Assassin's Creed Syndicate is the ninth game in the Assassin's Creed franchise, and was released on October 23, 2015. The game follows the same constantly-developing narrative of the other games in the franchise, in which an alternate version of history is presented in which a secret war has been fought for centuries between two factions: the Assassins, who promote peace and liberty, and the Templars, who desire peace through control.
Assassin's Creed Syndicate follows twin assassins Jacob and Evie Frye and is unique in the sense that this game takes the franchise to Britain for the first time, set in London in 1868, also containing segments set during World War 1 in 1916. To differentiate from the other games that came before it, Syndicate features a unique combat and stealth that are more suited to the historical and technological contexts of the game, utilizing revolvers instead of bows, for example. As well as this, this game introduced a grappling hook as a traversal method, allowing players to explore the open-world of London extremely quickly compared to the on-foot travel of the previous games. Another key difference between Syndicate and the other games, even its immediate predecessor Assassin's Creed Unity, is a complete lack of any multiplayer or co-op.
Syndicate was developed by French video game developers Ubisoft Quebec and was published by Ubisoft. The game's budget was reportedly 80-85 million dollars. Ubisoft develop and publish many other well known gaming franchises, such as Far Cry and Watch Dogs, and they have been in business since 1986. They began as a support business for farmers in the Brittany province of France and other regions, including into the United Kingdom. They diversified and looked into other ventures, such as CDs, before moving into computers and video games in the 80s and over many years evolved into the game studio they are today. Over 1000 employees (roughly) worked on syndicate, and the lead developer was Frédéric St-Laurent B.
Syndicate is interesting in the fact that it came after what is widely regarded as the worst entry in the series, Assassin's Creed Unity. Unity intrigued audiences with it being set during the French Revolution however the game was rife with issues, namely bugs and unnerving graphical glitches. When Syndicate released after this let-down, it was clear that Ubisoft needed to redeem themselves in the eyes of fans. This is reflected in the game and its gameplay, as it was much more stable and more of a 'return to form' for the franchise.
When applying theory, we can first turn to Stuart Hall's reception theory and how it impacts the audience. His theory states that the audience can eithe r take a preferred, negotiated or oppositional reading. If we look into the comments of a popular gameplay/retrospective video of Syndicate, we can see examples of all three readings.
The preferred reading is the one in which the audience recognises and accepts the product and the ideologies as they are. A preferred reading could look like this: "The most under rated AC game imo. A lot of people skipped this because of AC fatigue after Unity and its horrible launch. I personally adore Syndicate." This is clearly a preferred reading as they are fans of the game and have positive things to say about it, despite what the popular opinion may be, and obviously Ubisoft intend to make games people like.
A negotiated reading is one whereby the audience member understands and might agree with some aspects, but they reject others. The negotiated response could take many forms, such as 'Ik this games story ain't that good, nor the character development. But the gameplay, combat, overall feel, stealth and main missions are amazing. (Some side missions too)This game is underrated just because of AC games fatigue. And i love this game, as this was the last ac game before the complete RPG overhaul.'. and this comment showcases how certain aspects of the text are accepted and some are rejected by audience members.
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