I’m convinced that Assassin’s Creed Unity‘s protagonist, Arno Dorian, has superpowers.

Ignoring the not-so-explained supernatural power he has to access his targets memories after killing them, I’m specifically referring to the way he does parkour (although cool looking) that made me laugh nearly every time I played as him. He looks like a graceful bird as he flies his way across insane distances with each leap, climbs smooth walls and inclines like he’s Marvel’s Spider-Man, and fancily twirls around as he somehow jumps the entire width of some of Paris’ streets. Yet, most fans of the series I’ve come across are adamant that Unity has the “best” and most realistic parkour of the franchise.

With how central parkour always has been in each Assassin’s Creed game, it’s expected that people will want to compare the changes in parkour mechanics and animations throughout each game. This has continued to have been a pretty popular topic of discussion, especially with each new game that comes out in the series being subject to comparison. The leading opinion for years seems to be that Unity has the most realistic and fun parkour of the series.

All Arno’s flourishes and tricks do make Unity have very visually compelling parkour and his speed doing that does make traversal faster, which can be preferable to players who grew impatient with some of the slower parkour in past games. I also won’t hold it too against Unity that Arno does not seem to listen to the player when trying to tell him where to go while climbing around, since that has always been a problem for many players with pretty much every Assassin’s Creed game.

To give Unity an extra bit more credit, reducing the frustration of accidentally climbing walls while just trying to run around by having buttons specifically dedicated to climbing was a very nice change to the parkour system. I can see how others would find it more fun or convenient compared to the other games in the franchise. So, it being the most fun? Sure, though I disagree, that’s a matter of personal preference. But realistic? Absolutely not, especially when being compared to its predecessors in the series.

I argue that Assassin’s Creed Unity has the least realistic parkour of the series along with its sister game Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, which is practically the same parkour system but with its own unique unrealistic mechanics, such as zip-lining using only bare hands as the pulley. I’d compare his movements to an actor using special effects or a harness to execute superhero jumps in a movie. The way that Arno practically floats from ledge to ledge is very impressive considering we don’t exactly see him practicing parkour before his Assassin days like we do in the beginning of Assassin’s Creed 2 with Ezio; he’s obviously not trained as an Olympic long jump athlete either.

Personally, I find that the first Assassin’s Creed games up until around Assassin’s Creed Black Flag are the most consistently realistic parkour of the series. The jumps are impressive distances but usually pretty believable and the Assassin’s do not climb smooth surfaces like Spider-Man, they run up them the way and amount of time people parkour surfaces like that in real life. Also, since in the games the places the protagonists climb are not exactly planned and practiced routes like in modern parkour videos, the slower speed of which they move is more realistic and believable as well. Especially in the first game I can see how much they studied real life parkour, which I just find it much more satisfying and fascinating than the floaty movements of Arno.

Now, this isn’t to say all the other Assassin’s Creed games before Unity were extremely realistic or something, that is far from the truth. If it were perfectly realistic the Assassins wouldn’t be dropping into haystacks and surviving with how high some of those viewpoints are. Unity just seems to be overly praised for it’s parkour animations in comparison to the other games of the series despite how many flaws they have and how laughably unrealistic most of them are. In my experience, it’s not even the most fun parkour to play through either, but to each their own on that front.

Do you think Assassin’s Creed Unity has the most realistic and/or best parkour of the series? What do you think about the ways Assassin’s Creed‘s parkour mechanics have progressed over time? Let us know your thoughts below or on the Boss Rush Facebook, you can also join the conversation on the Boss Rush Discord!

Featured Image: Ubisoft

Boss Rush Podcast – A Podcast about Video Games

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