The London of the Syndicate is 30% larger than the Paris of Assassin’s Creed: Unity and is made up of seven neighborhoods: Westminster, The Strand, The City of London, The Thames, Whitechapel, Southwark and Lambeth. To create as much contrast as possible between these areas, certain architectural styles were isolated to certain neighborhoods.
As photography had already been invented by the time of the Industrial Revolution, developers had a rich bank of images and photos royals to help them recreate London. Still, the city has been simplified to accommodate gameplay; Landmark locations are geographically accurate, but the distance between them has been adjusted. While London is the game’s main setting, locations outside of London will be visited during the storyline.
There are drastic architectural changes between unity and union, including larger avenues and more floors in taller buildings. These changes led to the addition of the rope launcher to the killer’s arsenal, to make navigating the city easier.
Transportation and activities
Carriages serve as the fastest mode of vehicle transportation around the city, with crowds now being restricted to roadside sidewalks. Trains and steamboats also appear and are mainly used to travel around the city, although the boats are restricted as freerunning platforms across the Thames, while the killers have a train hideout that runs through the city.
< To liberate the boroughs of London, various activities are available, including bounty hunting, Templar assassinations, fortress attacking and child liberation from factories. Once the Templars' control over the area was sufficiently weakened, a gang war would break out, culminating in the neighborhood being taken over entirely by the assassin gang, the Rooks.
Money is counted in pounds and can be acquired by completing missions, scouting, opening chests, participating in street races, winning in fight clubs and carrying out train and cargo escort robberies. Many of these activities also grant materials, necessary for crafting certain items and upgrades.
Kidnapping is introduced as a stealth mechanic and mission objective. The first allows any enemy who is not aware of Jacob/Evie to be kidnapped and used as a form of blending, allowing access to restricted areas. During the kidnapping, a ring appears around the characters, signifying how close other enemies can get before realizing the ruse. This slows down the slowest people who walk and increases a lot if they are running. Occasionally, the victim will try to escape, needing to be restrained. When their objective is over, they can be assassinated or knocked out. For missions, mainly bounty hunts, targets can be kidnapped and loaded into carriages.
Characters, customization and weapons
Both playable characters have different skill trees and play styles of the Frye twins reflect their different personalities. With a few exceptions, you can switch between characters at will between missions.
Assassins accumulate a variety of equipment at their disposal, but begin the game with a blade hidden in their assassin gauntlet, bombs, smoke and throwing knives. Throwing knives have the new ability to activate traps in the environment, such as hanging barrels. As the story progresses, a rope launcher and Dart Launcher are added to the assassin’s gauntlets. Hallucinogenic darts can be fired from the glove at individuals, or can be fired into fires to affect a wider area. The rope launcher can be used to quickly scale buildings and on rooftops it can be used to create temporary zip lines. Firearms are available, including derringers, revolvers and semi-automatic pistols. Brass knuckles, canes, and kukris are available melee weapons, but each twin can only equip one weapon at a time. Due to the era’s stricter regulations on carrying weapons, the playable characters hide their weapons when not in use.
As the reckless and brawling twin, Jacob starts the game with a pair of knuckles of bronze. Evie, being level-headed and less exuberant than her brother, is more focused on stealth. She starts the game with a cane sword. Both twins can use unlocked weapons and gauntlets, but have their own clothing items; Evie’s cloaks and Jacob’s belts provide bonuses to defense and stealth, but cloaks give a greater bonus to stealth, while belts offer stronger defense. These items are used in addition to your clothes.
