I cannot believe I’m saying this, but: I’m thrilled that Assassin’s Creed is huge again.

That’s not a remark on the launch-window buzz for Assassin’s Creed Shadows (3 million players in a week) or the cultural cachet earned by its social media managers (so far, at least one vindictive billionaire defenestrated on his own social media platform). It’s meant quite literally: Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a massive game, and that rules.

Over the years, Assassin’s Creed games have evolved from modest open-world stealth adventures into the type of bloat that’s synonymous with “Ubisoft map game.” This evolution culminated with 2020’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, which was infamously too much game. The data-tracking site Howlongtobeat puts an average Valhalla playthrough at around 100 hours, and closer to 150 hours for a completionist run. That’s in addition to three expansions and a free roguelike mode that was practically designed in a lab to devour my time. I sunk 91 hours into Valhalla before hitting the credits, and I skipped an entire........

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