Assassin's Creed® III Remastered Review Summary

Highly regarded and enjoyable game: Players widely consider Assassin's Creed III a great, ambitious, and memorable entry in the series, often citing nostalgia and its overall entertainment value. It's seen as a strong, even masterful, title that has aged well.

Compelling protagonists and antagonists: Connor Kenway is highly praised as a unique, principled, and physically formidable protagonist with a compelling journey. Haytham Kenway is lauded as a charismatic and complex antagonist, with their dynamic creating an engaging father-son conflict and blurring moral lines.

Engaging DLCs and bonus content: The 'Tyranny of King Washington' DLC is highly praised for its imaginative alternate history and new supernatural abilities, providing a refreshing expansion. Assassin's Creed Liberation, included as a bonus, is also appreciated for its unique mechanics and story.

Remaster enhances visuals and performance: The Remastered version significantly improves graphics, including lighting, textures, and character models, and offers smoother performance on modern systems. It also includes quality-of-life changes like better UI and bug fixes, making it a worthwhile update.

Fluid, brutal, and satisfying combat: The combat system is widely praised for being dynamic, fluid, and brutally satisfying, with excellent animations, varied weapons (including the tomahawk), and effective counter-attack mechanics. It offers a more aggressive and visually spectacular experience compared to previous titles.

Rampant Bugs & Poor Performance: The game, especially the remastered version, is plagued by an extreme number of bugs, crashes, freezes, and severe FPS drops, making it frequently unplayable. Poor optimization across various PC configurations significantly hinders the gaming experience, leading to constant frustration.

AC Liberation Is Low-Quality: Assassin's Creed Liberation, bundled with the remaster, is widely criticized as a low-quality portable console port. It suffers from poor optimization, numerous bugs, clunky controls, an unengaging story, and frustrating mechanics like the persona system and lack of fast travel, significantly detracting from the overall package.

Remastering Degrades Visuals: The 'remaster' is largely perceived as a visual downgrade, introducing new bugs and worsening graphics, particularly with character models looking like 'wax figures' and broken lighting. Many players feel it offers little improvement and often looks worse than the original game.

Weak & Disjointed Narrative: The main game's story is criticized for being confusing, poorly paced, and disjointed, with an unmemorable protagonist and a weak, anticlimactic ending. Many felt the modern-day segments were underdeveloped and contributed to a decline in the series' overall narrative quality.

Clunky Controls & Parkour: Controls for both general movement and parkour are widely described as clunky, awkward, and unresponsive. The parkour system, in particular, is noted for its inaccuracy, simplification, and unsuitability for the game's environment, often leading to unintended actions and player frustration.

AC3 Historical Setting & Core: Assassin's Creed III is primarily set in 18th-century colonial America during the American Revolutionary War. It features naval battles, exploration of cities like Boston and New York, and wilderness activities, culminating Desmond's modern-day story.

Comprehensive Bundle Content: The Remastered package includes Assassin's Creed III, its 'The Tyranny of King Washington' DLC, and 'Assassin's Creed Liberation'. Liberation is a full game, originally for PS Vita, set in the same era but with a different protagonist.

Protagonists' Intertwined Stories: The main game allows players to experience the perspectives of both Haytham Kenway, a Templar, and his son Connor (Ratonhnhaké:ton), a half-Native American Assassin. Connor's character arc is central, exploring his difficult moral decisions and evolution amidst the revolution.

AC Liberation Unique Features: Assassin's Creed Liberation stars Aveline de Grandpré, a mixed-race female assassin in 18th-century New Orleans. A unique persona system allows her to switch between Assassin, Lady, and Slave outfits, each offering different abilities and mission approaches.

Core Gameplay: Combat, Stealth, Parkour: The game retains core Assassin's Creed mechanics like stealth assassinations, a recruit system, and fluid parkour, including tree climbing. Combat is often described as simplified or easy, utilizing a rock-paper-scissors mechanic.

Poor Performance & FPS Locks: The remastered game often suffers from significant performance issues, including stuttering, lag, and low frame rates, even on powerful modern systems. Players frequently report a persistent 60/63 FPS cap that requires unofficial fixes to bypass, and the game defaults to integrated graphics on laptops, causing further performance degradation.

Numerous Persistent Bugs: Players report a wide array of bugs and glitches, with many issues present in the original game persisting or even worsening in the remaster. These bugs affect core gameplay mechanics such as parkour, combat, and quest progression, impacting the overall player experience.

Inconsistent Graphics Quality: Player feedback on the remastered graphics is mixed; while some note improvements in lighting, textures, and color, others criticize blurry, pixelated textures and low-quality character faces, described as 'clay faces' or 'wax.' The visual improvements appear inconsistent and may not scale well to larger displays.

Significant Audio Bugs: Players frequently experience critical audio problems, such as sound completely disappearing, switching to incorrect output devices like disconnected headphones, or character voice acting failing to play. These issues often require manual intervention, like deleting game files, to temporarily resolve.

Moderate System Requirements: The game's PC system requirements are generally considered reasonable, allowing it to run on a range of hardware including some older mid-to-low-end PCs. However, the overall game installation size is noted as being quite large.

AC3's Story & Lore Valued: Many players recommend Assassin's Creed III for its strong, deep narrative, historical setting, and significant contribution to the series' lore. It's considered a worthwhile experience for franchise veterans and history buffs, especially if seeking a story-driven adventure.

Mixed Reception; Avoid for Newcomers: The game generally receives mixed reviews, often described as 'okay' or 'average' due to its significant flaws, potentially long dull segments, and outdated mechanics. New players to the Assassin's Creed series are frequently advised to start with other titles like the Ezio Trilogy or Black Flag instead.

Remaster Quality Is Subpar: The remastered version of AC3 receives widespread criticism for not being a significant upgrade from the original and even introducing new bugs. Players often advise against buying it standalone, strongly preferring the original game, or only recommending the remaster if obtained through a bundle.

Liberation Is Largely Disliked: Assassin's Creed Liberation, bundled with the remaster, is consistently viewed negatively by players. It is often described as poor quality, not worth the time, and generally only recommended for extreme completionists rather than for its gameplay or story.

Buy Only on Deep Sale/Bundle: There is a strong consensus among players to avoid purchasing the game at full price. The most recommended acquisition method is during a significant sale, or ideally, as a free inclusion or heavily discounted item within the Assassin's Creed Odyssey Gold or Ultimate Edition.

Remaster Quality Disappoints: The remaster suffers from technical flaws and is often seen as a minimal improvement, leading many players to express a strong desire for the original 2012 version to remain available. Player sentiment towards the remaster specifically is largely negative due to these issues.

Extensive Content & Completion Hours: The Remastered package includes AC3, AC Liberation, and 'The Tyranny of King Washington' DLC, offering substantial content. Players report taking 50-70 hours for AC3's main game and 100% completion, with additional time for Liberation (8-20 hours) and the DLC (4-8 hours).

Bundled Game Activation Issues: A significant number of players received the game as a free bonus with Assassin's Creed Odyssey bundles, which often results in activation problems. Players are frequently required to launch Odyssey first to properly bind and access AC3 Remastered and Liberation.

Player Perspective Varies Greatly: Player reception of AC3 Remastered is significantly shaped by their prior experience with the franchise. New players, especially those accustomed to newer titles like Odyssey, often find the older mechanics jarring, while veteran fans express mixed feelings regarding the game's historical context and the series' evolving direction.

Criticisms of Ubisoft & Connect: Players frequently voice negative opinions regarding Ubisoft's current quality, perceived decline, and business practices, often comparing it unfavorably to past eras. The mandatory Ubisoft Connect integration also contributes to player frustration.