I really need to get into these games. I bought AC2. I just fuckin' hate how they work on PC. I bought them on Steam but nope, you launch it in Steam and then it says you need Uplay to play it. Ugh. What's the fucking point of it being on Steam, then? They do the same thing with Dragon Age needing Origin to run.
Ubisoft is really bad about being a badgering bother of a game company, in my experience. I remember them jaggering about Uplay on prior Assassins Creed titles, and asking for a Ubisoft account on Rainbow Six Siege being a process for a buddy of mine when they wanted to play that, and generally just being a
bother.
It being on Steam and still doing the same would be...doubly frustrating, no doubt. Whole point of Steam is that it's so universal as a launcher.
As to Assassins Creed...
I liked the first few games a good deal. They appealed to both the history-nerd section of my mind (spending way too long reading about historical buildings, events or characters in the Codex was too much fun--especially when they adopted a semi-snarky British persona to the narrator) and to the conspiratorial, black-helicopters amusement side of things with the grab-bag of Templars and Assassins and whatnot. I think both those cool aspects kind of...went off the rails after Black Flag or so (that's where I checked out at least) and it shifted to be less about both of those things or any kind of historical or even historically-adjacent storylining or 'tourism' and more about ancients and aliens and mythology and the like--at least as I perceive it watching bit and pieces of the newer ones.
Ezio Auditore was a fun character in general, and I'm one of the apparently odd-birds that thought the slight tweaks of tower-defense and stuff from...the Istanbul/Constantinople game was a fun sidetrack. Three was kind of a slog and...a bit typecasting in characters, but I spent entirely too much time in Black Flag sailing about indulging pirate nonsense.
Never got into any of the multiplayer, but it honestly seemed like a kind of neat idea. That kind of mind-gamey, 'blend-in-with-NPCs' kind of schtick always appealed to me as a mechanic.
Seen the newer ones played a bit, and some surface interesting stuff but...I dunnow, didn't seem to be nearly the same focus on history as anything more than to be nodded at with name-drops at best, and the combat was never a big interest to me so it getting 'better' just...meh. Didn't care about.
Valhalla is pretty, but seems like an iteration on the previous two (three?) with a different setting and...as far as I'm aware the framing-piece storylines from the modern world that were always fun breaks has been largely abandoned or sidelined?