When comparing Assassin's Creed Unity vs Dark Souls III, the Slant community recommends Dark Souls III for most people. In the question“What are the best Action-Adventure games on Steam?” Dark Souls III is ranked 10th while Assassin's Creed Unity is ranked 45th. The most important reason people chose Dark Souls III is:
There's tons of lore everywhere for you to discover, but it isn't necessarily told through a conventional story. Weapons, armor, spells, and items you acquire have descriptions on them that tell you where in the game world they came from, any prominent characters they're associated with, and a bunch of other relevant and interesting information. So when you find examples of the lore scattered around the game, like bosses wearing a style of armor you read about, or an obscure NPC mentioned in a sword's description, you know the history behind the design and their purpose without that boss or character needing to explain anything to you. Even though the actual story in Dark Souls III is very thin, there's a lot to find under the surface if you're willing to look for it.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Crouch walk finally implemented
Assassin's Creed Unity has finally added in a method for players to crouch-walk, allowing them to remain hidden going from cover to cover. It makes the stealth controls much more fluid, giving you the freedom to stalk your target from a closer distance instead of relying on you blending in with the crowd or staying on a rooftop. This was an often asked-for mechanic and is now finally implemented into the game series.
Pro Four-player online co-op
Assassin's Creed Unity features up to four player online co-op. You can join up with three other friends or get matched with others to play through certain assassination missions together.
Pro Intuitive stealth gameplay
The stealth mechanics feel natural and fluid in how strategic they are.
While tracking your targets, you blend in with each city's citizens or climb up to the tops of buildings to perch there and avoid getting spotted by the templar or their guards. You can either wait for the perfect opportunity to strike with a hidden blade up your sleeve that silently assassinates your target, or you can go all-out and have a sword duel with them if you'd rather take a more aggressive approach. After they're dead, you make your escape and become incognito again.
Everything goes together nicely in a way that feels satisfying.
Pro Impressive recreation of Paris to explore with buildings to climb freely
The city of Paris is beautifully done. The level is massive and dense with detail, with well-designed areas from the era such as towers, open plazas, religious buildings, and recognizable landmarks. You can climb anything, anywhere, and run along the rooftops as much as you want. Scaling the tallest places gives you an amazing bird's eye view of the city and the mountain ranges beyond, along with a vantage point to plan out how to assassinate your targets. The realistic architecture makes Assassin's Creed Unity feel like a true period piece set in Revolutionary Paris.
Pro Wide range of customization
There are lots of options to customize your character. You can change your weapons and your appearance, down to the individual hood that you prefer to wear. The sheer amount of things you can choose from is pretty impressive, helping you feel like your character is really your own.
Pro Extensive lore that's presented in unconventional ways
There's tons of lore everywhere for you to discover, but it isn't necessarily told through a conventional story.
Weapons, armor, spells, and items you acquire have descriptions on them that tell you where in the game world they came from, any prominent characters they're associated with, and a bunch of other relevant and interesting information. So when you find examples of the lore scattered around the game, like bosses wearing a style of armor you read about, or an obscure NPC mentioned in a sword's description, you know the history behind the design and their purpose without that boss or character needing to explain anything to you.
Even though the actual story in Dark Souls III is very thin, there's a lot to find under the surface if you're willing to look for it.
Pro Stunning environments
The world of Dark Souls 3 looks amazing, so you may often feel the need to stop and take in the beautiful sights. This can be the sheer size of structures, mountains, or caves. It can also be the decorations, inscriptions, or details in a room. There's always so much to look at, allowing you to truly immerse yourself in its world.
Pro Can give a great feeling of accomplishment
The Dark Souls series is known for its difficulty and Dark Souls 3 is no exception. It's filled with difficult enemies and tough boss battles, able to cause you grief on more than one occasion. However, every time you progress to the next safe spot or defeat a boss you'll often be filled with a mix of joy and relief. Beating this game will almost certainly feel like an achievement.
Pro Unpredictable boss battles
The boss battles in Dark Souls 3 consist of several phases, changing up how the bosses fight over the course of the battle. They will gain new abilities, become more aggressive, or reveal various nasty surprises. This creates an enjoyable experience that is different from most modern games where bosses are just glorified pincushions.
Pro A great variety of equipment for almost any playstyle
You'll be finding new pieces of equipment quite often, giving you many options to choose from. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to pick the equipment that best suits your playstyle.
For example, heavy armor will make you move slower, but you'll be better protected. Greatswords have a wide reach, but you swing them really slow. Conversely a dagger is very fast but it has a horrible reach.
Pro Solid controls
This game feels and plays really well. Your character responds to button inputs immediately and it almost never feels like you're losing control over it. The control scheme can also be customized, giving you the option of a more personalized experience.
Pro Great combat system
Dark Souls 3 is a very fast-paced game but it's not just about having quick reflexes. A lot of the combat comes down to exploiting your enemies. To do that, you have to learn their patterns and attack the moment they pause or perform a telegraphed attack. This creates a combat system, which rewards awareness and patience, and is satisfying to master, even if you don't have extraordinary reflexes.
Cons
Con Generic premise of a revenge story
The revenge story has been done to death, and Assassin's Creed Unity doesn't really add anything new here. From the beginning of the plot, you see some of the major cliches that often pop up in these types of tales. And while Arno's cause is just, it's hard to care on an emotional level about his mission to kill Paris' high-level templars. But if you're not one to care too much about stories in games, then you probably won't even notice that anything's off.
Con Unsatisfying ending that ends on a lame note
While the story itself is passable, the ending may leave a bad taste in your mouth. After a a generic final boss and an unnecessary and frustrating character death, things just end abruptly. There's no closure, and there isn't a real sense of satisfaction at the end of your journey.
Con More of the same
The gameplay of Assassin's Creed Unity is just more of the same from previous titles. If you've played one Assassin's Creed up to this point, you've pretty much played them all. It's the same type of revenge story of an assassin seeking out the templars, the same bloat of icons and little things to do across the map, with the same type of stealth gameplay, and the overall same structure to the missions. Aside from the new crouch mechanic, the customization, and the location in Paris, this is too similar to other games in the series.
Con Poor support for mouse+keyboard control
The default DS3 key/button bindings actually prevent full use of certain weapons by requiring the shift key to be pressed and not-pressed simultaneously. Rebinding is possible, but limited by issues like the left mouse button overriding all others and certain bindings not actually working in game (e.g. Shift+MiddleClick).
Con It's hard
You should try avoiding the trap of great review scores since most of them fail to mention the difficulty. It's simply put - hard. A lot of the combat requires quick reflexes, good mechanics, and the mental fortitude to carry on after failing for hours. If you're new to the Souls-like genre or simply want to enjoy a relaxing evening playing a video game, you most likely won't enjoy Dark Souls III.
Con Poorly tuned dynamic visiblity
You may notice some texture pop in while sharply turning the camera. It can be somewhat distracting if you notice it, but most of the time you won't because it happens in the distance.
Con Occasional performance issues
There are portions of the game that will have noticeable framerate drops, which can negatively affect the gameplay. Most of the fault lies with the game engine, so getting better hardware won't help that much.