I mentioned elsewhere that a fresh interest in Assassin’s Creed was recently sparked inside me, so I decided to check out some of the older games in the franchise. Since I already played the original to completion (and hated it enough that I won’t be going back), the next item on my list is Assassin’s Creed II. The Ezio Collection seems like the best way to partake, since it includes three full games, remastered for the PS4 (or Xbox One if you go that route). This should get me up to speed for Assassin’s Creed III and Black Flag, both of which I already own (they were on sale!)
So, I missed out on Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection when it recently went on sale, so that left me with a PSN price of $39.99, which I don’t think I want to pay for this particular collection (despite how great everyone tells me it is). So I went rogue (heh) and ordered a physical copy online.
My copy has now arrived, and it took me a while to even notice that I’d purchased a European copy of the game by mistake. The telltale sign is that it features a PEGI rating on the cover rather than an ESRB one. Look at that big 18 in the lower left-hand corner.
Now, I don’t really care whether my game is American or European (and actually, since these games take place in Europe, the European version seems kind of appropriate). However, I was a little worried that not all the features would work, since I purchased a game disc from a different region from my own. I live in the United States, you see.
In fact, Ubisoft’s website has a warning that certain features aren’t guaranteed to work between regions. According to the warning, I live in the SCEA region, and my copy of Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection is made for the SCEE region.
I’m happy to report that everything works just fine. There were three main issues I was worried about: DLC, Ubisoft Connect features, and Trophies. All three of those seem to be in working order.
The DLC was really my main point of concern. Since these games come with all of their respective DLC packs, there’s story content that I might have to download. I really want to get the complete story here, so this could have been a problem. Thankfully, the DLC is all on the disc, so I don’t have to download anything in order to play it. Besides, as soon as I put the disc in, it downloaded an update. It’s clearly connecting to the PSN properly.
I was less concerned about Ubisoft Connect, but that works too. I was able to access my account from within the game menu to see that I indeed had access to the full library of Ubisoft Connect content.
And then there are the Trophies. This would certainly not be a deal-breaker, since I’m really just in this to get caught up on the story (the original Assassin’s Creed didn’t have Trophies for the PS3 but I played it anyway), but it would have made me a little sad regardless. I do like popping those shinies. But, I got Assassin’s Creed II fired up, and it now shows up in my Trophy list.
There’s only one thing I couldn’t get to work: the Assassin’s Creed Lineage live-action short film, which is supposed to be part of this collection but it requires a download. The thing is, you can watch Assassin’s Creed Lineage on YouTube, so there’s no reason to stress about trying to watch it from the disc. (There’s also the Assassin’s Creed Embers short film, which I haven’t tried yet but I’m assuming it won’t work either.)
So my European copy of Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection is just as good as any American copy would have been. Everything works, and that’s really what matters. So if you live in the States and you’ve recently found a great deal on a European version of the game, go for it, my friend! Everything should work just fine.
