It's safe to say that I've been around long enough to witness the full cycle of opinions on Assassin's Creed 3, and it's been one hell of a ride.
The game was once regarded as one of the franchise's weakest entries and is now receiving praise from fans who, a decade ago, would have called it the worst thing Ubisoft ever put out.
I was there when everyone counted it out, and I'm still here now, watching people finally realize what we had all along. Looking back, the criticisms were plenty: bad pacing, a "boring" protagonist, too many bugs, and a world that felt dull compared to the grand cities of its predecessors.
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+ 4But over time, as the AC formula evolved (or, depending on who you ask, lost its way), AC3 started looking less like a misstep and more like an underrated classic. AC3 had the difficult task of following the Ezio Trilogy, widely considered the golden age of the franchise.
Ezio Auditore was the face of AC, a charismatic, smooth-talking master assassin who carried three entire games on his back. Meanwhile, Connor Kenway was a stark contrast with his stoic and duty-driven personality. Compared to Ezio, he felt stiff and emotionless, but that was only if you weren't paying attention. Players found it hard to connect with him and expected Ezio, not a character with a different past.
The game's structure didn't do him any favors either. The intro was long. I played as Haytham Kenway for hours before I even got to Connor, and by the time players finally became an Assassin, some players had already lost interest. The pacing dragged, and the mission design relied too much on tailing sequences and eavesdropping.
click to enlarge + 4The slow start left those of us eager to don the Assassin robes feeling frustrated. The world was historically rich but lacked the verticality of Italy and the swashbuckling freedom of the Caribbean, making it feel less grand than what came before.
Technical issues didn't help either. AC3 was one of the most ambitious games Ubisoft had ever created, but that ambition came at a cost. If you played AC3 at launch, you probably also have a horror story about missions breaking, characters glitching through the map, or your save file deciding to self-destruct. Ubisoft's ambitions bumped into hardware limits, and for many, that first impression didn't fade.
So how is it that, after all this time, people are finally realizing that AC3 was actually pretty great?
It's partly nostalgia, but even more so, how AC evolved. As AC turned into a huge open-world RPG with games like Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla focusing on role-playing and grinding, players started missing the classic stealth-action gameplay. The strengths of AC3 were drowned out by its flaws when it came out. But in retrospect, those strengths were what set it apart.
click to enlarge + 4The biggest misconception about Connor is that he was "boring." In reality, he was one of the most skillfully written assassins the series has ever had. Unlike Ezio, who had charm, or Altair, who had an air of mystery, he was a serious, conflicted character who never truly fit in anywhere. He was torn between two worlds and constantly used by people who claimed to have his best interests at heart. He stood for justice, yet the revolution he fought for failed to fulfill its promises.
People claim he had no personality, but that's only if you skip the Homestead missions, which are easily one of the best side questlines in the series. The side content was ahead of its time and foreshadowed the base-building mechanics that would become more common in later games. If anything, the problem wasn't that Connor had no personality—it was that most players never got to see his full depth.
For a series built on the idea of a war between Assassins and Templars, AC3 was the first game to make that war feel morally gray. Haytham Kenway (Connor's father) was a Templar who genuinely believed his way was the best path to order and peace. His ideological clashes with Connor were a debate over what freedom really meant. Their rooftop conversation in New York is still hands down one of the most thought-provoking moments in the series (at least for me).
click to enlarge + 4Some also argue that AC3's parkour wasn't great, and I can see their point, but if you play it again today, you'll notice how smooth and weighty it feels. However, it also simplified parkour in a way that didn't sit well with some long-time players. Unlike in AC2 and Brotherhood, where you had to be precise with climbing and freerunning, AC3 added an auto-navigation system that made traversal less about skill.
The combat was visceral, with animations that made every counter-kill feel satisfying. His fighting style (inspired by his Mohawk heritage) was aggressive and distinct. Tree parkour and tree-running also made traversal feel natural, even in the vast American frontier. And although the cities weren't as vertical as Florence or Rome, they felt alive in a way that later games struggled to match.
At the time, AC3 was seen as a disappointment because people wanted it to be Ezio's Grand Finale Part 4. It was a bold step forward, and maybe that's why it took people this long to appreciate it fully.
This doesn't rule out AC3 facing the same criticism if it were released today. However, it's obvious that AC3 was ahead of its time, especially considering how AC has changed over the years.
And now, over a decade later, people are finally starting to see it for what it was: an AC game that deserved better.
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