Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection Switch Review

The Ezio trilogy is my favourite era in the Assassin’s Creed series. While it went on for a bit too long with three games (the third game was a stretch) we have yet to get as close to any of the Assassins as we have with Ezio. Also, Italy was a fantastic setting for the game and let’s not forget how excited everyone was when Ubisoft announced Assassin’s Creed II. Many years later, Ubisoft has now made the best games available on the best place to play them, the Switch. Enter Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection.

The package comes with three games namely Assassin’s Creed II, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and Revelations. Each game follows one another so if you ever missed out on the entire story of Ezio then this is the perfect time to play it.

There’s something really special about Assassin’s Creed II and its size. I feel like it is the perfect game in the series. It is a game you can spend 30 hours on, finish the main story and complete all the side objectives and collect everything there is to find. The same can be said for Brotherhood and Revelations, even though these two were slightly larger in scope.

The Switch makes this a fantastic experience for the most part. Its pick-up-and-play approach means I was seldomly overwhelmed by the world around me. I always knew what I was doing and the bite-sized gaming sessions always resulted in me actually getting something done. Compared to say Valhalla where I would spend hours just running around finding nonsense, this was a breath of fresh air.

These three games really show how far the Assassin’s Creed series has strayed off the path of being actual “assassins” games. While that is a debate for another day, I enjoyed my time with all three of these games. I didn’t get to finish Brotherhood and Revelations but I am currently jumping between the two after finishing Assassin’s Creed II.

The Nintendo Switch holds up pretty well when it comes to the Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection. I played on the OLED Switch model and it was pretty superb. Models were sharp, colours were rich and even though the games are quite old, they seem to suit the Switch’s hardware capabilities just fine.

It also helps that the Switch brings all three games to life thanks to their unique settings and colour palette. Florence in Assassin’s Creed II looks great, Rome in Brotherhood expands the size of the world perfectly. Lastly, Revelations and its setting in Istanbul features a much more dense world to explore with a sort of rugged look.

The fact that these three worlds are now available on the Switch is pure joy and dated visuals aside, they are wonderful to trek through. I do need to warn you, while Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection looks great on handheld mode thanks to the 720p display, playing in docked on a 4K TV does have its rough moments.

This is only natural given the age of these games. If I were you, I would just stick to these in a portable experience to avoid some of the rough edges found in the world. I was impressed with how the later games managed to hold up even with the improvements to the world and the scale being larger than II. The overall presentation only improved making Assassin’s Creed II the roughest game of the bunch here.

The Switch also comes with some touchscreen support for the Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection. You can move around the map screen using the touch screen and also fiddle with your inventory and menu. There’s also a great use of the vibrator motors on the Joy-Cons too. Almost as if Ubisoft went to tweak each instance to best suit the hardware here.

There are some things you need to keep in mind with the Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection. First, the games are fairly large in file size. You will need to accommodate each of them on your Switch at over 10GB each. This might be a challenge. It was for me. You will also need to download Brotherhood and Revelations if you purchase the physical copy of the game as they don’t fit on the card.

Is the Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection on Switch worth it? I would definitely say yes if you haven’t played the games or feel like going back. I played them again on the PS4 so it was a chore to do this all over again but the portable aspect sold me here. Especially given that the Switch is a lifesaver for loadshedding. I can now explore Rome when Eskom steals my power and that alone is enough to warrant a purchase.