Assassin’s Creed is up to 18 games and a Michael Fassbender movie. That’s more games than any other Fassbender movie franchise, including Shame. Honestly, you probably know more about Desmond’s family history than your own. You can name more of his relatives than there are Kardashians. You have been to more countries in these games than most people go to in their entire lives. Maybe even in your own life. With Assassin Creed: Origins coming⛄ out later this year, it’s time to look back at the massive franchise and remember the good times and the bad.

The unique franchise blends sci-fi and an abbreviated history lesson into open world gaming. The care the developers put into ♑each game is seen in the detail of the maps from recreating Florence to making the Caribbean sailable. The gameplay mechanics in many games are fluid and feel authentic. It does not matter what time period you are in when your assassin does their leap of faith, it feels real. Escaping🔥 enemies across roof tops and through back alleys, creates an experience many gamers keep coming back too.

For all the good the franchise has done, it has also produced rushed and incomplete games that lack the feel of a great Assassin’s Creed game. When an Assassin’s Creed game falls short of expectations, it doesn’t just let gamers down, it lets the entire time period. It isn’t the American Revolution’s or the French Revolution’s fault their games are worse than the Crusades or even the Renaissance. They are awesome time periods that deserve better from the Ubisoft crew. Let’s hop in the Animus and travel back to rank all the Assassin’s Creed games from worst to best.

18 Assassin’s Creed: Unity 💜

We have to start this list with the biggest failure of the franchise, both mechanically and publicly. Unity was supposed to be a revamp of the franchise from top to bottom, but served more as a teachable moment than blockbuster game. The game was glitchy and ♓felt rushed, not just in the mechanics of the game, but in the new multiplayer Ubisoft built from the ground up for this title.

It was by far the largest game ever released in the franchise, with that same attention to detail when it comes to recreating a city as previous titles. Sadly, the game just tried to do too much all at once. The glitches, that are now🍰 memes, are all anyone really remembers about the game though. It did try to expand the assassination system and it did attempt to create puzzles that needed more than simple platforming abilities. There are just were too many issues that rendered it unplayable for even 𝄹some diehard fans, which is a shame for the period because it was an excellent choice.

17 🐼 🃏 Assassin’s Creed: Altair Chronicles

After the success of the first Assassin’s Creed game, Ubisoft released two portable titles before returning to consoles. Altair Chronicles was the first of these two stinkers. The transition from consoles to mobile or portable games is a tough one because the game experience needs to be translated for the new device. Chronicles dumbs down instead of translating.

Altair is hunting for a👍 magical item called the Chalice, but what gamers will remember is the limitede combat, repetitive missions, and lack of diversity when it comes to the environments. The game took a highly involved and complex system of climbing, jumping, stealth, planning, and sword fighting and made it into a basic hack-n-slash with som♓e stealth thrown in. Luckily, this portable version did not sink the series before it got started.

16 ℱ Assassin’s Creed 🍎

The reason the first game is ranked as one of the 💙worst is because how good the games that followed are. Thꦯe game was not perfect, but no new IP is going to be flawless out of the gate. If anything, having the first game of any franchise as one of the worst is a good sign the developers got better at making games.

Compared to the best Assassin’s Creed games, the original falls flat into a hay cart. It is repetitive and bland with a seemingly unending list of tasks. These tasks may have you running through a new part of the city, but you are still collecting the same things. The combat has also come a long way since the orig🌄inal. The simplistic system that provides all fighting to be done with one button can no longer cut it. The game provided a solid base for the franchise, allowing gamers them to see what could be. Then there is that ending. It might be the worst in video game history. You just stand there in a room with a bunch of writing on the walls and nothing happens. It’s terrible.

15 Assassin’s 📖Creed: Bloodlines

The other portable game Ubisoft created in between Assassin’s Creed I and II was Bloodlines. This time they tried to focus on replicating the free running, open feel of the console games,🌠 but for the PSP. It was meant to be the bridge between the console games, but it left ෴gamers on shaky ground.

The developers didn’t stress the fun, assassination aspect of the console games. That alone didn’t sink the game though. The combat and poor attempt at putting free running on a PSP really killed the game. While the story was compelling, focusing primarily on Altair and Maria Thorpe and less on Templars, the poor gameplay ruined any chance at the series first portable success. Bloodlines was a step in the right direction, it just over simplified what made the console games 🐻great.

14 💮 Assassin’s Creed Identity ♏

Identity was Ubisoft’s commitment to bringing the same level of quality from𝄹 the console games to portables. The game was broken up into smaller, more linear segments with an RPG elemen🌱t added in to stand out. The game took place in Ezio’s time, but left out the enigmatic protagonist.

The problem with the game is it suffered from free-to-play-ittis. The developers making money off of your need to move faster, kill quicker, and progress at a normal pace took precedent over the quality of the game. Making the game into smaller self-contained chunks also lost that living breathing city feel the console games had. Identity ꦑwanted to be the portable answer the franchise was looking for, but it was just too grounded in micro transactions to do it.

13 🐻 Assassin’s Creed II: Discovery 𓆉

There are good Assassin Creed mobile games, I promise. Just hang in there. Ubisoft took a lot of missteps before they learned to fly on portables. Discovery was simply just a vehicle to give gamers a few more min🏅utes and hours with Ezio while on the go.

Stealth is not stressed here because this 2D platformer plays like an endless runner, rather than a full-on Assassin’s Creed game. Yes, the main character is Ezio and yes, there are assets and elements that remind the gamer of the Assassin’s Creed brand. But the game itself is jus🎀t bland. Sure, you fight guards along the way, but there is no finesse or planning that goes into each enℱcounter. The game feels like a knock off version that is unfortunately made by original creators.

12 💫 Assassin’s Creed III ඣ

Ubisoft thought they had it made when they chose the American Revolution for the setting of their next Desmond based Assassin’s Creed game. American history has Templars crawling all over it and the Tomahawܫk is a perfect Assassin’s weapon. The g♏ame, however, did not meet expectations.

This was the first game to toy with the idea of sailing, which Black Flag would later perfect. The biggest complaint from gamers and critics was the sheer number o💫f hours it took before an assassination wa🎶s even an option. Assassin is in the title of the game and this was technically the seventh game released in the franchise. The game was also plagued by bugs and poor controls, that left many gamers wondering if the American Revolution was worth it at all.

11 Assassin’s ♏Creed Chronicles: Russia

The fact that the October Revolution in Russia did not get a better Assassin’s Creed game is disappointing, as the game writes it♔self.

Russia was the closing chapter in the Chronicles trilogy (with the other two taking place in China and India) and unfortunately it ended the series poorly. The game itself has lofty goals, from trying to recover important Assassin artifacts while fighting off Assassins and Templars alike to save an innocent girl. The gameplay is just too difficult for its own sake. The art style tried to mimic the cold harshness of Russia in 1918, but it ended up looking bland and sad instead. It felt rushed and, after the other two more successful Chronicle games, it doesn’t make sense.

10 🎉 Assassin’s Creed: Rogue 💧

Released at the same exact time as Unity, which still baffles everyone outside of Ubisoft, Rogue only fared a tiny bit better. It did offer a groundbreaking new feature in gameplay, as gamers got to pay as a Templar. However, the only problem was it went over like the Arbiter levels in Halo 2.

The game itself was incredibly safe, even by Assassin’s Creed standards. The game was Black Flag with a few new places to explore. While, Black Flag is one of the best games in the franchise, creating a virtual copy of the game and asking gamers to fork over money is wrong. There were new places to explore like the Arctic, but it wasn't enough. The game was at least less buggy than Unity and didn’t rock the boat when it came to gameplay, but Rogue till became the forgotten child in the publicity nightmare that was Unity’s launch.

9 ♏ Assa🌞ssin's Creed: Revelations

Ubisoft felt like Ezio and Altair needed one last ride together, but this time they set their sights on Constantinople. Ubisoft should be commended for attempting to have an older and mature protagonist, but that is where the praise ends for Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.

The game did not venture too far out from what was built in the previous games, Assassin’s Creed II and Brotherhood. As a result, the gameplay was more of the same and left little to no impression on gamers. The real take away from this game was saying good bye to the two characters that made the franchise into a household name. The story is the best part of Revelations. While you can’t fault Ubisoft🐼 for making a good story, you can fault them for not caring about the game the stor🎃y is housed in. These characters deserved the narrative good-bye they got, just not the game they got.