No, it's albatross because it serves no purpose anymore and only distracts from the main strength of the games today, i.e. that they are open world fantasy RPGs set in historical times. To be torn out of that into a meta-plot at random, is a fundamental game design flaw.
You haven't fully excavated the albatross here, it goes much further than that. I'm going to say that Ubisoft are worse than Bethesda when it comes to open world games. Currently I'm playing through Assassin's Creed Unity and all the faults of this series are unbearably present in this game. Graphically it is still, a game from 2014, a stunning game. The parkour is slick, the map is huge. There is trouble in paradise however, and like a pink elephant dressed up as a snake it can't be ignored for long. Not only does the metaplot detract, but the idea that it must follow the same airport novella story from the earlier Assassin's Creed games is the biggest detraction.
The art direction is impeccable, the environmental artists did a great job with Paris, and that all crumbles when you get your awful getup with a hoodie. The setting doesn't matter that much, it can be anywhere, you still got your smoke bombs, retractable hand daggers and things work more or less as they always have, albeit watered down. This is the hardest game in the series because you might get sniped by a musket from nowhere if you engage in combat without surveying the situation. Other than that there is nothing that makes you feel like you're in Paris during the revolution. The problem is that it is tied down by the series it is in, it can't embrace the period since the Assassin's Creed title means it must be about potheads versus squares. There must be some goofy ass science fiction bullshit in there. You have to have this ridiculous framing plot that you wish wasn't there.
The same is true of Odyssey, they wanted to make a game about Greece, but everything that comes with being an entry in this game series brought it down a notch from what could have been a semi-decent game. Did that game really need a metaplot or have the Greek deities be ancient aliens? Did the parkour even add that much to the game? After Origins they gave up on having it be a sensible system where you can only climb things that seem climbable and just let you climb anything. Valhalla is the latest entry and this albatross won't go away, why does a viking game have to be about Arabian pot smokers and ancient aliens? Does the parkour even make any sense in a game about raiding England?
Then there is the issue of Ubisoft being the unsung heroes of asset flipping. If you play the AS titles where they wanted to get away from the assassinations and explore Seadogs territory you will find the same parkour-friendly tree assets as in Unity. If you play Watchdogs Legion you will find the same house roofs in England as in revolutionary France. After finishing Origins you have in essence already played Odyssey and Valhalla. Even within a single Ubisoft game you have already seen everything after finishing the first area zone. Their worlds are large but shallow as a puddle, static and lacks any kind of dynamism. Nothing is done well, it is always quantity over quality. Copy pasted missions spread over the map like a cluster mine load.
Unlike in The Witcher 3 there is no writing department that can carry this experience. There is no simulationist fun to be had like in Bethesda games. Their Batman Arkham Asylum combat system is sleep inducing. The more shit they shovel in there, the worse it all gets. People praised the salty sea adventures in Black Flag, but even a small AA game like Raven's Cry offers a better and deeper experience at sea. Tiny devs like Frogwares are now creating better big open world locations than Ubisoft. The best part of Unity is the murder mysteries, but since they are a zero effort side activity in a game filled with filler they can't live up to their potential.
It is a shame that the Ubisoft formula is shit and that they can't seem to escape the ridiculous premise of their cash cow because somewhere in the bowels of that company there must be talented developers. Ancient Greece is a very cool and underused setting, yet it could have been England, France or Egypt just as well, it was wasted on Odyssey. Unity is the same, you can climb the Notre-Dame de Paris and pretend to be Quasimodo, you can walk Paris' streets at night in rain and hear period songs of the revolution coming from a pub, but at the end of the day you're stuck with the same basic mechanics as a game from 2007, only diluted and dumbed down. With a plot that takes you out of it all and a metaplot to pull you out of the period even more, not that the writing makes a convincing job even when you are left alone for a bit.
These noobs missed the chance to make a game in ancient Rome during Caesar vs Pompey civil war. It would have been a great fucking setting. Roman legionaire by day and assassin by night.
It would have been just the same as any other AS game, Caesar is some Templar and wants some magic ancient alien device. Same dull combat, same side activities that get old after you've done them twice or trice. Same loot-a-ton, same useless fake RPG systems to give you a sense of progression that would otherwise have been absent due to the open world nature of the game when the combat or stealth doesn't evolve past the first few missions and you're expected to play the game for 80 hours.
