Its successor shows huge improvement on both platforms, but it's clear that the PlayStation 4 takes pole position. In Unity, we could see extended periods of gameplay where the 30fps target was nowhere in sight. Ultimately though, both consoles failed to impress: sustained sub-30fps gameplay just doesn't cut it.Īssassin's Creed Syndicate shows genuine improvement here. Curiously, it was the PlayStation 4 version that disappointed most, easily beaten during gameplay by a faster Xbox One release, though the GPU-intensive cut-scenes could see the Sony platform pull ahead of its Microsoft equivalent. Assassin's Creed Unity on console was farcical in places, even after multiple patches, often lurching down to 20fps or even lower. So the question is, has Ubisoft got the balance right this time? Just like Unity, the developer aims for a locked 30fps update, but this time it does a much better job of hitting its performance targets.
Unfortunately, on console, it's nowhere near as attractive, blighted by a highly variable frame-rate that's mysteriously worse on PS4 than it is on Xbox One. Play Unity today on a top-tier PC and you'll be pleasantly surprised at just how beautiful it looks.
Ubisoft scaled up virtually every element of the last-gen engine, with enormous increases to environment detail (including building interiors), an NPC count pushed into the hundreds and a cutting-edge rendering engine with sensational, physically-based lighting. In retrospect, perhaps Assassin's Creed Unity was simply too ambitious from a technological perspective.