Assassin's Creed 1 spoiled the entire franchise for me ngl

I don't mean spoilers as in plot but just from a design perspective. There's a universe where Ubisoft or the developers just honed in on what made AC 1 special and that's how the mechanics made the side missions feel necessary. The side missions are repetitive and very boring but they feel as if they inform your main assassinations and make them easier. Even rescuing citizens makes ur escapes after each assassination easier as they allow you to throw off more guards as you run around the city.

When I finished Brotherhood all I could think about was how much better it would be if you could start the offensive on Casere (hope I'm spelling that right) at any time but if you don't do things like assassination contracts or destroy leonardos weapons the mission becomes much harder. It would've made the side missions feel important as opposed to activities on the map.

Don't get me wrong I do appreciate the story focused approach of assassin's Creed and the missions in Brotherhood and 2 are much more memorable than anything in 1 but I feel somethings lost in Ubisofts approach to these games as open world sandboxes as opposed to what this game is about, Assassins.

Unfortunately idk the subs consensus on Dj Peach Cobbler but he made an excellent video about how Ubisoft will always stick to this formula as opposed to going forward with any sort of vision due to it making money and that sucks. There's a way to strike a balance between the open ended design of 1 and the fun setpieces and platforming of 2 and Brotherhood but unfortunately that's risky and I doubt Ubisoft would want to tone down things and focus their vision.