Assassin’s Creed Syndicate – Build an Underworld Empire in Victorian London with Ubisoft+

Assassin's Creed Syndicate brings players to Victorian London in 1868, at a time when the Industrial Revolution was transforming the city with new technologies and massive construction projects. This gleaming new destiny contrasts sharply with the era's poverty-stricken slums, widespread child labor, and rampant criminal underworld - all of which form a wedge that Evie and Jacob Frye will drive between the city and its Templar overlords. You can kick off their street-level war for the heart of London yourself with a Ubisoft+ Premium or Classics subscription (with the former also delivering all its DLC, including the Jack the Ripper expansion). The game is also available for up to 75% off through Ubisoft's Black Friday sale until Dec. 3 - and if you're playing on a console, there's never been a better time to grab it, since Assassin's Creed Syndicate can now run at 60 FPS on Xbox Series X|S and PS5.

As two lone Assassins in a metropolis run by Templar industrialist crime lords, the Frye twins will need to be resourceful to survive; for brash brother Jacob, that means founding a street gang, the Rooks, to brawl for territory against the Templar-connected Blighters. His more tactically minded sister Evie works her way through the city's upper classes and intelligentsia, racing to beat the Templars to the mysterious First Civilization artifact they're searching for. Along the way, they'll make friends with the likes of Alexander Graham Bell, Charles Dickens, Karl Marx, and even Queen Victoria herself. And while each twin has their own story missions, you can switch between them at will while exploring the city, taking advantage of Jacob's strength or Evie's stealth abilities as needed.

Building up the Rooks from a scrappy little gang of toughs to a citywide syndicate is mainly done through seizing territory from the Blighters; each of London's boroughs is controlled by a different Templar-affiliated gang leader, and each boss' territory is split into operations controlled by lower-ranking bosses. Disrupting these operations might require you to kidnap one of those bosses without raising an alarm, to free child workers from a factory, or just to silently raid a Blighter stronghold and take them out without being spotted. Once all the underbosses have been taken care of, you can confront the borough leader in a full-scale Gang War brawl; come out victorious, and the borough is liberated (or, at least, under the control of the more benign Rooks).

As you continue claiming territory, you'll see green-clad Rooks appear throughout the city, who you can order to follow you around as backup and attack your enemies. You can make these bodyguards better by leveling the gang up through its dedicated skill tree, which not only will let you recruit more varied and better-equipped gang members, but also sabotage the Blighters' weapons, bribe the police, boost your passive income, and recruit child thieves to bring you loot. There's even a perk to make more shipments of hanging barrels appear around the city, giving you more opportunities to lure Blighters underneath them before you slice the rope with a throwing knife.

Since it's the most modern and urban setting Assassin's Creed has explored, Victorian London has some restrictions and opportunities that are still unique within the series. For starters, the Frye twins can't be showy with swords and axes - so you'll mainly use concealable armaments like revolvers, brass knuckles, cane swords, and kukri knives. Also, like most modern cities, London has traffic: The Thames is an obstacle course of fast-moving barges, trains run regularly through the city (and you'll use one as your personal mobile headquarters), and London's streets are filled with horse-drawn carriages, buggies, coaches, and even buses, all of which you can hijack and/or use as hiding places (either for yourself or for bodies).

Those carriages are the centerpiece of Syndicate's many, many high-speed chases, and can ram enemies off the road or - if you climb on top of them - provide a moving platform for fighting off pursuers who try to jump aboard (or a place from which to jump onto their carriages). And so long as there are enough seats, your recruited Rooks can ride shotgun, or even take the reins if you'd rather focus on fighting.

All those carriages mean wide streets, and to make it easier to get across those without clambering down to street level, the twins each have a wrist-mounted mechanical grappling hook called a rope launcher. While the twins still boast some of the most elaborate parkour skills in the series, the rope launcher makes it a snap to create a roof-level zipline between the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, say, or to rapidly climb massive structures like Big Ben.

You can start conquering London right away with a Ubisoft+ Premium or Classics subscription on PC; with Ubisoft+ Premium on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S; or with Ubisoft+ Classics (included with PlayStation Plus Extra or Premium, or available as a standalone subscription) on PS4 and PS5. And again, Assassin's Creed Syndicate can now run at 60 FPS on new-gen consoles (with Xbox Series X, PS5, and PS5 Pro capable of running it at 60 FPS in 4K resolution), so this is the perfect time to jump in.

Assassin's Creed Syndicate is also available for purchase on PC (via the Ubisoft Store, Epic Games Store, and Steam), Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, and PS5, and will be on sale for up to 75% off until Dec. 3 as part of Ubisoft's Black Friday sale. For more on Assassin's Creed, check out how to play the Assassin's Creed games in order and the evolution of Assassin's Creed's parkour.