The Assassin’s Creed franchise has been around a long time, and its newest addition lets you take on the Templars in virtual reality. Should you take the leap and dive into this VR game, or should you leave this one to history?
Read on to find out
The Assassin’s Creed franchise first made its debut back in 2007, with Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR being the fourteenth installment of the series. The story arcs follow an ancient order of the Assassin Brotherhood that are in a constant battle with an evil organization called The Templar Order. The original storyline for the series first started during the Third Crusades in 1191 AD.
In Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR, you’ll embody three legendary Assassins in this all-new full-length Assassin’s Creed action-adventure game. Experience firsthand the thrill of parkour, the rush of combat, and the tension of stealth as you become the Assassin like never before. Uncover new memories from Ezio Auditore (from AC II, Brotherhood, and Revelations) Kassandra (from AC Odyssey), and Connor (from AC III) as you work to stop Abstergo from gaining the power to manipulate people’s beliefs.
Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR Review – The Assassins You Know
With Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR, playing as three previous Assassins gives returning players a leg up on knowing what weapons you’ll have at your disposal. Gameplay is classic Assassin’s Creed and AC Nexus fits right in. You can crouch and sneak up behind bad guys, and with a flick of the wrist your hidden blade reveals itself. Once drawn, you only have to thrust your arm at the bad guy to get your stealth kill. When using Ezio, you’ll have dual hidden blades and can use left or right when murdering folks. You’ll also eventually have throwing knives, a bow, a sword, smoke bombs, and regular bombs at your disposal.
Getting from point A to point B can be done by either teleportation or by moving freely, and your motion sickness tolerances should determine which mode you use. Parkour has a different feel to it when using teleport, but makes those landing much easier. Climbing around on buildings is pretty simple, and reaching high points is fairly simple once you figure out how to grab the corner of a building and act like Spiderman. You can play the game sitting or standing, but whichever you choose, be sure to stay calibrated in-game.
Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR Review – Combat
Sword fighting in the game is pretty easy to master and quite a bit of fun, even if you are using Connor’s tomahawk. The parry and doge system works very well, and timing is everything. Some attacks must be dodged or ducked underneath, and doing so opens up the enemy for a nice counter attack. Of course, being an AC game, stealth is almost always a better option, and throwing knives are a nice silent way to eliminate bad guys. Kassandra unlocks a bow for you, and while you are limited on the number of arrows you can carry, your range with the bow is impressive and is a viable silent option, you just can’t hide any bodies. There are places to hide and lie in wait, but again, hiding bodies would help with the stealth of a mission.
Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR Review – Frustrations
Some aspects of the game that require precision controls can be very frustrating. Lock picking is the worst culprit off this. Picking locks requires both hands grabbing the two piece pick set. One rotates while the other has to be inserted and slowly moved into the lock once the pick is rotated properly. We were playing sitting down and finding the best angle and height to actually pick a lock was a pain. We ended up getting out of our chair and kneeling on the floor to find that sweet spot each time we had to pick a lock. The developer could have prevented this by giving us a pre-set picking interface that didn’t require such precision and placement of our hands and body.
Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR Review – Conclusion
Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR is one of the best VR games we have encountered so far on the Quest 2. We are pretty big Assassin’s Creed fans, and were really impressed by the immersion in the world of AC we encountered with this title. The screenshots we uploaded really don’t due the game justice. The graphics are pretty smooth and the gameplay was very fluid.
Developer Ubisoft Red Storm did an incredible job of bringing the AC world to life in VR.
9
Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR review code provided by publisher and reviewed on a Meta Quest 2 also provided by a PR firm. For more information on scoring, please read What our review scores really mean.
