Assassin's Creed

''Assassin's Creed'' is a historical action-adventure video game series and media franchise published by Ubisoft and developed mainly by its studio Ubisoft Montreal using the game engine Anvil and its more advanced derivatives. Created by Patrice Désilets, Jade Raymond, and Corey May, the ''Assassin's Creed'' video game series depicts a fictional millennia-old struggle between the Order of Assassins, who fight for peace and free will, and the Knights Templar, who desire peace through order and control. The series features historical fiction, science fiction, and fictional characters intertwined with real-world historical events and historical figures. In most games, players control a historical Assassin while also playing as an Assassin Initiate or someone caught in the Assassin–Templar conflict in the present-day framing story. Considered a spiritual successor to the ''Prince of Persia'' series, ''Assassin's Creed'' took inspiration from the novel '' Alamut'' by the Slovenian writer Vladimir Bartol, based on the historical Hashashin sect of the medieval Iran (Persia).

The first ''Assassin's Creed'' game was released in 2007, and the series has featured fourteen main installments in total, the most recent being '' Assassin's Creed Shadows'' in 2025. Main games in the ''Assassin's Creed'' series are set in an open world and played from the third-person view. Gameplay revolves around combat, stealth, and exploration, including the use of parkour to navigate the environment. The games feature both main and side missions, and some titles also include competitive and cooperative multiplayer game modes.

A new story and occasionally new time periods are introduced in each entry, with the gameplay elements also evolving. There are three overarching story arcs in the series. The first five main games follow Desmond Miles, a descendant of several important Assassins throughout history, who uses a machine called the Animus to relive his ancestors' memories and find powerful artifacts called Pieces of Eden in an attempt to prevent a catastrophic event, referencing the 2012 phenomenon. From '' Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag'' to '' Assassin's Creed Syndicate'', Assassin initiates and employees of Abstergo Industries (a company used as a front by the modern-day Templars) record genetic memories using the Helix software, helping the Templars and Assassins find new Pieces of Eden in the modern world. The next three games, ''Assassin's Creed Origins'', ''Odyssey'', and ''Valhalla'', follow ex-Abstergo employee Layla Hassan on her own quest to save humanity from another disaster.

The main games in the ''Assassin's Creed'' franchise have received generally positive reviews for their ambition in visuals, game design, and narratives, with criticism for the yearly release cycle and frequent bugs, as well as the prioritising of role-playing mechanics in later titles. The series has received multiple awards and nominations, including multiple Game of the Year awards. It is commercially successful, selling over 200 million copies , becoming Ubisoft's best-selling franchise and one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time. While main titles are produced for major consoles and desktop platforms, multiple spin-off games have been released for consoles, mobiles, and handheld platforms. A series of art books, encyclopedias, comics, and novels have also been published. A live-action film adaptation of the series was released in 2016.

Development history

While the games in the series have had several narrative arcs, Ubisoft views the series as currently having three periods of development and design philosophy. Until 2015's '' Assassin's Creed Syndicate'', the franchise was structured around single-player content, and while centering on open world spaces and incorporating several role-playing elements, were more action-adventure and stealth-oriented. Period two, covering from ''Assassin's Creed Origins'' to '' Assassin's Creed Mirage'', brought in more role-playing elements and live-service features to increase player engagement.

Period three launched with '' Assassin's Creed Shadows'', using lessons from the second period of development to make engrossing single-player games similar to the original titles but with features to allow players to share achievements and content with others through a new ''Animus Hub'' system that will be integrated with all future and some earlier games.

Period one

The first ''Assassin's Creed'' game originated out of ideas for a sequel for Ubisoft's video game '' Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time'', aiming for the seventh generation of video game consoles. The Ubisoft Montreal team decided to take the gameplay from ''The Sands of Time'' into an open-world approach, taking advantage of the improved processing power to render larger spaces and crowds. Narratively, the team wanted to move away from the Prince being someone next in line for the throne but to have to work for it; combined with research into secret societies led them to focus on the Order of Assassins, based upon the historical Hashashin sect of Ismaili, who were followers of Shia Islam, heavily borrowing from the novel '' Alamut''. Ubisoft developed a narrative where the player would control an Assassin escorting a non-playable Prince, leading them to call this game ''Prince of Persia: Assassin'', or ''Prince of Persia: Assassins''. Ubisoft was apprehensive to a ''Prince of Persia'' game without the Prince as the playable character, but this led the marketing division to suggest the name ''Assassin's Creed'', playing off the creed of the Assassins, "nothing is true; everything is permitted". Ubisoft Montreal ran with this in creating a new intellectual property, eliminating the Prince, and basing it around the Assassins and the Knights Templar in the Holy Land during the 12th century. Additionally, in postulating what other assassinations they could account for throughout history, they came onto the idea of genetic memory and created the Animus device and modern storyline elements. This further allowed them to explain certain facets of gameplay, such as accounting for when the player character is killed, similar to ''The Sands of Time''.

After ''Assassin's Creed'' was released in 2007, Ubisoft Montreal said they looked to "rework the global structure" in developing the sequel, '' Assassin's Creed II''. They felt that parkour was underutilized in the first game and designed the world in the sequel to feature freerun highways to make it easier to enter into parkour moves, for example using rooftops to escape pursuits. The change in setting meant that the game would feature a new cast of characters, including a new protagonist, Ezio Auditore da Firenze. ''Assassin's Creed II'' also brought in more use of crowds to hide in plain sight that the developers had seen used in '' Hitman: Blood Money'', adding more to the concept of social stealth as a gameplay option. Finally, Ubisoft Montreal completely reworked the repetitive mission structure from the first game through numerous side activities, collectibles, and secrets. These additions became a central part of the series going forward as well as other Ubisoft games like ''Watch Dogs'', ''Far Cry'', and ''Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon''. ''Assassin's Creed II'' was followed by two sequels, '' Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood'' and '' Assassin's Creed: Revelations'', which also featured Ezio as the main protagonist and introduced the ability for players to recruit NPCs as Assassins and manage them in missions.

''Assassin's Creed III'' originated from both Ubisoft Montreal, who wanted to progress the series' narrative forward in time, and to an unattached project that had been developed at Ubisoft Singapore and featured naval ship combat. As the main team had settled into the American Revolution period for the game, they found the ship-to-ship combat system fitted with the story and redesigned the setting to incorporate it further. Another major change in ''Assassin's Creed III'' was transitioning the parkour and freerun systems to work in the natural woodlands of 18th-century Massachusetts and New York. This further allowed the adding of trees and other vegetation within the city areas themselves, not just as part of the parkour systems, but to add more varied environments, which would continue as part of the series' ongoing design.

For ''Assassin's Creed III''s sequel, '' Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag'', the Ubisoft team built upon the foundation of its predecessor, particularly with regards to the naval gameplay, merging it seamlessly with the land-based gameplay. The team also used the game as a chance to address aspects of the series' storyline. Choosing to focus on an outsider's perspective to the Assassin–Templar conflict, they set the game around the Golden Age of Piracy, with the protagonist, Edward Kenway, starting out as a pirate who initially becomes involved in the conflict with the prospect of wealth. Similarly, after the conclusion of Desmond Miles' story arc in ''Assassin's Creed III'', the modern-day segments put players in the role of a nameless individual controlled from a first-person perspective. The team chose this approach because they believed it allowed players to more easily identify themselves in their character. This trend would continue in the series until '' Assassin's Creed Syndicate''.

Development of ''Assassin's Creed Unity'' began shortly after the completion of ''Brotherhood'' in 2010, with the core development team splitting off during the early stages of development on ''Assassin's Creed III''. As the first game in the series to be released exclusively for the eighth generation of video game consoles, ''Unity'' featured a graphical and gameplay overhaul. The setting chosen for the game was Paris during the early years of the French Revolution, with players taking control of a new Assassin named Arno Dorian. After ''Unity'', Ubisoft released ''Assassin's Creed Syndicate'' in 2015.

Period two

Following ''Syndicate''s release, Ubisoft decided that the series needed a major reinvention across both gameplay and narrative. It was decided to make the next game, ''Assassin's Creed Origins'', closer to a role-playing video game than a stealth-action game, which would also bring a game with many more hours of play than previous titles. Some long-standing features of the series were eliminated for this purpose, such as the social stealth mechanic. This changed how missions were presented — rather than being linearly directed through the Animus, the player character could meet various quest givers in the game's world to receive missions. From the narrative side, Ubisoft placed the game before the formation of the Assassin Brotherhood in Ancient Egypt to make the player character, Bayek of Siwa, a medjay that people would respect and seek the help of. The modern-day storyline also shifted back to a single character, Layla Hassan. The developers limited the number of playable sequences for her character compared to previous games but gave them more meaning, such as allowing the player to explore Layla's laptop with background information on the game's universe.

''Origins'' was followed in 2018 by ''Assassin's Creed Odyssey'', which shifted the setting to Classical Greece and followed a similar approach to its predecessor but with more emphasis on the role-playing elements. 2020's ''Assassin's Creed Valhalla'', set in medieval England and Norway during the Viking Age, continued the same style as ''Origins'' and ''Odyssey''. The developers recognized feedback from the previous two games and brought back the social stealth elements, as well as the concept of a customizable home base that was first introduced in ''Assassin's Creed II''.

In 2023, Ubisoft released '' Assassin's Creed Mirage'', a smaller title which sought to pay tribute to the franchise's earlier installments by focusing on stealth and assassinations over its predecessors' role-playing elements. The game started development as an expansion for ''Valhalla'' before being turned into a standalone release, and was set in 9th-century Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age, a decade before the events of ''Valhalla'', to which it served as a prequel.

Period three

In 2022, Ubisoft announced several additional games for the series, including '' Assassin's Creed Shadows'', set in Japan during the Sengoku period, and ''Assassin's Creed: Codename Hexe'', rumoured to be set in Central Europe during the 16th century.

Alongside the release of ''Assassin's Creed Shadows'', Ubisoft introduced the ''Animus Hub'', intended to serve as a centralized hub for the ''Assassin's Creed'' games from ''Shadows'' onward. Originally teased as ''Assassin's Creed Infinity'', the ''Animus Hub'' was described by its executive producer, Marc-Alexis Côté, as a "new design philosophy" for the series, as well as a hub that would provide the releases of future games. According to Côté in 2024, the modern-day narrative of the series had become haphazard after the death of Desmond Miles in ''Assassin's Creed III'' through the introduction of Layla Hassan in ''Assassin's Creed Origins'' due to the lack of a main character and the number of studios involved, and ''Infinity'' aimed to re-establish the modern-day side of the series. The ''Animus Hub'' is not a launcher, but instead a feature integrated into ''Shadows'', future games, and select games from period two, which incorporates the modern-day storyline of the series.

Gameplay

The ''Assassin's Creed'' games are centered around one or more fictional members of the Order of the Assassins. Their memories are experienced by an in-game character in the modern-day period through a device called the Animus and its derivations. The Animus allows the user to explore these memories passed down via genetics. Within the context of the game, this provides a diegetic interface to the real-world player of the game, showing them elements like health bars, a mini-map, and target objectives as if presented by the Animus. Additionally, should the player cause the historical character to die or fail a mission, this is rectified as desynchronization of the genetic memory, allowing the player to try the mission again. Through the Animus interface, the player can retry any past mission already completed; for example, in ''Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood'', the player achieves better synchronization results by performing the mission in a specific manner, such as by only killing the mission's target. The Animus also imparts special abilities to the modern-day character that helps them to see their target in a crowd or other unique points of interest.

While playing as the Assassin characters, the games are generally presented from a third-person view in an open world environment, focusing on stealth and parkour. The games use a mission structure to follow the main story, assigning the player to complete an assassination of public figureheads or a covert mission. Alternatively, several side missions are available, such as mapping out the expansive cities from a high perch followed by performing a leap of faith into a haystack below, collecting treasures hidden across the cities, exploring ruins for relics, building a brotherhood of assassins to perform other tasks, or funding the rebuilding of a city through purchasing and upgrading of shops and other features. At times, the player is in direct control of the modern-day character who, by nature of the Animus use, has learned Assassin techniques through the bleeding effect, as well as their genetic ability of Eagle Vision, which separates friend, foe, and assassination targets by illuminating people in different colors.

The games use the concept of active versus passive moves, with active moves, such as running, climbing the sides of buildings, or jumping between rooftops, more likely to alert the attention of nearby guards. When the guards become alerted, the player must either fight them or break their line of sight and locate a hiding place, such as a haystack or a well, and wait until the guards' alert is reduced. The combat system allows for a number of unique weapons, armor, and moves, including the use of a hidden blade set in a bracer attached at the Assassin's wrist with a blade ejected via-spring mechanism, which can be used to perform surreptitious assassinations.

Storyline

Premise

The ''Assassin's Creed'' games primarily revolve around the rivalry and conflict between two ancient secret societies: the Order of Assassins, who represent freedom, and the Knights Templar, who represent order. Versions of these societies have existed for centuries, with the Assassins seeking to stop the Templars from gaining control of the Pieces of Eden, artifacts that can override free will to control people's minds.

These artifacts are remnants of an ancient species pre-dating humanity called the Isu, or Precursors, which created humanity to live in peace alongside them. The Isu ensured humans could not rise against them by creating the Pieces of Eden to control them. When the first hybrid Isu-human beings emerged, named Adam and Eve, they were immune to the effects of the Pieces of Eden. They stole the Pieces of Eden, which led to a great war that ended when a massive solar flare devastated the surface of the Earth. The surviving Isu subsequently died out while humanity thrived. All that remained of the Isu were traces of their memories in the world's mythologies and religions, while the Pieces of Eden became lost to time, many of them hidden within underground vaults known as Temples.

Before their demise, three Isu—Minerva, Juno, and Jupiter—attempted to prepare humanity for another solar flare they knew would come millennia later. Using a device called the Eye, which allowed them to see into possible futures, Minerva and Jupiter left behind messages to guide humanity to the Grand Temple, which housed the global aurora borealis device that could activate a protective shield around the Earth. However, Juno saw humanity as a threat and attempted to sabotage Minerva and Jupiter's plan. Minerva and Jupiter were forced to destroy Juno and trapped her consciousness within the Grand Temple, unaware that Juno had modified the global aurora borealis device to release her consciousness upon activation.

The series itself takes place in the modern era, in which the Templars have established the mega-corporation Abstergo Industries. Abstergo has developed a device, the Animus, whose users can relive the memories of their ancestors through their genetic material. Abstergo has kidnapped people who are descendants of past Assassins to locate the missing Pieces of Eden via the Animus. A user of the Animus can move about in simulated memories as their ancestor, but performing actions outside the bounds of what their ancestor did can lead to desynchronization of the memory. Extended use of the Animus creates a "bleeding effect" that gives users some of the skills and capabilities they experienced with their ancestor, but also affects their mental well-being, as the user begins to confuse their ancestor's memories with their own.

Story arcs

The first five main games in the series focus on Desmond Miles, a bartender and former Assassin who learns he is a descendant of several important Assassins throughout history, including Altaïr Ibn-LaʼAhad from the Middle East during the Third Crusade; Ezio Auditore da Firenze from the Italian Renaissance; and Ratonhnhaké:ton (commonly known as Connor), a half- Mohawk, half-British Assassin during the American Revolution. Desmond is used by Abstergo to find Pieces of Eden but is rescued by Lucy Stillman, an undercover agent for the Assassins. With the help of two other Assassins, Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane, and later William Miles, Desmond's father and the leader of the modern-day Assassins, the group continue to explore Desmond's memories in the hopes of locating the Pieces of Eden before Abstergo. In the process, they learn about the Isu and come into contact with Juno, who kills Lucy, revealed to be a double agent for the Templars. The group ultimately finds the Grand Temple, and Desmond activates the global aurora borealis device in time to block the solar flare, at the cost of his own life.

Starting with '' Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag'', Abstergo has refined the Animus technology to allow anyone to experience memories from the genetic material of another person, allowing the Templars to continue their search for Pieces of Eden under the guise of creating entertainment products. In ''Black Flag'', players assume the role of an unnamed Abstergo employee tasked with researching the memories of Edward Kenway, a pirate-turned-Assassin and Connor's grandfather. During their work, the player is blackmailed by a fellow employee, John Standish, into acquiring and delivering sensitive information on Abstergo's activities to the Assassins. John is later revealed to be a Sage, a human reincarnation of Juno's husband Aita, who is trying to resurrect her, though he is killed by Abstergo before he can succeed.

By the time of ''Assassin's Creed Unity'', Abstergo has begun distributing the Animus technology via a video game console called the Helix, tapping into an extensive, unaware player base to help them locate the remains of various Sages as part of the Phoenix Project, an attempt to recreate the genetic structure of the Isu. The player character is recruited into the Assassins and tasked with exploring the memories of Arno Dorian, an Assassin during the French Revolution, so that the modern-day Assassins can retrieve the body of a Sage and hide it from Abstergo. Despite the Assassins' efforts, by the start of '' Assassin's Creed Syndicate'', Abstergo has collected enough DNA samples from other Sages to move forward with the Phoenix Project. The player character is again contacted by the Assassins and relives the memories of Jacob and Evie Frye, twin Assassins from Victorian England, to find a Piece of Eden that Abstergo requires for the next phase of the Phoenix Project. Although the Assassins beat the Templars to it, the latter manage to steal the Piece of Eden and escape with it, whereupon it is revealed that Juno is manipulating various Abstergo employees to further her plans of being resurrected.

A new storyline is introduced in ''Assassin's Creed Origins'' focusing on Abstergo researcher Layla Hassan. While on an assignment to recover an artifact from Egypt, Layla stumbles upon the remains of the Medjay Bayek and his wife Aya, co-founders of the Hidden Ones, the Assassins' precursors. Against Abstergo's orders, Layla uses her personal Animus to relive Bayek's and Aya's memories, causing the Templars to mark her for death. She is rescued by William Miles, who then invites her to join the Assassins for her own protection. In ''Assassin's Creed Odyssey'', Layla recovers the Spear of Leonidas, from which she extracts the DNA of Leonidas' grandchildren, Alexios and Kassandra. Through their memories, Layla locates the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus, another Piece of Eden, which is guarded by one of the siblings ( canonically Kassandra), still alive due to being sustained by the Staff. Kassandra relinquishes the Staff to Layla, who is prophesied to one day restore balance to the world, and passes away.

In ''Assassin's Creed Valhalla'', Earth is facing yet another disaster, as its magnetic field has been continually strengthening since Desmond's activation of the global aurora borealis device eight years prior. Layla exhumes the remains of Eivor Varinsdottir, a 9th-century Viking, and from her memories, she learns of an Isu temple in Norway. Layla travels to the temple and enters the Grey, a virtual world created by the Isu, where she meets both the Reader (implied to be Desmond's preserved consciousness) and Basim Ibn Ishaq, a Hidden One and the reincarnation of the Isu Loki, who was trapped in the Grey by Eivor. Basim helps Layla stop the disaster but then abandons her in the Grey and escapes back to the real world, where he joins the modern-day Assassins. In '' Assassin's Creed Mirage'', the Assassins use a sample of Basim's DNA to relive his memories of his time as a Hidden One during the Islamic Golden Age, in order to learn more about his nature as a reborn Isu.

Release history

The following table lists the main and spin-off games of the franchise, along with their release years and the respective platform(s) they released on:

Released under the title ''Assassin's Creed: Liberation HD'' for Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2014.

Originally released as DLC for all versions of ''Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag'' in 2013.

Originally announced as part of the season pass for ''Assassin's Creed Unity''.

Released as a compilation titled ''Assassin's Creed Chronicles Trilogy Pack''.

Released exclusively for the Honor 9 smartphone.

Main series

''Assassin's Creed''

The first game in the series was released in November 2007 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and in April 2008 for Microsoft Windows. It features a historical recreation of the Holy Land (primarily the cities of Masyaf, Jerusalem, Acre, and Damascus) in the late 12th century. Its narrative includes real historical figures and events from that time period. The storyline consists of two portions: one set during the modern-day, which follows Desmond Miles; and one set in 1191, which follows Desmond's ancestor, Altaïr Ibn-LaʼAhad, a member of the Assassin Order during the time of the Third Crusade. Desmond's story begins with his abduction by pharmaceutical company Abstergo Industries, whose lead scientist, Dr. Warren Vidic, forces him to explore Altaïr's memories through a machine called the Animus that allows him to connect with his ancestors' DNA. In doing so, Abstergo hopes to find powerful artifacts called Pieces of Eden, which the Assassins and their rivals, the Knights Templar, have fought over for centuries. Altaïr's story begins with his demotion to the rank of Novice Assassin after he botches an attempt by the Assassins to recover a Piece of Eden, the Apple of Eden, from the Templars. To redeem himself, Altaïr is tasked with assassinating nine Templar targets across the Holy Land.

''Assassin's Creed'' introduced core elements that remained in the rest of the series. Players can freely explore the game's open world, making use of Altaïr's parkour and climbing skills to navigate the environment. The game also features refined hack-and-slash combat, with players able to block and counter-attacks, and stealth mechanics, such as hiding in crowds of people, which allow players to avoid detection by enemies or lose pursuing foes. Although players can choose the order in which they kill their main targets, the mission design was seen as linear and repetitive because players had to complete several side quests before each assassination. The side quest prerequisite was one of the most criticized aspects of the game, so it was abandoned in future games.

''Assassin's Creed II''

'' Assassin's Creed II'' is a direct sequel to the first game and was released in November 2009 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, in March 2010 for Windows, and in October 2010 for OS X. The modern-day narrative again follows Desmond, who escapes from Abstergo (revealed at the end of the previous game as a front for the modern-day Templars) with the aid of Assassin mole Lucy Stillman and is taken to her team's hideout. Hoping to train Desmond as an Assassin, they put him in the Animus 2.0, where he begins to suffer from the bleeding effect; this allows Desmond to gain his ancestors' skills, but it also damages his mind, as he begins to involuntarily experience flashes of his ancestors' memories outside of the Animus. Meanwhile, the main narrative takes place at the height of the Italian Renaissance in the late 15th century and follows Desmond's Italian ancestor Ezio Auditore da Firenze, a young nobleman from Florence who is forced to become an Assassin after his father and brothers are killed by the Templars. During his journey to avenge their deaths, Ezio makes allies such as Leonardo da Vinci and Caterina Sforza and combats enemies such as the Pazzi and Barbarigo families and Rodrigo Borgia. Ezio also comes into contact with technology left behind by the First Civilization, a race that created humanity and the Pieces of Eden and who were wiped out by a catastrophic event.

Similar to the first game, ''Assassin's Creed II'' incorporates historical events into its narrative and features recreations of several cities from the time period it is set in (in this case, Florence, Venice, Forlì, San Gimignano, and Monteriggioni). Missions are divided into main story missions, themselves into memory sequences reflecting points in Ezio's life, and side missions that can be accomplished at any time; this approach to mission structure remains consistent in the other games in the series. The Villa Auditore in Monteriggioni, which acts as the Assassins' headquarters for most of the game, provides several functions that can be expanded on by paying for upgrades of surrounding buildings, or by purchasing artwork, weapons, and armor for the villa; in turn, the villa will generate wealth for the player at a rate influenced by the upgrades and acquisition of these items.

''Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood''

'' Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood'' is the sequel to ''Assassin's Creed II'', and was released in November 2010 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, in March 2011 for Windows, and in May 2011 for OS X. The game begins immediately after the events of its predecessor, at the end of which Desmond was warned by Minerva, a member of the First Civilization, about a solar flare that will hit the Earth and kill most of humanity in a few months. Desmond and his team travel to Monteriggioni, where they set up a new base and use the Animus to find the Temple of Juno, another First Civilization member, which houses Ezio's own Apple of Eden and the key to stopping the solar flare. The main narrative continues the story of Ezio, who travels to Rome, the center of Templar power in Italy, to re-establish the Assassin Brotherhood there and defeat the Borgias, who have attacked Monteriggioni and stolen the Apple of Eden.

''Brotherhood'' shares many of the same features as the previous game though it takes place primarily in one city: Rome. Like the Villa Auditore, the player can spend money to buy and upgrade shops and other facilities throughout the city to increase the revenue they can collect from it; however, the player will be required to destroy Borgia towers that control various sections of the city before they can do so. The Brotherhood of Assassins is introduced, by which, after saving citizens from certain events, the player can recruit these citizens as Assassins; they can then be dispatched to remote locations across Europe to gain experience and money or can be called in to help the player directly in a mission. For the first time in the series, the game features online multiplayer, in which players assume the role of Abstergo employees who, through the use of the Animus, relive the genetic memories of Renaissance Templars in various game modes. It was the last game to feature ''Assassin's Creed'' creator Patrice Désilets, as the creative director of the series.

''Assassin's Creed Revelations''

''Assassin's Creed Revelations'' is the final installment of the Ezio Trilogy and was released in November 2011 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Windows. Following the events of ''Brotherhood'', where he was possessed by Juno and forced to kill Lucy (who, unbeknownst to him, was a Templar double agent), Desmond has fallen into a coma and was put back into the Animus to save his mind. Within the computerized core of the Animus, Desmond meets the preserved consciousness of Abstergo's previous Animus test subject, Clay Kaczmarek, who explains that Demond's mind must achieve full synchronization with Altaïr and Ezio, or else he will fall into dementia. Desmond continues exploring the memories of Ezio, who, a few years after the events of ''Brotherhood'', travels to Constantinople to find five keys needed to open a library built by Altaïr, which is said to contain the power to end the Assassin–Templar conflict. In Constantinople, Ezio becomes caught in a war of succession between Sultan Bayezid II's sons, Selim and Ahmet, and must confront a conspiracy masterminded by the Byzantine Templars, who are taking advantage of the chaos to try and reclaim the city, as well as open Altaïr's library themselves.

Originally ''Revelations'' was announced as ''Assassin's Creed: Lost Legacy'', and conceptualized as a Nintendo 3DS title focusing on Ezio traveling to Masyaf to explore Altaïr's legacy and uncover the origins of the Assassin Brotherhood. ''Lost Legacy'' was later announced as cancelled on July 15, 2011, after Ubisoft decided to expand the idea further, cancel the 3DS development and shift all development duties towards PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC to release the game as a full-fledged main installment of the franchise. The original premise remained and evolved into the plot seen in the final game. Included were many new systems and additional weapons such as bomb-crafting and an expanded Assassin recruitment system. The multiplayer mode returns in ''Revelations'', with more characters, modes, and maps; players once again assume the role of Templars in training and as they level up and rise in the ranks, they are told more about Abstergo's history.

''Assassin's Creed III''

''Assassin's Creed III'' was released in October 2012 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and in November 2012 for Wii U and Windows. A remastered version of the game with enhanced visuals was released for Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in March 2019 and for Nintendo Switch in May 2019. This is the final game in the series to follow Desmond, who travels to the First Civilization's Grand Temple in New York with his friends and father to use the technology inside to prevent the solar flare set to hit the Earth in several weeks' time. To access this technology, Desmond must undertake missions across the globe to retrieve 'batteries' to power the Temple, as well as an ancient key to the Temple's inner chambers. To find the latter, Desmond uses the Animus to relive the memories of two of his ancestors who were in possession of the key at various points in time: Haytham Kenway, a British Templar from the 18th century who travels to the American colonies to establish a strong Templar presence on the continent and find the Grand Temple; and Ratonhnhaké:ton (later known as Connor), Haytham's half- Mohawk son, who becomes an Assassin to exact revenge on the Templars, whom he blames for the destruction of his village and the death of his mother in his youth. To this end, Connor later becomes involved in the American Revolution, helping the Patriot cause in exchange for their help in hunting down Haytham's faction of Templars, who hope to use the Revolution to further their own goals.

''Assassin's Creed III'' is structured similarly to the previous games, with missions taking place in an open-world map based on Colonial Boston and New York. The game offers a large wilderness area in the form of the Frontier and the Davenport Homestead, where the player can hunt animals for materials, which subsequently can be used to construct goods to be traded and sold throughout the colonies. Naval battles also debut in the series, wherein the player must steer a warship named the ''Aquila'' in dangerous waters and perform ship-to-ship combat with cannons and mounted guns. The multiplayer mode from the previous two games returns in ''Assassin's Creed III'' with new game modes, characters, and maps inspired by Colonial America, but this time no major narrative elements are included.

''Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag''

'' Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag'' was released in October 2013 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U and in November 2013 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows. Following the events of ''Assassin's Creed III'', at the end of which Desmond sacrificed himself to save the Earth, Abstergo retrieved samples from his body to continue exploring the memories of his ancestors. The player character is an unnamed Abstergo employee tasked with analyzing the memories of Edward Kenway, an 18th-century pirate and Connor's grandfather, ostensibly to gather material for an Animus-powered interactive feature film; in reality, Abstergo are searching for the Observatory, a First Civilization structure that allows the user to see through the eyes of a subject to find them anywhere on the planet. As Edward, the player must unravel a conspiracy between high-ranking Templars to manipulate the British and Spanish empires into locating the Sage—later identified as Bartholomew Roberts—who is the only man that can lead them to the Observatory.

''Black Flag'' retains many gameplay mechanics from ''Assassin's Creed III'', including the ship-based exploration and combat. For the first time in the series, naval exploration is a major part of the game; players can captain Edward's ship, the ''Jackdaw'', and battle rival ships or hunt sea animals. The game includes a large open world spanning the West Indies, with players able to explore the cities of Havana

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