After a relatively lacklustre remastering effort with Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection, Ubisoft has returned with Assassin’s Creed 3 Remastered, an altogether more interesting effort. It’s more than just a port of the PC version of the original release, with improvements to art asset quality, radically revamped lighting and a lot of tweaks to game mechanics. It’s out now on Xbox, PlayStation and PC but it’s a shame that we have to wait until next month for the Switch version – the first time we’ve seen a mainline AC title arrive in handheld form.
In the here and now though, there are still plenty of points of interest – and not just in terms of its visuals. The crafting system allows you to create weapons you could previously only buy, while the mini-map is much improved with a lot more information. Certain aspects of the stealth system from later titles in the series have also been retrofitted into this new version of AC3. There’s no radical reinvention here, but these improvements are welcome. On top of that, all of the original DLC is included, plus a port of the HD version of PS Vita’s Assassin’s Creed 3: Liberation.
In terms of the visual upgrades, yes, there is a resolution improvement, but unlike the Ezio Collection, that’s not the end of the story. Easily the most obvious change is a new lighting system based on physically-based rendering. I’d say that this is an improvement overall, but the change may prove controversial – there’s a different look to the game now that doesn’t match the original artistic vision. The zoomer comparisons on this page highlight that difference, where equally, the good news is that improved textures and effects are now in play too.
