Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (Remaster) for Xbox One Review

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Brotherhood is when I got off the Assassin’s Creed train way back when. Not because I thought it was a bad game but because I was having a hard time getting into the series. The first game has issues but I got through it and despite Assassin’s Creed II being a big improvement, I just wasn’t feeling it for some reason. But I beat it. When I got to Brotherhood, I guess that’s when I was finally burnt out. I played it for maybe an hour before stopping and didn’t play another Assassin’s Creed game until Black Flag. But with a renewed interest in the series as of late, I’m taking the opportunity to play through the games and I admit I’m enjoying myself more this time around.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is the follow up to Assassin’s Creed II and continues Desmond’s and Ezio’s stories. Developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood was released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in November, 2010, and PC in March, 2011. It was remastered along with Assassin’s Creed II and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations as part of The Ezio Collection which released for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in November, 2016 and Switch in February, 2022. For this review, I played the remaster for Xbox One on a Series X. The original game comes with a multiplayer component that was not included in The Ezio Collection so this review will only focus on the campaign.

After the events of Assassin’s Creed II, Desmond, Lucy and her team escape an attack from the Templars and establish a new hideout in the ruins of Villa Auditore. There, Desmond continues to relive the memories of his ancestor, Ezio Auditore. Picking up right where his story ended in the last game, Ezio leaves the vault and returns to Monteriggioni with his uncle Mario. His decision to not kill Rodrigo Borgia doesn’t go over well with some of the other assassins and the next day, the city is besieged by an army commanded by Rodrigo’s son, Cesare. Mario is killed during the attack and the Apple of Eden ends up in the hands of the Templars. Ezio survives and travels to Rome seeking vengeance. There, he rebuilds the Assassin Guild and recruits members for the Brotherhood.

I like the story here but I do think Assassin’s Creed II’s story is better. I felt the character development was better and that it was more humorous. However, Brotherhood feels very much like a continuation. It’s not developing a new protagonist. Several returning characters make an appearance and the story feels like it was written under the assumption that the player is familiar with the events of the previous game. So, needless to say, you will get a lot more out of this if you’ve played Assassin’s Creed II. Desmond’s role in the plot is still vital and you can leave the Animus at any time. The game only plucks you out of Ezio’s world at the end of the story which I had no problem with.

I found Brotherhood to be fascinating in a way because much of it feels like Assassin’s Creed II reworked. A lot of the stuff from that game is present here but handled slightly differently. In the end, though, I think I enjoyed Brotherhood more but the jump from II to Brotherhood is certainly not as big as that of the first game to II. Most of the mechanics from Assassin’s Creed II return along with some changes and new additions. The combat has been modified and I think for the better. It’s probably one of the biggest changes. You can still easily win fights by countering but a bigger emphasis has been put on offensive moves. You can kick enemies to break their defenses, fire the pistol during a fight, and chain executions together. As a result of all this, the combat feels even easier than it did before. But at least now fights don’t drag on and I admit trying for a long chain of executions became addictive. Enemies will grab you, and sometimes pick up and throw dirt to disorient you but for the most part, fights are basically the same as they’ve always been but are now even easier to win. At least in my experience.

Instead of travelling to multiple cities like in the previous entries, the story is primarily set in Rome. Assassin’s Creed’s brands of free running, climbing and stealth are all present here and now you can unlock a parachute which can come in handy. Horses play a big role here, you can ride them around the game world as will NPCs and you can call your horse to you at any time. Rome is an open world and more of it is unlocked as you progress through the story. Ubisoft loves to populate their maps with all kinds of icons and Brotherhood is no exception. But one thing that annoys me about this game is icons for things you can’t get to yet. Icons will appear for things on parts of the map you don’t have access to. I’m the type of person that enjoys tackling side missions and activities in between story missions and every time I would glance at the map and see a viewpoint I didn’t synchronize yet for example, I would attempt to take care of it only to realize or remember I didn’t unlock that part or region of the world yet. And after a while that got on my nerves. If the game is preventing the player from accessing something, don’t put it on the fucking map. Especially if that map is filled with icons.

Brotherhood does the video game thing of stripping Ezio of his equipment in the beginning of the game (for plot-related reasons, of course) so you can acquire them again as you progress through the story. You will get your hands on many of the same weapon types as those in Assassin’s Creed II and there are more ranged options here. In addition to the throwing knives and pistol is a crossbow and poison darts, both of which are great for assassinating individuals from long range. You can visit shops like Blacksmiths to repair armor and purchase new armor and weapons and ammunition. Tailors sell ammunition pouches and will change your outfit colors for a fee. Art Merchants sell paintings and treasure maps and Doctors will heal you and sell apothecary supplies. None of this should be new to veterans of Assassin’s Creed II. However, what is new is shop quests and certain items are locked behind these quests. To complete these quests, you must find specific items and bring them to the appropriate vendors. Trade Items is what the game calls them. These along with Florin or money, can be found in chests, by looting bandits and by tackling certain people and Trade Items can be sold to vendors.

As I indicated before, I feel much of Brotherhood is Assassin’s Creed II but reworked. Money is still a big thing here and chests can be found everywhere. Instead of a Villa, you have a hideout in the city and is where you can deposit any feathers you’ve collected, view any paintings you’ve purchased, and view and equip any armor and weapons you’ve purchased. You will generate income but now it must be collected at banks. Even renovations and the factions return. You can spend money to build shops, renovate landmarks, renovate tunnels for fast travel, stables, and rebuild aqueducts. Rather than renovating buildings from one central location, you do have to visit each building in the world and renovating things does increase your income. The factions; courtesans, thieves, and mercenaries still serve the same purpose as before but now you can renovate certain buildings around the game world to house the factions of your choosing. Furthermore, each faction is a guild and has their own guild building, headquarters or base or whatever you want to call it. You can visit these and play minigames and view a list of challenges to complete. Each guild offers challenges which are just simple tasks you can complete as you play through the game and completing challenges does come with special rewards.

Viewpoints are scattered around the world and when you climb to the top of one, you can synchronize or in other words, reveal a portion of the map. Ubisoft and their love affair with towers. But this is nothing new for the series and funnily enough, actual Towers are present here and they all double as viewpoints. At the beginning of the game, all of Rome is under Borgia’s influence and you can’t renovate any shops or buildings in a region until it’s liberated. To liberate a region, you must kill that region’s captain. After you kill the captain, you must climb the Borgia Tower in that region and burn it down. The concept of liberating regions or taking over is kind of cool but I do wish there was a little more to it. No matter what the difficulty level of the region was, I didn’t find it all that challenging to locate and kill the captains and I’m convinced the towers are here because Ubisoft was obsessed. Burning down the towers is supposed to demonstrate that Borgia’s rule is coming to an end but I honestly think it’s because the developers couldn’t come up with a better idea. For some reason, they feel the need to force the player to climb numerous towers which, by the way, all look and feel very similar.

One of my favorite new things here is the Assassin Guild. At a certain point in the story, the Assassin Guild will be established and Ezio will be able to recruit assassins. Travel to the icon on the map and save the citizen under attack to recruit them. It’s that simple. But what’s really cool about the assassins is that they can gain experience and level up. And when they reach the max level, or become full assassins, there’s an actual ceremony. You can change their outfits and every time they level up, you can upgrade their armor and weapon stats. You can call your assassins to assist you and eliminate foes at the press of a button and you can also send them on missions and the reward is always money.

One thing I like about the missions in Brotherhood is the optional requirements. Each mission comes with an optional requirement you must meet to achieve a full synch. For example, you may have to kill someone in a specific way or complete the mission in a set amount of time or complete the main objective without getting detected. This kind of thing does add some replay value to the missions. As expected, you’ll have to assassinate people, steal things, infiltrate areas, and protect people among other things. Walking objectives make a return and most are still tedious and in my opinion, it’s worse here than it was in II. Many story and side missions will require you to follow or tail someone and even with requirements like “stick to the rooftops”, it’s still tedious.

For the most part, I would say Brotherhood is the easiest game up to this point. From the changes to the combat to the ranged weapons to the Assassin Guild, I can’t say any part of the game felt particularly challenging. One thing I noticed, though, is that many missions here require you to not get detected as in you can’t just run straight for your objective and slay everyone in your path. But I do like many of the missions in this game, both story and side missions. Not only that, the Animus in this game comes with a Virtual Training mode with different categories of trials to complete for record times and medals and you can attempt these at any time. Brotherhood does see the return of Assassination Contracts and each Guild will have assignments for you to complete. In addition to these, you can kill Templar Agents, destroy Borgia’s War Machines, and explore the Lairs of Romulus for keys and scrolls.

The Lairs of Romulus will feel familiar if you’ve played Assassin’s Creed II. They’re basically structured like the Assassin Tombs and once you get all the keys, you can unlock special armor. As for the War Machine missions, each one will task you with destroying a war machine and end with a cool set piece like bombing enemies from the flying machine and driving a tank. First you have to locate and kill the Overseer to acquire the war plans. Then you travel to the location of the machine itself and must find and destroy the blueprints without being detected and then find and use the machine before destroying it.

In what seems like typical Assassin’s Creed fashion, there are some elements that feel copy and pasted. The War Machine missions seem to follow the same formula, every single captain and Borgia Tower feels similar despite the different locations, and most of the Lairs of Romulus feel similar – free-running and climbing platforming challenges with some combat here and there. I am happy to say Ubisoft didn’t copy and paste the exact same obstacle around the game world. Or at least not as much. There’s no codex pages this time and most chests are easy to get to and I didn’t feel the need to hire factions nearly as often as I did in Assassin’s Creed II. But in that game, I primarily hired them for getting the codex pages and guarded chests because it was the most obvious and easiest method. In Brotherhood, there are some areas and missions where the factions prove to be helpful and you can also call in your assassins to take care of any enemies in your way.

Visually, this remaster does allow for HDR and much like the last game, I find it very pleasing on the eyes. The presentation is colorful, the animations still look great, textures look good and crisp, but also like the last game in this collection, it does look like an older game touched up. Pop-in is easily the biggest eyesore in my opinion. It is rampant. Brotherhood is yet another game with good audio work and excellent music composed by Jesper Kyd. A lot of dramatic and intense tunes that fit what’s happening on-screen nicely. On the technical side, I’m happy to say the game ran smooth and didn’t crash on me once.

I really enjoyed my time with Brotherhood and while much of it feels like Assassin’s Creed II recycled or reworked, I enjoyed this more. Mainly because I prefer the changes and new additions. I like the way Brotherhood handles the renovations and I love the changes to the combat. Despite feeling easier, placing a bigger emphasis on offensive moves makes the combat feel more fluid and better in my opinion. If the fights are not going to offer much in the way of challenge, at least let me get through them quickly and that’s exactly what Brotherhood does but it makes it fun. At least I think so. I found chaining executions together to be rewarding and addictive and welcomed more and more enemies into battles because of it. I also enjoy the Assassin Guild concept. I like the idea of building a gang of assassins that I can call upon any time and send out on missions. They can make completing certain objectives a lot easier but there is something satisfying about watching them slay foes for you. To see them show up out of nowhere and strike your enemies dead. I think it’s cool.

My biggest complaint with this game is the amount of walking or follow objectives. Follow someone and see who he interacts with, follow someone and assassinate the targets they point out, follow the target to a secluded place – it’s a bit much. In my opinion, I would say much of the challenge in Brotherhood comes from the requirements you must meet to achieve full synchronizations. I found most missions easy to complete but the full synch requirements would make me think about my approach. For example, I could easily drop my target with the crossbow but to achieve a full synch, I need to use the hidden blade which is a little trickier. It’s that kind of thing. Ultimately, I think all the changes and new additions make Brotherhood the best Assassin’s Creed game up to this point.

I would absolutely recommend Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. It’s a fun open world adventure and a sequel with solid improvements and changes and it introduces some cool new ideas and concepts. But if you didn’t like Assassin’s Creed II, I don’t think this will appeal to you. From a gameplay perspective, Brotherhood is not radically different. But if you enjoy the Assassin’s Creed formula and are a fan of the previous entry, I think Brotherhood should satisfy your craving for more. Definitely check it out.