Assassin's Creed Unity: Dead Kings

With the Dead Kings DLC, Ubisoft has done a good job adding interesting mechanics and ideas to the original (and quite boring) Unity’s gameplay. Despite the lack of an interesting story, this DLC is entertaining thanks to the different peace granted by the Catacombs, with their nice puzzles. It’s a free DLC. Just enjoy it, and have fun.

Despite a lackluster story and some unnecessary new obstacles, its large playable area and unique underground locations give you lots of opportunities to use its explosive new weaponry, hone your stealth or combat skills or simply experience more of what you enjoyed about Unity’s original release.

Dead Kings is free, but is it worth at least the 5/6 hours of gameplay it offers? To an extent, since the new location (at least underground) works as a change from what we're used to, but the gameplay feels a little bit off when enclosed in the maze-like catacombs.

It carries you over to a drab, sad place and tells a story that doesn’t make sense. Maybe it would be best – both for Ubisoft and players – to just forget about Unity? [03/2014, p.72]

Dead Kings brings back the challenge rooms from Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and Revelations. That means a dark, dank underground setting full of platforming and puzzles. If puzzles aren't your thing, Arno's latest tale may not be for you. For everyone else, it's a solid, but unspectacular addition to Unity.

As much as I appreciated the shift away from the crime investigation premise of Assassin's Creed Unity, sending Arno on a mere fetch quest turns Dead Kings into the blandest kind of open-world adventure, in which a man who used to be a hero is reduced to a mere errand boy.

Apologising for broken content with more broken content feels like a bit of a slap in the face, and Dead Kings' confusing, far-from-user-friendly new mechanics make this DLC a bit of a disappointing prospect.

Overall, a pretty decent addition to Assassin's Creed Unity. Maybe a bit too heavy on puzzles, and there's barely any story, but if you enjoy the traditional AC experience, this will make up for some entertaining 24 hours (the approximate amount of time to complete 100%).

Better Story than the base game

Decent DLC for a bad game. This free bit of new content gives us another location to explore and a story that takes place after the events of the main game. The gameplay is more puzzle oriented and the majority of the content takes place in France's underground catacombs. To be honest the majority of the complaints I have with this DLC are the ones that I have with the main game. This DLC is a step in the right direction, but the Unity's gameplay issues are still a problem. The storytelling hasn't improved here. In fact it might have even gotten worse. I had already written off the characters and conflict before I had started playing this so it's not a huge deal to me, but I honestly couldn't tell you what was going on here. Thankfully the new locations we get to explore have a wonderful atmosphere and are filled with things to do. Not only do we get missions that serve as a continuation of the main plot, but this new sandbox area also comes with a bunch of new side-content to tackle. The majority of it is collectible hunting, but the new side-missions, cooperative or otherwise, are actually worth tackling. I found myself actually doing some of it. Something I can't say about the main game. New changes are brought to the gameplay in the form of a devastating guillotine gun and the catacombs themselves. The catacombs are much more close quarters than the rest of the game. The use of the lamp in these sections is minor and ultimately not noteworthy. It's about how these location change your approach to combat and stealth. The new guillotine gun weapons pack a lot of punch and are quite fun to use. These new additions ultimately don't do much to change the experience, but they at least make it a little bit more entertaining. The real change comes from the new emphasis on puzzle solving. The puzzles are fun and bring back some of that classic AC feel to the game. It's a pretty brief experience that offers a few more hours of story-driven gameplay and even more side-content. There's plenty of new gear to collect and some cool new weapons to try out. The best thing about the DLC though out side of being free is that it adds some cool new features and inventive scenarios to a game that was severely lacking in both. It's just a shame that you have to put up with Unity's shortcomings in order to experience it. The crap gameplay for the main game keeps this DLC from being as enjoyable as it could have been. Why would one put up with suffering through the tainted core experience just to get to the enjoyable parts of this DLC? It's free and offers some solid new content. However playing it requires you to continue dealing with the flaws inherent with the design of Unity. Because of that it's hard to recommend. But if you are looking for more Unity this is the best way to continue playing it. Just know the irritating gameplay of the main game are still present. Only "Dead Kings" makes it all a little more bearable.

Assassin's Creed Unity- Dead Kings feels like a missed opportunity. It offers new ideas with the guillotine gun and lantern, but are not explored fully. The story, however, does a nice job of ending the tale of Arno Dorian.

How do you make a mediocre game worse? Give it an even more mediocre dlc. The only saving grace was the fact it's free.