AC Rogue has grown on me throughout the hours of playing. Having come to it after Black Flag, it was normal that at first it seemed like a recycling of the previous game. Same game idea with four very defined environments: naval, land, urban, and Abstergo. Same idea of collectibles, treasure maps, shanties, computer decoding... But little by little, Rogue begins to become something unique, it manages to remove Black Flag from your mind, and in the end, you could almost say that Black Flag was launching from Rogue. The improvements carried out in Rogue are subtle, but they manage to polish the game, achieving a fluid and pleasant experience. The gameplay has been improved in various aspects. Navigation, lack of realism aside, is now smoother with an improved docking and return to ship system. The setting of the game is, in my opinion, more successful than in Black Flag. The existence of two naval environments, the fluvial and the marine, gives variation to the naval aspect of the game. The cold makes it possible to generate more striking outfits, limit the stay in the water, incorporate beautiful details like the vapor or the appearance of Nordic fauna. In addition, the city present in the game has been developed with great care. The first impression when arriving at New York is the same as when arriving at Constantinople: a living, enormous city, in my hands to explore every corner of it. I hadn't felt the same on the last few games. The soundtrack is amazing. Elitsa Alexandrova's work is incredible, and it seemed to me to be the best music in the entire saga to date. It blends perfectly with the atmosphere of the game.
There are also, however, some points that haven't been improved, especially the game menus. It is difficult to read the notes or descriptions. There are menus that seem incomplete, like the one for the different ships. And the option of being able to browse weapons and outfits from the menu without being able to equip them seems a bit absurd. The idea of collectibles that, by their very nature, you can't collect until late in the game, so you usually don't have any game left to enjoy the rewards, and the fact that outfits don't provide distinct abilities (I must Note that some outfits did have an associated ability in Black Flag) making the outfit you decide to wear a bit irrelevant, are something that Ubisoft should improve for next installments.
About the present time, the game continues with the story of Black Flag but with hardly any script developed. The degree of immersion of AC 3 is not achieved. However, in my opinion, the hacking of computers has been improved.
Lastly, and almost most importantly, Rogue is a vital game for the series to better understand the story of AC 3, Black Flag and, I imagine, Unity; to fill in blank spaces, and to give more depth to all the main characters. One is left with the desire to play AC 3 again, but the desire to continue with Unity is bigger.
In short, Rogue is one hundred percent recommendable. With very few errors. Almost the most notorious are graphic errors in the design of the scenarios and environments. And it is an essential game for those who love the Asassin's Creed franchise and for those who have played AC 3, Black Flag and even Unity.
