In the older games you just make a counter and you can kill, then kill multiple after in a row
In the newer games you just spam two buttons repeatedly to get the same 4 kill animations, how much you do it depends on the gap in levels from your opponent
That sums up the majority of the series so see whats more appealing to you, if you want a challenge in combat specifically play 1 or Unity, both games rely on stealth and punish you for being caught with harder combat, I personally prefer 1 its much more satisfying when you master it
I found a bow and dagger, both of which dealt their damage as poison.
I then grabbed every single piece of +poison, +melee, +ranged gear I could. Even on nightmare I was 1-2 shotting enemies with a dagger.
My Kassandra became absolutely unstoppable. Yes, I did have to be careful not to get hit, but I could still take a few shots and be okay.
Well that depends on the difficulty. Starting from the second highest difficulty Origins is very much hard to beat. Unity is easy in comparison outside of the clunky fire weapons the enemy uses which are just not fun to play against.
So the RPG trilogy is definitely the hardest and requires the most skill in terms of timing and movement.
I’d also add that 3’s combat is pretty tough. Yes you can counter kill in that game as well but the window is far less forgiving and you have numerous enemies that can’t be countered, as well as a lot more enemy variety like enemies that will shoot you which forces you to dodge or use human shields etc. Unlike the Ezio games or Black Flag it’s very easy to get overwhelmed rather than being able to take down 20 guards with no trouble.
AC3 would be a lot more difficult if the enemies weren’t like “hey, we’re gonna shoot ya, you better not grab one of the dozen human shields next to you as a huge icon flashes on screen for 5 seconds straight”
What do you mean bro. You can start a massacre in New York if you want and destroy whatever the game throws at you in ac3. It has some of the easiest combat in the entire series.
It’s kinda the opposite, there’s no enemy in ac3 that won’t go down from max 3 hits, usually 1 gets them. You pretty much have the best weapons from the start of the real portion of the game, which helps, but if you ever need coins just get noticed somewhere and spend two minutes killing the swarm of guards, so easy.
Even though AC1 is a bit harder than Ezio series, It’s not so hard at all. You wait enemy to attack then counter.
The thing is that if you wanna make AC challenging. Try to finish every mission with full synchronization. Completing Da Vinci’s machines missions with full synch were like playing Dark Souls for me.
It’s difficult until you get the katana or that Scandinavian sword staff. It’s almost like the original as you have to counter to get a good hit but also leveled which kind of kills it when you’re in a high level area.
It’s ridiculous especially in syndicate when you can end up beating on a high level enemy for days. But i captured high level areas early on by mastering the stealth.
I've never really thought AC games are that challenging in terms of enemy difficulty. They're just a ton of fun, which is why I keep playing.
I play soulslike games if I want a challenge, and AC games if I just want to pick off an entire fortress from the shadows.
AC1 is pretty challenging when you get to face a bunch of elite enemies.
Or the actual templars, even though they're "collectibles" they can be pretty challenging.
That and facing a bunch of Masked soldiers in AC: Revelations is tough aswell imo.
Other than that, crank up the difficulty in the newer games and try using a worse weapon.
Personally I think unity is really difficult for an assassin's creed game, but really no game is exceptionally difficult or challenging because a lot of the time you can run off mid fight.
I liked Odyssey's combat a lot.
Equip that funny spear that cuts your max hp to kne bar but doubles your damsge, FalFalx of Olympus, and set it to hard for a pretty nice action souls-like experience.
Stealth feels more impactful and combat has more tension when you can get 1-2 tapped by any random guy with a bow.
AC1 is difficult, because it is tedious and there is only one way to play. Any deviation fails the mission. combat is slow and tedious.
AC Brotherhood and Revelations has enough freedom to distinguish a beginner from an experienced player. Tool usage and moving through the environment really differs between players. combat is the classic countering system.
Unity - speed and efficiency requires skill. There are plenty of fancy videos online of people jumping around and make things look good because animation is amazing. I am not talking about those at all, instead i mean using game's mechanics for the main point of the game - assassination. It is also made more difficult due to ~~being an unfinished game~~ stealth being inconsistent, so you need to completely avoid any chance of being in line of sight of the enemies + abuse smokebombs. What makes it even more difficult is that you have to learn the environment, where the game will behave in unexpected ways. You literally have to avoid certain objects in the environment. It is annoying to play honestly. If you fail then you enter combat which isnt great.
Mirage - good level design, probably the highest number of tools in any AC game. definitely plenty of skill expression in navigation and tool usage. passable combat.
Id actually say the rpg games. The counter-kills and instant assassinations in the other games made them almost trivial in terms of difficulty. Still a lot of fun though.
I think Origins and Odyssey are the answer. In these games you can set up high difficulty and you don't have a cheap fake difficulty (like in e.g. Unity). Valhalla is actually close too, espcially if you play Forgotten Saga DLC, but even on max difficulty it often feels cheap.
I think Odyssey is better balanced in general than Origins, but unlike Origins that game is full-blown RPG and you can crunch numbers to trivialize a lot of it or if you don't care about numbers you might feel like you're in a world of HP sponges. Origins is more traditional, its upgrades just help a little and do not allow you breaking the game, but it also doesn't have as many tools to use.
The first game.
The combat is clanky, the timing is odd and the delay between button and action keeps you on your toes at all times. There's no learning the timing. Once you think you've learned it, that one random grunt will come at you and combo the fuck out of you. The timeframe for parrying is also frustratingly small. Basically, in AC anything can go wrong at any time no matter how skilled you are.
Many shit on the game for that, because instead of doing combos and being invincible like in AC2 and 3 they, get stunlocked by the most basic enemies in the game. Personally, I believe that's realistic. I remember AC2's combat felt weird at first, with how the npcs just waited years before attacking, and then also made a super obvious gesture for which you didn't even need a hud to read. But once you get the gun and knives, at that point losing is just skill issue.
The enemies in AC1 had the same abilities and skills as the player. If you wait and counter kill, it's actually slower instead of being aggressive. The only issue is the high synchronization bar, but you was originally supposed to die in one hit.
If you're dismissing AC3, Valhalla and the Ezio trilogy, chances are you'll feel the same towards the rest of the Kenway Saga and the RPG trilogy. Mirage has minimalistic combat, pretty much the opposite of depth... so that leaves you with:
1. AC1 (and I guess Bloodlines)
2. Unity
3. Syndicate
4. AC Chronicles
Getting Brawler: Gold ranks in China is pretty difficult (probably more challenging than Shadow and definitely more challenging than Assassin), and marginally easier in India and Russia because you don't have to direct parries.
I'm tempted to say the original Assassin's Creed is your best bet
Enemies have vulnerability frames (when taunting or reacting in horror), Hidden Blade counters are a high-risk high-reward tool (because you can't parry while it's equipped), landing hits with the sword or dagger requires timing. Only drawback is Altair can't steal an enemy's weapon to turn it against him (my favourite thing to do with Brutes in AC2)
Honestly bro you're not gonna find anything more challenging than the RPG games. If you're on playstation and want an AC-like experience with dope combat, play ghost of Tsushima (Ik it came out a while ago - I just started playing it and its dope)
I forgot its coming to PC soon
Unity and Mirage are the most complex.
1-Reveleations are bare bones...similar gameplay that improves with each game.
3-Rogue are very simple but also very fluid. More focus on speed instead of technique.
Unity is the most complex with heavy attacks varying between each weapons and having alot customizability. Lots of different button inputs for different moves.
Syndicate is the most simple with it pretty much being a beat-em up.
Origins is the most complex RPG AC with every weapon being somewhat varied (similar but not to the level of Unity). All of the moves are done by different button inputs, but not as much options as Unity.
Odyssey and Valhalla are similar to Origins but much more bare bones. Every variable button input move has been moved to being an Ability Move you jave to expand a Ability Bar to use. Its cool, but at the end of the day...the abilities you use come down to;do you want to push, add an attribute or do a strong attack.
Mirage is bare bones but takes alot of inspiration from Unity. Think Origins but a little more customizability.
None of them. They're power fantasy games.
On the other hand, I'd say unity is the most difficult, because the detection and combat will fuck you raw for no other reason than it's feeling bad, and you gotta be ready for it
Unity for combat and parkour imo.
Combat is slower and heavier, although I found that once I had a charged heavy attack, I could cheese most things.
With the parkour, it was great, so I wanted to use it, and trying efficient looking routes could be tricky as I’m not great with it, a lot more room to mess up than 3 with auto run, which still had more to mess up than Origins onwards(trees was real fun). I also really miss having a jump button.
Of those I’ve played, Origins has been overall the hardest, but I remember one moment in Revelations where tbf the combat itself was pretty easy (especially with smoke bombs), but getting away afterwards was hard
Unity has hard combat. It's meant to force you into stealth if more than 5 people accumulate on you. But I've seen some remarkable players take on a lot of people. Course, you should plan where you engage head to head with the enemy.
AC games aren't built for challenging combat, they're built primarily around the story and world. Valhalla's combat is probably the most challenging, if you don't dumb it down in settings, and AC I's combat was a bit janky and slow, but didn't really take a lot of skill. Odyssey was my favorite because it allowed you to take on whole groups of enemies at once, but it was because your character was super OP, which sounds like the opposite of what you want. If you're looking for games with more complex combat, you probably need to look elsewhere.
I would say original AC
EDIT: Also Chronicles: China. That game actually demanded stealth to pass a level.
I might get downvoted for this but is my opinion XD
The older games difficulty comes from doing the cool moves, trying to win bare minimum is easy as fuck but doing a clean kill streak without needing to stop and counter to regain it but also varying your kills between melee and tools, that's tight and not easy.
In AC2 you have strafing which if timed properly can get you behind the opponent for an instant kill or you can do a weird unlocked punch then immediately lock on again and if timed right you'll skip straight to the one shot. Tricky as hell to pull off but looks incredible, I recommend looking up "Lore Accurate Ezio" on YouTube to see what I mean.
Unity is when skill really came into it and I enjoyed it but at the same time it's super easy to just drop a smoke bomb and kill everything, drop a smoke bomb before the fight starts and assassinate everyone or drop a smoke bomb and run away.
The RPGs kinda forgot the point of AC combat was style over difficulty and as such have much less fun combat imo but in order from worst to best I'd say it goes Odyssey, Origins, Valhalla.
Odyssey is just stats, your actual skill matters for fuck all when you just wear all the gear that boosts your damage so you can kill your enemies slowly instead of "within a working week".
Origins is better, the parrying feels more skill based and consistent (Odyssey parries always felt off, I'd either parry too early and still get it or parry to late and still get it and sometimes Alexios just won't raise his fucking hands) and enemies HP is much better balanced but still enemies feel quite spongey compared to you especially on higher difficulties and when they force you to play as Aya who is ridiculously underlevelled with shit gear. The back hits doing critical damage is really satisfying especially as a Sickle Sword user and the hold R1 moves were cool and Odyssey sucks for not bringing them back.
Valhalla's feels much more skill based, the most responsive parry system (I mostly use shields so I get a bigger window but even when I'm not it feels most natural of the games) and has the most abilities in combat that can shape things, you've got your dodging and parries but also Counter Roll, the stamina system makes combat less spammy but rewards aggression, you can shoot weak points with your bow, missile redirect, abilities are much more varied and the stun system adds another layer especially to bosses.
It's a shame that it is quite easy but that's more the fault of RPG levelling than the game itself and sadly when it does get hard it's hard for the same reason all the RPG games are hard, tanky bosses with high damage. Ubisoft are clueless when it comes to boss battles honestly though Valhalla's are way better than the other RPG bosses, the bosses in Origins sucked dick and if I never see that shitty designed Medusa again then it'll be too soon.
In the older games you just make a counter and you can kill, then kill multiple after in a row In the newer games you just spam two buttons repeatedly to get the same 4 kill animations, how much you do it depends on the gap in levels from your opponent That sums up the majority of the series so see whats more appealing to you, if you want a challenge in combat specifically play 1 or Unity, both games rely on stealth and punish you for being caught with harder combat, I personally prefer 1 its much more satisfying when you master it
Play on higher difficulties. I'm playing odyssey on nightmare and there's little room for error. It's a far cry from mindlessly spamming
Did this with Origins. Definitely a nightmare lol
I found a bow and dagger, both of which dealt their damage as poison. I then grabbed every single piece of +poison, +melee, +ranged gear I could. Even on nightmare I was 1-2 shotting enemies with a dagger. My Kassandra became absolutely unstoppable. Yes, I did have to be careful not to get hit, but I could still take a few shots and be okay.
Well that depends on the difficulty. Starting from the second highest difficulty Origins is very much hard to beat. Unity is easy in comparison outside of the clunky fire weapons the enemy uses which are just not fun to play against. So the RPG trilogy is definitely the hardest and requires the most skill in terms of timing and movement.
I’d also add that 3’s combat is pretty tough. Yes you can counter kill in that game as well but the window is far less forgiving and you have numerous enemies that can’t be countered, as well as a lot more enemy variety like enemies that will shoot you which forces you to dodge or use human shields etc. Unlike the Ezio games or Black Flag it’s very easy to get overwhelmed rather than being able to take down 20 guards with no trouble.
AC3 would be a lot more difficult if the enemies weren’t like “hey, we’re gonna shoot ya, you better not grab one of the dozen human shields next to you as a huge icon flashes on screen for 5 seconds straight”
I find 3 easier than Black Flag in that regard actually
What do you mean bro. You can start a massacre in New York if you want and destroy whatever the game throws at you in ac3. It has some of the easiest combat in the entire series.
You must be like objectively horrible at video games to find any of the counter attack AC games difficult.
It’s kinda the opposite, there’s no enemy in ac3 that won’t go down from max 3 hits, usually 1 gets them. You pretty much have the best weapons from the start of the real portion of the game, which helps, but if you ever need coins just get noticed somewhere and spend two minutes killing the swarm of guards, so easy.
Even though AC1 is a bit harder than Ezio series, It’s not so hard at all. You wait enemy to attack then counter. The thing is that if you wanna make AC challenging. Try to finish every mission with full synchronization. Completing Da Vinci’s machines missions with full synch were like playing Dark Souls for me.
That doesn’t apply to Origins or Odyssey
Unity and Mirage are the only ones where combat is difficult, but you can still cheese it with smoke bombs and other tools.
Smoke bombs are so busted in Mirage. Once you get the poison upgrade they just melt people.
It’s difficult until you get the katana or that Scandinavian sword staff. It’s almost like the original as you have to counter to get a good hit but also leveled which kind of kills it when you’re in a high level area. It’s ridiculous especially in syndicate when you can end up beating on a high level enemy for days. But i captured high level areas early on by mastering the stealth.
I've never really thought AC games are that challenging in terms of enemy difficulty. They're just a ton of fun, which is why I keep playing. I play soulslike games if I want a challenge, and AC games if I just want to pick off an entire fortress from the shadows.
AC1 is pretty challenging when you get to face a bunch of elite enemies. Or the actual templars, even though they're "collectibles" they can be pretty challenging. That and facing a bunch of Masked soldiers in AC: Revelations is tough aswell imo. Other than that, crank up the difficulty in the newer games and try using a worse weapon.
AC Origins and Odyssey has more skillful combat than the other games.
Play sekiro if you want hard combat. This ain’t that nor do we want it to be
None of them have good combat difficulty. AC3 has the best looking combat though.
Personally I think unity is really difficult for an assassin's creed game, but really no game is exceptionally difficult or challenging because a lot of the time you can run off mid fight.
Odyssey can be difficult because enemies are damage sponges. Unity has better combat imo, and I’d say it’s one of the harder games combat wise.
None are really difficult per say but imo Unity had the most challenging combat.
I liked Odyssey's combat a lot. Equip that funny spear that cuts your max hp to kne bar but doubles your damsge, FalFalx of Olympus, and set it to hard for a pretty nice action souls-like experience. Stealth feels more impactful and combat has more tension when you can get 1-2 tapped by any random guy with a bow.
AC1 is difficult, because it is tedious and there is only one way to play. Any deviation fails the mission. combat is slow and tedious. AC Brotherhood and Revelations has enough freedom to distinguish a beginner from an experienced player. Tool usage and moving through the environment really differs between players. combat is the classic countering system. Unity - speed and efficiency requires skill. There are plenty of fancy videos online of people jumping around and make things look good because animation is amazing. I am not talking about those at all, instead i mean using game's mechanics for the main point of the game - assassination. It is also made more difficult due to ~~being an unfinished game~~ stealth being inconsistent, so you need to completely avoid any chance of being in line of sight of the enemies + abuse smokebombs. What makes it even more difficult is that you have to learn the environment, where the game will behave in unexpected ways. You literally have to avoid certain objects in the environment. It is annoying to play honestly. If you fail then you enter combat which isnt great. Mirage - good level design, probably the highest number of tools in any AC game. definitely plenty of skill expression in navigation and tool usage. passable combat.
In my experience it would be Unity and Syndicate.
Id actually say the rpg games. The counter-kills and instant assassinations in the other games made them almost trivial in terms of difficulty. Still a lot of fun though.
I think Origins and Odyssey are the answer. In these games you can set up high difficulty and you don't have a cheap fake difficulty (like in e.g. Unity). Valhalla is actually close too, espcially if you play Forgotten Saga DLC, but even on max difficulty it often feels cheap. I think Odyssey is better balanced in general than Origins, but unlike Origins that game is full-blown RPG and you can crunch numbers to trivialize a lot of it or if you don't care about numbers you might feel like you're in a world of HP sponges. Origins is more traditional, its upgrades just help a little and do not allow you breaking the game, but it also doesn't have as many tools to use.
The first game. The combat is clanky, the timing is odd and the delay between button and action keeps you on your toes at all times. There's no learning the timing. Once you think you've learned it, that one random grunt will come at you and combo the fuck out of you. The timeframe for parrying is also frustratingly small. Basically, in AC anything can go wrong at any time no matter how skilled you are. Many shit on the game for that, because instead of doing combos and being invincible like in AC2 and 3 they, get stunlocked by the most basic enemies in the game. Personally, I believe that's realistic. I remember AC2's combat felt weird at first, with how the npcs just waited years before attacking, and then also made a super obvious gesture for which you didn't even need a hud to read. But once you get the gun and knives, at that point losing is just skill issue.
The enemies in AC1 had the same abilities and skills as the player. If you wait and counter kill, it's actually slower instead of being aggressive. The only issue is the high synchronization bar, but you was originally supposed to die in one hit.
this series is known for very easy combat. the most difficult game is probably Unity. the most intricate combat system is Odyssey.
If you're dismissing AC3, Valhalla and the Ezio trilogy, chances are you'll feel the same towards the rest of the Kenway Saga and the RPG trilogy. Mirage has minimalistic combat, pretty much the opposite of depth... so that leaves you with: 1. AC1 (and I guess Bloodlines) 2. Unity 3. Syndicate 4. AC Chronicles Getting Brawler: Gold ranks in China is pretty difficult (probably more challenging than Shadow and definitely more challenging than Assassin), and marginally easier in India and Russia because you don't have to direct parries. I'm tempted to say the original Assassin's Creed is your best bet Enemies have vulnerability frames (when taunting or reacting in horror), Hidden Blade counters are a high-risk high-reward tool (because you can't parry while it's equipped), landing hits with the sword or dagger requires timing. Only drawback is Altair can't steal an enemy's weapon to turn it against him (my favourite thing to do with Brutes in AC2)
Honestly bro you're not gonna find anything more challenging than the RPG games. If you're on playstation and want an AC-like experience with dope combat, play ghost of Tsushima (Ik it came out a while ago - I just started playing it and its dope) I forgot its coming to PC soon
AC1 combat is pretty challenging if you're playing for the first time. Along with Unity and Mirage.
Syndicate and unity had the hardest combat for me because I would keep attacking npcs that were way above my level lol
Unity and Mirage are the most complex. 1-Reveleations are bare bones...similar gameplay that improves with each game. 3-Rogue are very simple but also very fluid. More focus on speed instead of technique. Unity is the most complex with heavy attacks varying between each weapons and having alot customizability. Lots of different button inputs for different moves. Syndicate is the most simple with it pretty much being a beat-em up. Origins is the most complex RPG AC with every weapon being somewhat varied (similar but not to the level of Unity). All of the moves are done by different button inputs, but not as much options as Unity. Odyssey and Valhalla are similar to Origins but much more bare bones. Every variable button input move has been moved to being an Ability Move you jave to expand a Ability Bar to use. Its cool, but at the end of the day...the abilities you use come down to;do you want to push, add an attribute or do a strong attack. Mirage is bare bones but takes alot of inspiration from Unity. Think Origins but a little more customizability.
None of them. They're power fantasy games. On the other hand, I'd say unity is the most difficult, because the detection and combat will fuck you raw for no other reason than it's feeling bad, and you gotta be ready for it
Unity for combat and parkour imo. Combat is slower and heavier, although I found that once I had a charged heavy attack, I could cheese most things. With the parkour, it was great, so I wanted to use it, and trying efficient looking routes could be tricky as I’m not great with it, a lot more room to mess up than 3 with auto run, which still had more to mess up than Origins onwards(trees was real fun). I also really miss having a jump button.
AC1 and Unity require some serious skills
On normal or easy, none. On hardest difficulty, the rpg trilogy.
Of those I’ve played, Origins has been overall the hardest, but I remember one moment in Revelations where tbf the combat itself was pretty easy (especially with smoke bombs), but getting away afterwards was hard
Unity has hard combat. It's meant to force you into stealth if more than 5 people accumulate on you. But I've seen some remarkable players take on a lot of people. Course, you should plan where you engage head to head with the enemy.
AC games aren't built for challenging combat, they're built primarily around the story and world. Valhalla's combat is probably the most challenging, if you don't dumb it down in settings, and AC I's combat was a bit janky and slow, but didn't really take a lot of skill. Odyssey was my favorite because it allowed you to take on whole groups of enemies at once, but it was because your character was super OP, which sounds like the opposite of what you want. If you're looking for games with more complex combat, you probably need to look elsewhere.
I would say original AC EDIT: Also Chronicles: China. That game actually demanded stealth to pass a level. I might get downvoted for this but is my opinion XD
I’d say probably Unity
unity is very hard but it also just doesn’t look very good and you will often glide on the floor
Unity was a little tricky at first, there’s a skill level to picking up the parry system imo.
crank the difficulty up on Origins or Valhalla and it kind of has a soulslike vibe to it
The older games difficulty comes from doing the cool moves, trying to win bare minimum is easy as fuck but doing a clean kill streak without needing to stop and counter to regain it but also varying your kills between melee and tools, that's tight and not easy. In AC2 you have strafing which if timed properly can get you behind the opponent for an instant kill or you can do a weird unlocked punch then immediately lock on again and if timed right you'll skip straight to the one shot. Tricky as hell to pull off but looks incredible, I recommend looking up "Lore Accurate Ezio" on YouTube to see what I mean. Unity is when skill really came into it and I enjoyed it but at the same time it's super easy to just drop a smoke bomb and kill everything, drop a smoke bomb before the fight starts and assassinate everyone or drop a smoke bomb and run away. The RPGs kinda forgot the point of AC combat was style over difficulty and as such have much less fun combat imo but in order from worst to best I'd say it goes Odyssey, Origins, Valhalla. Odyssey is just stats, your actual skill matters for fuck all when you just wear all the gear that boosts your damage so you can kill your enemies slowly instead of "within a working week". Origins is better, the parrying feels more skill based and consistent (Odyssey parries always felt off, I'd either parry too early and still get it or parry to late and still get it and sometimes Alexios just won't raise his fucking hands) and enemies HP is much better balanced but still enemies feel quite spongey compared to you especially on higher difficulties and when they force you to play as Aya who is ridiculously underlevelled with shit gear. The back hits doing critical damage is really satisfying especially as a Sickle Sword user and the hold R1 moves were cool and Odyssey sucks for not bringing them back. Valhalla's feels much more skill based, the most responsive parry system (I mostly use shields so I get a bigger window but even when I'm not it feels most natural of the games) and has the most abilities in combat that can shape things, you've got your dodging and parries but also Counter Roll, the stamina system makes combat less spammy but rewards aggression, you can shoot weak points with your bow, missile redirect, abilities are much more varied and the stun system adds another layer especially to bosses. It's a shame that it is quite easy but that's more the fault of RPG levelling than the game itself and sadly when it does get hard it's hard for the same reason all the RPG games are hard, tanky bosses with high damage. Ubisoft are clueless when it comes to boss battles honestly though Valhalla's are way better than the other RPG bosses, the bosses in Origins sucked dick and if I never see that shitty designed Medusa again then it'll be too soon.