Assassin's Creed is probably one of the most prolific franchises on the market. It's had a new main game just about every year since Assassin's Creed II, and there have been plenty of side games, like Assassin's Creed: Liberation. This year marks the first time we're getting two new Assassin's Creed games at the same time. The next-gen Assassin's Creed: Unity stole most of the spotlight from the last-gen-exclusive Assassin's Creed: Rogue. It's easy to expect something half-baked or rushed out, but Rogue isn't either.  Unfortunately, it also doesn't provide a new or exciting experience.

Rogue follows Shay Patrick Cormac, who's a newcomer to the Assassin order. When a mission goes disastrously wrong, Shay disagrees with the Assassins and leaves the order, going on the run with a valuable artifact. Like Haytham Kenway before him, Shay defects to the Assassin's enemies, the Templars. Rogue follows Shay as he battles the Assassins and attempts to prevent a disaster. In the real world, members of Abstergo Entertainment attempt to battle a virus into their Animus system. The virus could destroy immensely valuable data, but it could also be the key to destroying the Assassins once and for all.

To put it bluntly, Rogue is little more than an expansion pack for Assassin's Creed: Black Flag. Almost everything in our original review of Black Flag holds true. The gameplay, design and mechanics are almost identical in every way. Black Flag was quite fun, and Rogue does its best to maintain that. For the most part, it succeeds, but that also means it doesn't feel very fresh. After a short period of time, I felt like I was retracing my steps, not having a new adventure.

New elements in Rogue are fairly few and far between, and they're mostly variations on existing material. For example, your ship has different weak-point targeting turrets, and you can lay a streak of fire behind it instead of dropping explosive barrels. You have a silenced air rifle that can shoot darts, but it isn't much different from the darts in the prior game. In the long run, these new features are minor variations that you'd expect from DLC, not a full-fledged $60 game. There are minor adjustments to combat and side-quests, but very little of it feels fresh. It's easy to compare to Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, but it did a much better job of mixing old and new mechanics.

There are some significant new mechanics. The biggest is the fact that Shay is an Assassin traitor, so the Assassins really want him dead. This goes hand-in-hand with the introduction of a new enemy type, the Stalker. They're assassins who play by the same rules that you do, but it's a very cool idea soured by poor execution. Stalkers are functionally characters from the previous multiplayer mode, but they've been converted into AI opponents. It's like playing multiplayer against brain-dead bots. When a Stalker is nearby, you get very obvious visual and audio cues. After a few ambushes, I let the assassins come to me because you can almost always insta-kill them as they approach. Even if they stab you, it's not enough to kill you in most circumstances, so unless it happens during a fight, your health will just quickly regenerate.

The Stalkers are tedious and feel like added busywork. They're not threatening, cool, or scary. It captures the feeling of what it must be like to be hunted by less-competent members of the Assassin order. It isn't fun to collect upgrades and pages in a city while constantly having to pause to stab people. It's mercifully absent elsewhere, such as the boat segments, though they have their own version of the mechanic. Enemies can now board your ship, and just like the assassin mechanic, it's a neat idea that quickly wears out its welcome. I would let enemies board me because the minor crew damage was worth the time I saved when they came to me instead.

There are some solid improvements, such as the mission structure. Recent Assassin's Creed titles have been heavy on the "eavesdrop on enemy" and "tail the enemy" missions. Rogue mercifully cuts back on them. The missions tend to be better designed and more coherent. They're minor adjustments all around, but they make for a smoother and more enjoyable game. The HUD is improved, the levels are smoother to traverse, and there's less delay in certain combat actions.

All of this would be more forgivable if the story were better, but unfortunately, Rogue stumbles there, too. Shay's basic story is interesting because the idea is that the Assassins are the good guys, and it makes some pretty valid arguments for why the Templars might not be cartoonish supervillains, but the game doesn't follow through. The story is dull and almost devoid of memorable characters, and the supporting cast is either bland or unlikeable. Your handler in the real world is abrasive and constantly berates you. Shay is trying to do the right thing, but he isn't as good as Edward or Ezio. This is perhaps the biggest disappointment, since Rogue had the chance to take on the Assassins from another perspective, and it squandered the opportunity. The series metaplot is also rather stagnant. More happens to advance it in Rogue than in Unity, but it's just treading water without any significant advancement.

Noticeably absent is the multiplayer mode that has been in every title since Brotherhood. That's a very unfortunate loss, especially since the next-gen Unity also lacks competitive gameplay. Considering the loose multiplayer mechanics that were added to the single-player, it really feels like a lost opportunity to do something interesting. Being hunted by assassins in the single-player would be a lot more interesting if Dark Souls-style players were dropping in instead of brain-dead bots.

Visually, Rogue also has a lot in common with Black Flag because animations, textures, and various setpieces are recycled wholesale. There's some new content, but it's all very similar. There are some truly impressive setpieces and environments. One sequence where you have to escape from a crumbling city in the middle of an earthquake is one of the most visually dynamic scenes an Assassin's Creed game has ever had. There is some noticeable frame rate drop at times, but nothing gets in the way of the core gameplay. The voice acting is generally solid, but some of the accents are pretty ridiculous. Perhaps most importantly, sea shanties return as a collectible.

Assassin's Creed: Rogue is about as much of "more of the same" as you can get. The gameplay, mechanics, and visuals are lifted almost directly from Black Flag. It feels far more like a fleshed-out and glorified DLC than it does a true sequel. It isn't bad, but it's overly familiar. Most of the minor changes are for the best, but most of the major ones are for the worse. The lack of a dedicated multiplayer mode also detracts from the package. If you're looking for more Black Flag, Rogue delivers in spades. If you're looking for anything more or anything new, you'll have to look elsewhere.

Score: 7.2/10