I'd argue the Franchise died with ::: spoiler spoiler Desmond ::: in AC3, but it seems like I was the only person interested in the overarching story. After that only Unity felt like a good assassin game (performance issues aside), but for some baffling reason Ubisoft didn't reuse any of the good bits in the subsequent games. I haven't managed to get through any of the RPG era games, I just find their gameplay so mind numbingly boring.