Teetering on the castle ramparts with violin-soaked music painting a dramatic, perilous scene, Arno is supposed to plunge into watery freedom below.

Only he doesn’t.

The music screeches drama but Arno isn’t having any of it, the bloody coward, and it doesn’t really matter anyway because his pursuers have inexplicably vanished.

Unity is a glitchy beast, and although you’ll be prompted for some hefty updates on installation, I’ll warrant there’ll be a few more before the New Year.

It’s also one of the weakest in the series. This is not a criticism I take lightly, being something of a series fanboy, but the story is a let-down. Given previous ACs have plunged fist-deep into mythology, spiritual bits and wibbly alien races, Unity severs all association with such nonsense. Abstergo is still there, aptly represented as a play-history-at-home television game, but save for the usual anti-Abstergo guerrilla group occasionally interrupting the game, we’re hardly pulling at the wires from its establishment.

Some might say this is a good thing, leaving the gamer to concentrate on the violent aspects of the French Revolution in a spectacularly detailed and crowded Paris (apparently populated by British nationals from various regions, if the voice acting is any accurate representation). Me, I enjoyed the increasingly outlandish scenarios offered with each Creed instalment. This one is plops, but never mind.

One of the most positive aspects Unity brings to the table is the reasonably open-ended choice the missions offer in order to remove your target from the realm of the living. There’s usually an obvious choice, but if you’ve got a better idea of assigning death, chances are the game will let you attempt it.

Horribly, portions of the game are locked lest you download an app, visit a website and carry out vastly annoying tasks on each. I can’t think of a more irritating expansion foisted on a player in order to complete quests, and I hope it experiences a quick death.

The celebrated (by Ubisoft at least) multiplayer aspect of Unity allows up to four chums to carry out expanded missions, which is a nifty diversion particularly if you have that many friends with a copy. Blundering into a tavern and piecing together a makeshift team of strangers can be an unpredictable experience to say the very least.

If you can get past the bugs (some are utterly hilarious) and minor irritating aspects of Unity, there’s a good romp here. Old Paris is rammed with terrific detail that begs exploring, although it does feel smaller than previous instalments, particularly compared with Black Flag. The AC convert will certainly be more forgiving of its more frustrating aspects.

Out on PC, PS4, Xbox One