized city, London is packed with traffic. Players can hijack horse-drawn carriages, engage in high-speed chases, and fight enemies on the roofs of moving vehicles. The Assassins also operate out of a hijacked, constantly moving steam train that circles the city, serving as their mobile hideout.
Brawler Combat: Carrying broadswords in 1868 London would draw too much attention. Consequently, the combat system was overhauled into a fast-paced, brutal, close-quarters brawler style. The twins utilize concealed weaponry suited for street thugs, including brass knuckles, cane-swords, kukri knives, and compact revolvers.
Gang Warfare: The open world is divided into several boroughs controlled by the Templar gang, the Blighters. Players take back the city by completing activities like kidnapping Templar targets, liberating child laborers from factories, and robbing cargo trains. Clearing a borough culminates in a massive, chaotic street brawl against the rival gang leader.

Development and Legacy

Following the disastrous, bug-ridden launch of Assassin’s Creed Unity the year prior, Ubisoft Quebec was under immense pressure to deliver a stable, polished product. To achieve this, the developers made the conscious decision to strip away the complex cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes of past games, focusing 100% of their resources on a refined single-player experience.

Tonally, the game was a sharp pivot from the doom and gloom of Unity and Rogue. The writing in Syndicate is notably lighter, faster-paced, and filled with action-comedy tropes, heavily propelled by the entertaining sibling rivalry between Jacob and Evie.

Upon its release in late 2015, Syndicate received highly positive reviews for its engaging protagonists, the stunning recreation of Victorian London, and its reliable, bug-free performance. However, it suffered commercially at launch. Gamers were experiencing “franchise fatigue” after years of annualized releases, and the lingering brand damage from Unity caused initial sales to slump. Because of this, Syndicate marks the end of an era: it was the final game in the classic action-adventure format before Ubisoft took a one-year hiatus to completely reboot the franchise into a massive action-RPG with Assassin’s Creed Origins in 2017.

Key Features:

Play as Twins — Swap freely between the brawler Jacob and the stealthy Evie, utilizing their unique skills to tackle missions your way.
Victorian London — Explore a beautifully rendered, industrialized metropolis filled with massive factories, moving trains, and the heavy smog of progress.
The Rope Launcher — Revolutionize your parkour with a grappling hook that lets you scale buildings in seconds and zipline across the city skyline.
Take Over the Underworld — Build your street gang, the Rooks, and lead them in massive, violent gang wars to conquer London borough by borough.
Fast-Paced Street Fighting — Engage in brutal, rapid-fire melee combat utilizing era-appropriate concealed weapons like brass knuckles and cane-swords.