So I was checking Game of the year list on Wikipedia and noticed that Assassin’s Creed was never Game of the Year.
Not on any list around the world did it reach the top. The first one felt very fresh, but it just did not feel complete. But the 2nd one was just an amazing game and that one got beaten on some lists by Uncharted 2 which is understandable, but also by Batman: Arkham Asylum which is basically inspired by AC.
Maybe they should just ditch the whole Animus plot. I wished that Valhalla and Black Flag were just about being a Viking and a Pirate
For which year? After the few Assassins Creed games, they were similar in gameplay, so not really worthy of GOTY for most. Not every good or popular game can win an award. The best chance of winning could have II, Brotherhood or Black Flag. I’ve looked at best rated games of the year for those games on Metacritic (I could not find a way to sort lists on OpenCritic).
Assassins Creed 2 (2009) - 90:
Assassins Creed Brotherhood (2010): 89
Assassins Creed 4 Black Flag (2013): 88
The Assassins Creed games are fun, but not a juggernaut in gameplay or otherwise. They were never these massive perfected games, standing out as the pillar of gaming. If you have competition like Uncharted 2, Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Last of Us, and come with the same formula again, then you can’t expect to win awards for being the best game of the year.
The thing probably is that I remember it being something special especially gameplay wise, but probably because I was out of touched with gaming. I think around the same time Mass Effect came out and the Xbox 360 was for me an impressive console.
AC2 and Brotherhood are both great games but yeah. That is some truly stiff competition in 2009 and 2010. Great games vs. incredible games.
Yeah looking at these lists, it didn’t win because some real juggernaut games released in the same year and it just couldn’t compete.
Though there have been a couple years over the last 20 where I feel it some of the games could have won
Maybe if you look at the games in isolation, maybe then? The problem for many (especially for testers) was the fatigue of massive Assassins Creed games with so many meaningless stuff added around an actual good game. And later things like microtransactions ruined the fun for lot of people too. And the later games even didn’t do anything particularly original or was very perfected games to stick out.
So therefore many testers didn’t “champion” the Assassins Creed games anymore. It had its fans, especially longtime players in the series. But those are not who decide if a game gets an award or what rating it has. So even if players like the games, that is disconnected from the testers of various outlets.
I would submit that AC Brotherhood would be a contender, as it was kinda the peak of the original formula before it all started to blend together and degrade, and the multiplayer mode was truly original, fun, and hasn’t been replicated since. Maybe even Black Flag as it was a unique game that many developers have failed to replicate.
OpenCritic only goes back to 2016, so metacritic would be all you have here.