Dead Kings, the long-awaited expansion to Assassin’s Creed Unity, takes the player to the troubled city of Franciade. Due to events at the end of Assassin’s Creed Unity, Arno leaves revolutionary Paris because he is haunted by memories of his past. He wants to leave France altogether and promises to procure a manuscript for an acquaintance to secure passage. However, in his quest for solitude, Arnos gets embroiled in a conflict with the mysterious Raider faction and their search for an artifact of immense power. There are new story and multiplayer missions, collectibles, side quests, and weapons to master that will keep players engaged for many hours. Unfortunately, the experience does not come without its flaws. The content suffers from two major problems. The first being the lackluster story and the second being the frequent performance issues that have plagued the game since launch.
The Dead Kings campaign is flawed in a number of ways because it fails to convey excitement and intrigue. The hunt for an ancient source of power should be thrilling and filled with tense moments. The characters involved should also convey these emotions. Arno maintains a rather disinterested tone throughout the six missions and the supporting characters do not provide any relief either. The voice acting is where part of the problem lies. Leon, a new child character introduced early in the campaign, delivers some of the most unnatural dialogues ever. The story unfolds in such a way that the player is supposed to develop an emotional connection with the boy. Due to the convoluted plot and mundane conversation, this connection is completely lost. At one point in the campaign, Leon embraces Arno. What should be a touching moment comes across as rather puzzling because the player never forms an emotional bond with the child. The plot is riddled with problems like these that make the hunt for an artifact seem more like a chore.
There is also no sense of wonder in the game. When the player is exploring catacombs, tombs, and other ruins, there is no excitement to the missions. This is primarily due to the dull environments the new campaign takes place in. The underground areas are mostly generic narrow corridors and the city of Franciade looks exactly like the run-down parts of Paris. Even the last mission, which is supposed to take place in an awe-inspiring temple, turns out to be underwhelming because of this.
The level design coupled with the story and voice acting causes the campaign to fall flat. It is a shame that Ubisoft could not realize its vision for such an interesting topic. The Dead Kings campaign can be completed in under four hours and dedicated players will be able to explore the three new city regions in half a day.
As stated earlier, the expansion also suffers from many of the same problems that plagued its base game. The frame rate is choppy at times and there are numerous stutters. The audio cuts off too and occasionally the game crashes when you launch it. Lastly, it is still cumbersome to control Arno due to controller lag caused by frame rate fluctuations. Roaming the streets is fine, but when you start a mission the performance issues intensify. For example, while watching a cutscene, it is jarring to see choppy animations and wonder what is going on. It takes the player out of the moment and makes them focus on aspects of development they should not have to worry about. The majority of people buy consoles so that they can have a great experience without the hassle of tweaking settings like on a gaming rig. The expansion fails to deliver on that front and detracts heavily from the experience. It is shocking that even after two months the game still has the same problems. The story could have been its redeeming feature, but that too fails to live up to expectations.
Even with these issues, playing through the new multiplayer missions and using the added weaponry is a lot of fun and leads to many memorable moments. The multiplayer portions of the game are the best slices of the Dead Kings expansion. The new cooperative heist missions are incredibly entertaining and lead to many tense moments when you and your friends are surrounded by enemies. For example, taking out four Raiders at once with a friend is an unforgettable experience. Assassinating two enemies simultaneously and then shooting the others with your pistols simultaneously never gets old. Being chased through the narrow corridors also becomes exciting when you play together. Coordinating attacks and causing mayhem in general is where Dead Kings shines. It is a shame that more of these unique experiences were not added to the expansion because they are phenomenal.
The new guillotine gun is also very satisfying to use. It is basically a hand mortar and is awesomely powerful. The gun can take out numerous enemies at once because it fires an exploding projectile. Many of the underground regions are crawling with Raiders so wiping them out with one or two rounds from the guillotine gun is fun as well as efficient. Unfortunately, it should be noted that firing the gun sometimes causes the frame rate to drop especially when you kill more than six or seven enemies at once. These issues are few and far between though and the Dead Kings multiplayer missions and the new guillotine gun are the best parts of the new content.
Reviewing Dead Kings presents another dilemma because it is a free expansion that adds more content to the game even though it has many flaws. Nevertheless, this does not excuse any developer from releasing a product with technical problems and one that even fails on a storytelling front. Overall, Dead Kings is disappointing and frustrating even though it has some truly great moments. It would be more engaging if the technical issues were addressed and more time was spent refining the story.
The multiplayer missions and the new guillotine gun compensate for the lackluster campaign but this amazing content is not enough to salvage the overall experience. Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag was a great game because it introduced us to an engaging and entertaining protagonist as well as many memorable supporting characters. The plot was also superb. These elements are missing from Assassin’s Creed Unity and the Dead Kings expansion. Hopefully, Assassin’s Creed Victory will not have glaring technical issues and focus on its story just like the first few games in the franchise did. Maybe they will also expand the cooperative missions. We will have to wait till the end of the year to find out.
Asher M is a games journalist, former News Writer (Gaming) at Windows Central. They contributed 18 articles to ICXM between 2014–2015, focused on game reviews, and Xbox news: one of several bylines used by Asher Madan during his time at ICXM.