Parkour, is the art of rapidly moving through an area, transforming the urban landscape into a free-running land of adventure and opportunity. As we delve into the world of Assassin’s Creed, let's explore the top 5 games that have the best experiences of parkour
5. Assassin’s Creed III Liberations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GXOh-FhNZk&t=401s
The players embark on a journey with Aveline de Grandpre, a French-African assassin navigating the treacherous 18th-century New Orleans.
Aveline becomes entangled in conflict while trying to uncover the truth about her mother’s disappearance.
Inheriting the parkour abilities of her predecessors in the AC series, Aveline introduces a whip in her style of parkour allowing the player to leap over large gaps in certain areas.
This is our first glimpse of Ubisoft attempting to branch from the traditional parkour route outside of Connors free running through the natural landscape and house transitions.
Liberations doesn’t add much to the AC series due to it not being a stand-alone title but it's worth mentioning because it lies between the old and new parkour systems, encouraging the character to take the risky path like Ezio and utilize the whip but also prevented the player from jumping if Aveline couldn't find a safe path without desynchronization like Connor.
4. Assassin’s Creed III:
https://youtu.be/mBDSEYQKkA8?t=569
Playing as Connor Kenway in the heart of the American Revolution, Connor a native American and British American fights to protect his people and homeland from the conflicts of the time.
AC 3 was the first to introduce climbing up natural rock formations and Connor remains the sole character to fastly free run through trees. Connor’s ability to fluidly move through the natural landscape marked a turning point in the parkour mechanic introducing dynamic movements, smoother vaults over small obstacles, and the house transitions where Connor automatically entered through open windows.
This leads to fewer chances of desynchronization by falling but increases the chances of accidentally running up a wall or jumping out of a tree to take the wrong path completely removing the risk vs reward of trying different paths to the intended target that was part of AC 2.
3. Assassin’s Creed 2:
https://youtu.be/aYYP-itWSFc?t=7
Step into the Italian Renaissance with Ezio Auditore, an iconic figure in the AC universe.
Ezio’s journey starts from the tragic loss of his father and brothers; falsely accused of a crime Ezio follows in his father's footsteps becoming part of the Assassins brotherhood seeking revenge and to protect his remaining mother and sister.
Being the second in the series, Ubisoft introduced tons of parkour elements to the world design of Italy like free run starters such as crates and boxes, springboards for long jumps, ropes for large gaps between buildings, hanging pots, poles, and other things to jump from.
Compared to Altier, Ezio also can climb up quickly, grab higher ledges more easily, and speed across narrow surfaces. These features allow Ezio to go anywhere in a shorter amount of time than it would've taken Altier.
AC 2 parkour also allowed for high-risk reward parkour meaning Ezio would jump from high ledges even if it meant desynchronization which allowed players to make high leaps to create their risky path to the intended target.
2. Assassin’s Creed Revelations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seoF8NLiJFU&t=1s
Revelations is the second installment that continues Ezio’s journey. We join Ezio in Constantinople on his search for answers and to uncover the secrets of Altair the legendary assassin.
The game showcases a refined parkour system with the introduction of the hook blade a feature unique to this game; the hook blade allowed Ezio to climb faster, drop down large gaps, and new methods of using hanging pots to go straight instead of into prefixed directions like around corners; we also see the first time an assassin can use a zipline for transportation.
More importantly, AC Revelations could be considered the best and only character evolution players experience in the entire series. When players were introduced to Ezio in AC 2 he was a young adult and novice assassin but here in Revelations our character is several years older and has achieved the rank of Grandmaster of the Assassin’s order.
His skills reflect that growth from using pots, leaping backward, springboarding, running across ropes, using lifts and now using the hook blade it's evident Ezio's skills grew with the player as the story progressed which hasn't been replicated in any of the Assassins Creed installments that follow.
The continuation of the high-risk reward parkour from AC 2, made the parkour system feel open and fluid giving the player smooth control of the character, and the added hook blade opened up a larger variety of optional paths players could take if they were daring enough.
1. Assassin’s Creed Unity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGaZ4Bj86Hw&t=7s
Paris during the French Revolution sets the setting for our protagonist, Arno Dorian, as he seeks justice and redemption.
Arno joins the Assassins brotherhood to investigate the conspiracy of his adoptive father's murder. During his investigation, Arno finds himself caught between the Assassins and the Templar with neither side as his ally.
With the foundation established, Ubisoft overhauled the parkour system, creating good-looking animations with perfect control of the game world. This balance is unmatched in the rest of the series and was the last great parkour system.
Unlike previous protagonists, Arno can safely and quickly parkour down from high points and can perform roll recoveries manually.
Vertical mobility puts this game above the others, creating endless opportunities for exploration in movements. The world design helps create a large variety of parkour runs both on the ground and running across rooftops.
This upgraded system brings back the series’ best features found in the early iterations of Assassins Creed, such as back and side ejects, backward grabs, and unique vaulting.
The house transitions were changed making them manual unlike AC 3, where there is only one animation. The player decides to go under, over, or around obstacles as they make their way through and even stop and explore the interior of the building.
Unlike Connor, Arno cannot climb mountains and natural rock formations. while these are missing from the landscape of Paris, he does have the ability to quickly parkour through the few trees in Paris.
No other game has allowed players to push the parkour so hard, which makes Unity one of the most mind-blowing and difficult parkour systems to master, with most of the difficulty coming from the game's overall bugginess
