AC Unity's disturbing bugs didn't help it out either. But when taking a retrospective look at why the series' eighth major installment failed, one small and often overlooked mistake shines as the real culprit behind why AC Unity is the worst Assassin's Creed game: no French accents.
See, in all other Assassin's Creed games, characters have accents that reflect the setting the game is based in. Even if the accents are poorly performed or inaccurately English at points like in AC Origins, they show that Ubisoft is at least attempting to envelop players into the histories and cultures its games explore. And for the most part, the Assassin's Creed series has been successful in this endeavor; AC Valhalla in particular uses Norse and English accents to great effect, helping players truly feel as if Eivor is traveling between countries and cultures.
AC Unity made no so such effort, however. All French characters use English accents. This choice greatly hindered the game's ability to bring revolutionary Paris to life despite it being such a lively, beautifully rendered setting. What makes the use of English accents even worse is that part of what birthed the revolutionary fervor in was the country's assistance of colonial America in its fight against the British Empire in the Revolutionary War. Having French revolutionaries speak in English accents is thus not only inaccurate to the setting but dismissive to the historical importance of the French Revolution. But even though Ubisoft's choice to not use French accents in AC Unity caused a drop in sales for its blunder, the decision was not without reason - at least, according to Ubisoft.
Why No One Sounds French In Assassin's Creed Unity
According to Alex Amanico, the creative director of AC Unity, using French accents in the game wouldn't have made much sense. In a post on a now defunct Ubisoft blog (quoted in IGN), Amanico stated, "It would really make no sense for there to be a French accent because that would mean that this French character is trying to address you in accented English. Everyone in the game is not trying to speak English for your benefit." What's more, Amanico explained that the Animus translates the contents of the game into whatever language the speaks, and since the is an anglophone, the game features English accents.
While Amanico's reasoning behind the creative choice in AC Unity makes sense within a vacuum, it does not make sense in the broader details of the Assassin's Creed series. Because earlier entries featured region-specific accents, these games are rendered nonsensical by Amanico's statement, and the continuity surrounding the technology of the Animus is broken because the Animus should have been translating all languages into British English all along. Had AC Unity made it clear that the Animus had been updated to accomplish this new translation feature, this issue would have been resolved, but since the game lacks this explanation, the Animus technology is only further muddled by later Assassin's Creed games reverting to region-specific accents. The ultimate result of the accent error is that Assassin's Creed Unity (and Amanico's statement) broke the continuity of the series for the sake of using inaccurate accents, which truly makes it the worst entry in the Ubisoft series.
Source: IGN
