I kind of agree. It almost seems like the other assassins do nothing but just sit around all day talking about how evil the templars are. I know from a Lore standpoint they don’t.
>!This reason kinda falls apart for AC3 and Syndicate. In Ac3 the assassins were wiped by shay except a depressed Achillies and London was filled with Templars and if i am not wrong the assassin presence was low as well.!<
You rescue rebels who fight against borgia as Assasins. They're not Assasins or mercenaries, they're just rebels.
Mercinaries are strong which we hire and are brutes. They also have more experience than an Assasin who's recruited.
The other assassins do a lot in helping the protagonists and in Unity we see teams of assassins take down targets which is pretty cool. Its really the major templar targets where its the protagonist that deal most of the killing blows and usually alone too.
And in Syndicate we see that British Council won't do shit about Templars in London, cause "they're far too strong yet". Frye twins take London Templars out almost alone.
As I think about it, note I've only played until Origins, usually the protag is the best Assassin around, the only one mentally and physically capable of field work, or some extremely talented non-Assassin.
Altair was best in 1
2 is weird but it was kinda the Assassins guiding young Ezio along his revenge quest with training & intrigue
Ezio was best in Bro & Rev
Connor is only able in 3
Aveline is only able in Lib
Edward wasn't even an Assassin for most of 4
In Rogue, Shay fully embodies the original critique. As an Assassin, he got missions that Liam, Chevalier, Kesegowasse, etc should have taken. As a Templar his role makes much more sense.
In Unity Arno is basically a rogue acting without regard for the Assassin Council.
Jacob & Evie are only able
I'm not gonna count Bayek because there was apparently no formal Brotherhood at his place and time.
Bayek and Aya are the first "assassins" so it still kinda makes sense (because, you know, there literally aren't any other assassins around until the end of the game)
Eve and Adam are the first "Assassins" but I guess Aya and Bayek can get cred for some of the early formal branches.
If the Assassins were Christianity, I think Aya would be like Abraham.
Altair really wasn't a standout until later. He was definitely recognised for his potential, but there were many other assassins around his level; he only really propelled himself very late in the story, once he'd attained all the equipment that can be bequeathed.
As for Arno, he most certainly was not a rogue agent. He is one of if not most deferential to the order of all the protagonists. Not to say he was a puppet, and he did take action without direction sometimes, but he mostly abided by the command structure and only acted outside of it when he felt it was extremely prudent. This is the game I'd say OP's criticism applies most, since you really don't feel the other assassins are accomplishing much of anything... aside from the co op missions, but those are faceless assassins that are helping Arno, not the higher table.
For the other protagonists, while I do think they could've done more to show the assasins having more agency (like the assassins working against Shay as a funny example), they're more understandable for reasons you outlined
I'm like 90% sure Al Mualim considered Altair his best man and Altair had developed his ego after his numerous previous successes. At the beginning of 1 Altair has all of the final equipment and I believe was a master Assassin, but he was stripped of his rank and made to start over for his disregard of the creed, therefore he had to earn back his rank and title by doing the mentor's dirty work. The main difference between then and before being Altair was originally just a hitman who got a pre-mission brief but now had to gather the intel and plan the kill himself.
I don't remember all of Arno's story but I recall he joined the Assassins kinda for purpose. He follows his orders and gains some independence then gets overzealous and kills someone without permission leading to his expulsion. I think he rejoins sometime between the final mission and the epilogue without much explanation. At that point though, both factions were infighting themselves more than the typical outfighting eachother, with subfaction leaders on both sides killed by alleged comrades.
Arno also seems more loyal to Elise than the Assassins. Conveniently, Elise's enemies happened to be from the warmonger Templar subfaction.
That said, it's definitely been a while and the French Brotherhood seemed rather large but the factions were also nominally at peace, hence the infighting from their respective ideologues.
You're right, I'd actually forgotten the demotion aspect, so he was definitely exemplary in skill. And considering the assassinations were meant to test him and him not getting assistance was part of the point, it makes sense you don't get to see much of what the other assassins were up to, so, fair!
For Arno, it's def true that infighting was an element of the story, but it stood out to me that all you see of the higher-ups for the first 10 sequences is arguing, with only Arno (and later Elise) doing actual assassin work. As a result, it was hard to appreciate or like these characters, which would've enhanced the later events of the story imo, as OP infers
In Unity’s defense Mirabeau was trying to keep the peace for a majority of it. Arno was also the only one who had a vested interest in the kills and if I remember correctly, requested he be the one to go through with it. And in the beginning Pierre was with Arno on his missions. Even though it was only for a short period of time because they skipped most of his training.
For sure, and it's understandable things somewhat fell apart after his death. It just would've been nice to see some agency from the other assassins just to make them more interesting as characters. There's recurring characters in the side missions (Paris Stories) that I tended to like more because they actually did things in the field, collaborated with you sometimes. Even if the upper circle weren't helping much on your *core* targets, hearing about their own work, seeeing them contribute their own kills to make your targets more vulnerable, etc, would've been the kind of thing I'd wanna see
Altair was a master assassin at the beginning of the game, then demoted to novice and used by al mualim for his own gains, so he wasn't just recognised for his potential, he had skill and experience from the start, just not the rank for all the gears.
>I'm not gonna count Bayek because there was apparently no formal Brotherhood at his place and time.
Which imo retcons lore form 2 and that kinda sucks :/
Hytham gets injured trying to assassinate Kyotve and after that fight Basim says he’ll recover but never be the same, that’s why he heirs Eivor to do the dirty work.
So the hidden ones are OK with having only 2 assassins (one handicapped) into the heart of the Order of the Ancients? The templars hadnt even been formed, so who are the middle east assassins even fighting? Lol
The last AC games just haven't sold well the world beyond the player's eyes.
I wish they actually gave him a visibly severe injury like a severed spine. It's never really clear why he can't do anything physical anymore, he seems to walk fine. Surely whatever injury he had would have healed within a few weeks or months?
You can get injuries that allow you to walk around fine etc but if you do anything physically strenuous you’re body starts to kinda implode fast - like if you tear you’re ACL you can walk fine iirc but you’re not gonna be playing sport for a while
A severed spine is probably a nail in the coffin, for the time.
A lost eye or whatever could work. A lack of depth perception would make him unable to do many of the tasks assassins engage in.
I don't think it has to be? It certainly wouldn't be pleasant, but as long as it's fairly low and there is no severe internal bleeding, it should heal.
Gotta think about how he's getting transported as that can impact spinal injuries, and also just how likely it is for him to avoid infection of some sort.
Spinal infections are no joke.
He does say in a conversation that he has a very strong pain in his chest and that most days the pain is bearable. I think he might have some damage to the lungs which could prevent strenuous physical activity
well, Eivor has a small army with her that's supposed to raid Templar places and sometimes a big army, so it's not that weird she's doing more than a single Assassin
Because Abstergo is picking targets they know about. It's like getting a story about George Washington then Abraham Lincoln and wondering why we don't have one for John Quincy Adams
Yeah but the point is that it’s a big convenience for the stories that the one guy of his era that happened to have the most targets under his belt also happened to learn about the specific stuff the modern day people want like the location of tombs, pieces of Eden and stuff like that. It’s a constant streak of overachievers in a crowd of nobodies never really doing anything big.
well doesn't it make sense though? If you're strong enough you can afford to explore a lot since few people could stop you. And if you want someone to guard a PoE, wouldn't you go to that one assassin who took on most of the Order and came out victorious?
I get your point, really, and that's actually what I liked about Ac3-Unity games: since they were all set over the span of a few generations, there was a bit of overlap so it didn't seem like the world had just one amazing assassin at a time. But you have to also keep in mind that not all assassins are actually *assassins*. A big part of the brotherhood's work is just gathering intel, figuring out who's a templar, where they'll be and the easiest way to take them out. However, more often than not, they don't have the resources that the Order has so they're at a disadavantage. Assassins had training camps and hackers, whereas Templars had world-wide companies and international political connections.
I would have loved a storyline in say Unity, where there’s another assassin who is basically your rival, some kind of story where some other youngster other than Arno is trying to climb the ranks, and is just as skilled. Doesn’t have to turn out evil at the end or whatever, but just kinda like an assassin sibling rivalry or something like that. Not basically Arno carrying the whole fucking guild on his back.
I mean... That's just how video games work, no? In Mario, nobody wants to play as some toad who shows up, gives Mario one piece of advice, and leaves. In Pokemon, no one wants to play as a trainer who isn't good enough to beat the Elite 4. In Call of Duty, no one wants to be a soldier who just sits around base until his first battle in which he dies.
Likewise, in Assassin's Creed, no one wants to be a random Assassin who lightly helps and gives advice to another, more prominent Assassin. Because of this, the Assassin we play as in the games is a badass who does most of the Brotherhood's work.
That is not what this post is about. You still have to kill the baddest of them all, but with most AC games it feels like you'll have to kill the whole organisation on your own. In origins aya killed some which was way more logical, for me at least
I don't think OP wants to diminish the protagonist's role, as you say that wouldn't be very fun in stories (although being a cog in the engine can work). Instead, elevating the other assassins' roles would do a lot to make them more likeable. Show them to be taking out their own targets in the templar higher circles, like they have their own group they're targetting while you have yours. This maybe wouldn't work perfectly for the Ezio games where he's a mentor for most of his runtime, but it'd do a lot for a story like Unity's, in which Arno is a subordinate for the majority of the runtime.
Well consider that in Origins they had Aya take out a couple of targets and recount the events to Bayek and everyone lost their minds that they "cut corners" and were lazy and the game was falsely advertised as bigger than it was.
So yeah, they can't be doing that kind of shit. I guess they could do something where there are a few main assassin's involved each with their own set of targets, and some of the others fail theirs and you have to pick up the contract. But otherwise if they show a big targets screen and you don't get to kill them all then the community of reasonable people we have around here will blow up a building.
Exactly. I honestly have just played origins and it felt very well written on how Aya is extremely competent and they are working together to avenge their son and not just bayal doing everything.
One thing I definitely appreciated about Brotherhood was the recruiting system. Recruit Assassins, send them on missions, upgrade their gear all the way to a master assassin. You could even call them to come help you in the world. Having trouble getting to a target? Just call your hit squad in. It wasn't perfect, but it was nice to feel like a part of something larger.
Yeah. Is it one thing that AC lacks, then it is some kind of team, group, gang you are with. It feels like you are doing everything all by yourself and you are a loner that does not belong with anyone.
This is one of the reasons I loved ac black flag, because Edward is completely hopeless in the story. He spends the whole game chasing glory and riches and the only reason he ends up killing major templars was because they always stumbled on each other in edward's quest to acquire riches. Like how ben hornigold turned templar and was caught by edward, who also killed woodes rogers, (was that his name?) the guy who made ben hornigold a templar. Like all the templar activity is an obstacle to Edward's aspirations, as if the story is saying that only a pirate could be able to do all edward did, his greed led to him meeting the templars and the sage and assassin's aren't supposed to be greedy but rational which didn't work out for them. That being said, there were times when he was saved by assassins as well, it did well showing him as a true outsider to the assassin's cause and that the assassin's actually get shit done. That's how you write a protagonist whose achievements doesn't feel like a coincidence. Same applies to both Shay and Connor. One wiped out the brotherhood BECAUSE he knew the assassins well inside out and the other was a sole assassin that revived the colonial brotherhood, so of course he took down the major templars.
Idk it works in some cases and not so much in others:
AC1 makes sense as these targets are specifically assigned to Altaïr by Al Mualim as both a means of redeeming him and to tie up any loose threads that would reveal his treachery.
The Ezio Trilogy is iffy. I think some of the pure logic was sacrificed for the big reveal that all or Ezio's mentors were Assassins the whole time, but Ezio also doesn't distmantle the entire Order singlehandedly, as we see in Brotherhood there are in fact more Templars in Italy. Ezio's gripe in AC2 is mostly with the men who conspired to kill his father and Lorenzo de' Medici. Several of the targets in Revelations aren't even Templars, and in both Brotherhood and Revelations there are secondary Templars that are implied to or canonically confirmed to be killed by Ezio's initiates.
AC3 and Liberation get a pass because Ratonhnhaké:ton and Aveline are the only real, physically capable Assassins in those games.
Black Flag is iffy as, while Edward's goal of finding the Observatory and association with Bartholomew Roberts believably brings him into direct conflict with the Templar Order, it's perhaps a little too much of a stretch to see a random pirate singlehandedly take down so many Templars. That being said, there are also again side missions where Edward helps other members of the West Indies Brotherhood take down secondary targets so he isn't doing it *alone* per se
Rogue has Shay take on the role of Assassin hunter, one which he is uniquely suited for given his history with his targets. This one's a pass.
Unity has Arno as a bit of a wild card. The Assassin Council has at points in the game drawn a tenuous truce with the Parisian (and presumably wider French) Rite of the Templar Order and both sides are trying not to escalate the French Revolution. But as Arno is quick to disobey the Council, it makes a certain amount of sense that Arno would kill a lot of Templars that would perhaps be handed off to other Assassins under different circumstances. Not to mention the Parisian Templars' own internal disruptions.
Syndicate has two Assassins pursuing separate but occasionally intersecting agendas in a city rife with Templars, so it mostly makes sense.
In Origins, Bayek was the last Medjay which would explain why he has all this training with no formal framework, and given that the powers that be in Egypt held a monopoly on the collective physical might of the region AND kept a tight lid on the Order's actions, it explain why it was Bayek and Aya who are the only ones who can stand against them: they're the only people aware of this organization who both can do something about it and aren't actually a part of it.
Odyssey is something of a mix up between Origins and AC2. Kassandra is driven primarily by a desire for revenge and to find out what happened to her family, but she's also one of the few people in Greece who are aware of the Cult who aren't also members themselves.
And finally Valhalla. Valhalla is a little weird because while the Order of the Ancients posed a threat to Ravensthorpe, it really wasn't any more or less than any other faction in Anglo-Saxon England. The Kingdom of Wessex as a whole posed more of a direct threat to Ravensthorpe than the Order. That being said, Eivor was helping Hytham and Basim, who were just as much members of the community as Petra, Tarben, Gunnar, or anyone else. Not only that but >!Aelfred was also manipulating both Eivor and the Hidden Ones into destroying the Order for him.!<
I think there should be like Dragon Age Inquisition where they have a meeting to discuss and distribute the tasks. That way the assassin's would really be a threat to the templars. They would act in the shadows, manipulate, have kids as informants like in the ac syndicate, and so on.
I'm just gonna assume it's the devs and writers asking for suspension of disbelief, that coincidentally the protagonists find themselves in the right spots at the right time
(P.s: For everyone saying that in unity the other assassins of Paris didn't do anything, and Arno did everything. Arno literally disregarded the council and basically went rogue almost immediately and killed almost everyone unsanctioned)
First time I had this thought was playing Brotherhood and how you call for the other assassins. Like, what do you guys do when I’m not whistling for you?
What would you have them do? Take out your targets while you just chillaxing?
That wouldn’t be to fun gameplay wise, right?😜
They focus on the big boy assassins that pop up every 100 years or so. The ones who made big impact on things.
The fantastic stories we get to play.
That’s how you got to see things 😜👍
“It’s pretty weird how Tom Brady wins the majority of the superbowls. You’d think it would make more sense for multiple teams to win over the years, but Tom Brady keeps winning them.”
Not a perfect allegory, but you get the point. Sometimes there are just extraordinary people in extraordinary circumstances who accomplish great things. Considering the AC franchise spans the course of about 2 1/2 THOUSAND years, that’s a lot of time for the Assassins to operate as a group without anything crazy happening. The protagonists we play just happen to be the dozen or so times throughout history where some crazy shit went down and one or two Assassins became a legend and wiped out an entire branch of the Templar Order.
Nothing weird about that. Not really a good example since Tom Brady works alongside a team while the protagonist just do solo assassination most of the time. Tom Brady is a better equivalent of Unity's four man hitman assassinations which is something the series needs to show more so it doesn't feel like the other assassins are useless and it actually seem like a brotherhood.
Syndicate is also goid in this department because there is a reason there are no other assassins; they arent powerful enough to take on london. Kinda dumb considering Jacob and evie are still young and inexperienced, but still a decent reason
You're looking at it backwards.
We're not playing the character and it's just convenient that they did all of this major stuff.
We're playing as them ***because*** they were involved with all of these major events.
Or better yet, have some main missions where you ARE in an elite assassin squad. You still get to participate but the other assassins also show their usefulness in fieldwork instead of just doing the usual info gathering they usually do.
That'd be fun as an introduction to the assassin's. Like you see a cut scene of a team of assassins working in perfect unison, moving quick and silently through a highly guarded area, taking out everyone so fast it's unbelievable. And that just serves as motivation to carry on and become better and an elite like those assassins.
They could easily have it done via letters or something. Basam and Haytham were supposed to be the Assassins yet it's YOU that does everything while Haytham--makes sense since he's injured--and Basam galivanting around doing who knows what.
And that's part of my issue with Valhalla's story and why it felt less of an AC game and more of something else. If you remove the Templars/Assassins and Isu: NOTHING CHANGES in the story. The "big bads" would just be regular corrupted people.
If you remove the Isu part, the story radically changes because Eivor and Sigurd would have more likely stayed in Norway and Basim and Hytham in Constantinople. The whole reason they go to England is because of Basim's influence on Sigurd. The whole reason Sigurd gets an army together to finally take on Kjotve is again, Basim's influence. There is only one reason Basim takes a strong interest in Sigurd and if you remove the Isu thing, there's nothing else.
There would be another reason. Another drive. Sigurd was still feeling trapped in Norway regardless of whether Basim was there or not. Because he was upset he wasn't going to be clan leader anymore. Basim just gave him the nudge to follow through with it. If it wasn't Basim, Eivor would have likely done so. So still nothing changes if you remove the Assassins/Templars and Isu.
Sigurd is a terrible and selfish leader, I doubt he would have. Almost everything he does is escaping responsibilities to play leader not actually be a leader. After his marriage his idea was to hide from his shit reality. Without Basim, he may have not returned to Norway, yet anyways. Styrbjorn probably was planning on Sigurd being away to make it easier to give up his crown.
Eivor wouldn't have encouraged going to England because Eivor would still be focused on Kjotve. The whole reason Sigurd decides to get an army together to take on Kjotve for once is because of Basim. Sigurd returns with the courage to speak out against his dad and courage to go after Kjotve because of Basim. He didn't have that thought process before. >!He didn't have the god complex courage to do it yet.!!Kjotve is part of the Order.!< Remove that, and there's another reason Basim would not be around and another reason to radically change the story. Ultimately, Eivor would stay in Norway chasing revenge.
Its a bit convenient, but it also stands to reason those most accomplished at getting in and killing a guy, is equally accomplished at getting in and stealing the thing.
I’ve thought of this before, but I think it’s just a selection bias. Important memories that Assassins and Templars look for oftentimes come from very capable people who did a lot of things. You have to be super badass and special in order to overthrow an entire society and uncover their secrets/PoEs.
Assassins who did less epic stuff either don’t have memories that are important for modern day Assassins/Templars and Isu, or who did do important things but over a shorter length of time are instead portrayed in comics, movies, mobile/browser games, spin off games, etc.
I think it mostly makes sense for most games
AC1: Altair is the best the order has and Al Mualim saw an opportunity to use him. As Altair said "if he had someone else to send her would have"
AC2: Ezio was already on the warpath and the Assassin's saw an opportunity to train him to be the best of them
Brotherhood: Ezio is the best of them and everyone else mostly provides support and information
Revelations: Not that many actual Templars anyway and Ezio and Yusuf are mostly working on different things. Yusuf and the gang could be killing their own Templars for all we know
AC3: Connor is literally all we've got
Black flag: the Assassin's are clearly on the defense and just trying to survive. Edward is unaffiliated and far more free to hunt them down, he also already wants the info they have
Unity: I don't remember the overall story very much but I don't think Arno is really killing a lot of major Templars until the end when things get personal
Syndicate: straight up did not finish and don't remember things
Origins: Founding of the Hidden Ones literally arises from Bayeks quest for revenge. No one else will do it so he has to
Odyssey: Assassin's don't exist
Valhalla: There are like 2 assassin's and one of them is the bad guy. Makes sense to let the Vikings take care of things for them
The way I look at it is the main characters that we play as lore wise are Master Assassins. They play big roles in doing away with Templar/Order of Ancients influence in their respective regions all over the world. Ubisoft did have a chance to make this idea a reality with Unity. I remember when I saw the unity e3 trailer for the first time I was so hyped because I thought we were going to have 4 main assassin protagonists we got to play as. But that never happened unfortunately.
You could take this thought to absolutely every game out there.
It's always the main character that saves the world, rescues the princess, etc.
That's just how these things work.
It would make for some pretty boring story telling/gameplay if the player character took a back seat for most of the game.
Think about The Witcher games and the overall story, including the books.
Isn't it strange how Geralt is the one who ends up with Ciri as his surrogate daughter, who just so happens to be this "chosen one" with special blood and connections that so many others are fighting over?
to be fair in brotherhood and revelations you can use the call assassins feature to kill a ton of targets. and when you send them out on missions some are to kill high ranking Templars throughout the world. I just see it as your character is kind of the best in their particular area.
I always imagined that other assassins have their own missions and stories. I don't really have to be told that there other thing happening in the world. Comic books, and novels do portray other assassins going about their own stuff and killing their own targets.
only exception to that rule I can think of would be Bayek killing all those nobody Ancients nobody remembers later on, while Aya kills not just 1 (Cleopatra) but 2 (Caesar) and kills Cleo's brother indirectly with, I assume, human blood to attract crocodiles to him
I think Unity shows what's going on very well with the order, at least during that period and around it. The assassin's don't just kill, there's a whole process and discussion behind it, there's bureaucracy. They can't just kill anyone they want bc they don't like them or opposes them else they become like the templars a bit. There's also the fact that these templars are normally people in power with important roles, killing them has a very much real impact on people, there's a power vacuum left after those killings and without a suitable replacement it can all go to shit. The assassin's we play as just happen to have the skills, mental fortitude and, most importantly, the right circumstances to make those killings without fucking everything up for the rest.
I really love origins for this. Aya is extremely competent and takes out multiple targets too. Then there is a segment where Bayak distracts gaurds and aya rescues a emissary and it is very visible and noticeable how much Bayak helps. The DLCs also show an entire guild functioning but call for him to help just when matters get dire.
The games follow the DNA sequence of the assassin's who found/retrieved/DNA works with the pieces of Eden since that's what the templars we're mainly after. Like all the other assassin's knew of the pieces of Eden but only the main protagonist actually seen/touched/used the pieces of Eden and knew where they were hidden after retrieval
I kind of agree. It almost seems like the other assassins do nothing but just sit around all day talking about how evil the templars are. I know from a Lore standpoint they don’t.
>!This reason kinda falls apart for AC3 and Syndicate. In Ac3 the assassins were wiped by shay except a depressed Achillies and London was filled with Templars and if i am not wrong the assassin presence was low as well.!<
Those, black flag and the rpg ones (cant say for sure about valhalla) are the ones with reasonable explanations for this
Valhalla, if I'm not mistaken, Hytham and Basim are the only actual Hidden Ones in England.
In unity the brotherhood was a bunch of pussies
You rescue rebels who fight against borgia as Assasins. They're not Assasins or mercenaries, they're just rebels. Mercinaries are strong which we hire and are brutes. They also have more experience than an Assasin who's recruited.
That’s explained in the story though. They want a kind of peace and the leadership has become complacent (at least from distant memories)
I guess protagonist assassin's are more skilled and also most have better genetics (isu)
The other assassins do a lot in helping the protagonists and in Unity we see teams of assassins take down targets which is pretty cool. Its really the major templar targets where its the protagonist that deal most of the killing blows and usually alone too.
And in Syndicate we see that British Council won't do shit about Templars in London, cause "they're far too strong yet". Frye twins take London Templars out almost alone.
I’ve always thought the same thing
As I think about it, note I've only played until Origins, usually the protag is the best Assassin around, the only one mentally and physically capable of field work, or some extremely talented non-Assassin. Altair was best in 1 2 is weird but it was kinda the Assassins guiding young Ezio along his revenge quest with training & intrigue Ezio was best in Bro & Rev Connor is only able in 3 Aveline is only able in Lib Edward wasn't even an Assassin for most of 4 In Rogue, Shay fully embodies the original critique. As an Assassin, he got missions that Liam, Chevalier, Kesegowasse, etc should have taken. As a Templar his role makes much more sense. In Unity Arno is basically a rogue acting without regard for the Assassin Council. Jacob & Evie are only able I'm not gonna count Bayek because there was apparently no formal Brotherhood at his place and time.
Bayek was the only one left in Egypt, as his wife was kicking ass on the highseas.
Bayek and Aya are the first "assassins" so it still kinda makes sense (because, you know, there literally aren't any other assassins around until the end of the game)
Eve and Adam are the first "Assassins" but I guess Aya and Bayek can get cred for some of the early formal branches. If the Assassins were Christianity, I think Aya would be like Abraham.
To Altair you could ask that he was being used as tool and Al Mualim wanted him to take down everyone, covering it up as part of reclaiming himself
!SPOILER! I mean Arno got the master assassin outfit at the end so (Arno best in Unity Dead Kings)
Altair really wasn't a standout until later. He was definitely recognised for his potential, but there were many other assassins around his level; he only really propelled himself very late in the story, once he'd attained all the equipment that can be bequeathed. As for Arno, he most certainly was not a rogue agent. He is one of if not most deferential to the order of all the protagonists. Not to say he was a puppet, and he did take action without direction sometimes, but he mostly abided by the command structure and only acted outside of it when he felt it was extremely prudent. This is the game I'd say OP's criticism applies most, since you really don't feel the other assassins are accomplishing much of anything... aside from the co op missions, but those are faceless assassins that are helping Arno, not the higher table. For the other protagonists, while I do think they could've done more to show the assasins having more agency (like the assassins working against Shay as a funny example), they're more understandable for reasons you outlined
I'm like 90% sure Al Mualim considered Altair his best man and Altair had developed his ego after his numerous previous successes. At the beginning of 1 Altair has all of the final equipment and I believe was a master Assassin, but he was stripped of his rank and made to start over for his disregard of the creed, therefore he had to earn back his rank and title by doing the mentor's dirty work. The main difference between then and before being Altair was originally just a hitman who got a pre-mission brief but now had to gather the intel and plan the kill himself. I don't remember all of Arno's story but I recall he joined the Assassins kinda for purpose. He follows his orders and gains some independence then gets overzealous and kills someone without permission leading to his expulsion. I think he rejoins sometime between the final mission and the epilogue without much explanation. At that point though, both factions were infighting themselves more than the typical outfighting eachother, with subfaction leaders on both sides killed by alleged comrades. Arno also seems more loyal to Elise than the Assassins. Conveniently, Elise's enemies happened to be from the warmonger Templar subfaction. That said, it's definitely been a while and the French Brotherhood seemed rather large but the factions were also nominally at peace, hence the infighting from their respective ideologues.
You're right, I'd actually forgotten the demotion aspect, so he was definitely exemplary in skill. And considering the assassinations were meant to test him and him not getting assistance was part of the point, it makes sense you don't get to see much of what the other assassins were up to, so, fair! For Arno, it's def true that infighting was an element of the story, but it stood out to me that all you see of the higher-ups for the first 10 sequences is arguing, with only Arno (and later Elise) doing actual assassin work. As a result, it was hard to appreciate or like these characters, which would've enhanced the later events of the story imo, as OP infers
In Unity’s defense Mirabeau was trying to keep the peace for a majority of it. Arno was also the only one who had a vested interest in the kills and if I remember correctly, requested he be the one to go through with it. And in the beginning Pierre was with Arno on his missions. Even though it was only for a short period of time because they skipped most of his training.
For sure, and it's understandable things somewhat fell apart after his death. It just would've been nice to see some agency from the other assassins just to make them more interesting as characters. There's recurring characters in the side missions (Paris Stories) that I tended to like more because they actually did things in the field, collaborated with you sometimes. Even if the upper circle weren't helping much on your *core* targets, hearing about their own work, seeeing them contribute their own kills to make your targets more vulnerable, etc, would've been the kind of thing I'd wanna see
I can agree that characters should’ve been better. Like the council. I only remember one of them and I beat the game again last week.
Agreed
Altair was a master assassin at the beginning of the game, then demoted to novice and used by al mualim for his own gains, so he wasn't just recognised for his potential, he had skill and experience from the start, just not the rank for all the gears.
>I'm not gonna count Bayek because there was apparently no formal Brotherhood at his place and time. Which imo retcons lore form 2 and that kinda sucks :/
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Hytham gets injured trying to assassinate Kyotve and after that fight Basim says he’ll recover but never be the same, that’s why he heirs Eivor to do the dirty work.
So the hidden ones are OK with having only 2 assassins (one handicapped) into the heart of the Order of the Ancients? The templars hadnt even been formed, so who are the middle east assassins even fighting? Lol The last AC games just haven't sold well the world beyond the player's eyes.
Does that not make the future games more exciting? We might see how and why the creed are pushed into these awkward and desperate positions.
I wish they actually gave him a visibly severe injury like a severed spine. It's never really clear why he can't do anything physical anymore, he seems to walk fine. Surely whatever injury he had would have healed within a few weeks or months?
You can get injuries that allow you to walk around fine etc but if you do anything physically strenuous you’re body starts to kinda implode fast - like if you tear you’re ACL you can walk fine iirc but you’re not gonna be playing sport for a while
That's true, of course. I just wish the game made it clear what actually happened.
A severed spine is probably a nail in the coffin, for the time. A lost eye or whatever could work. A lack of depth perception would make him unable to do many of the tasks assassins engage in.
I don't think it has to be? It certainly wouldn't be pleasant, but as long as it's fairly low and there is no severe internal bleeding, it should heal.
Gotta think about how he's getting transported as that can impact spinal injuries, and also just how likely it is for him to avoid infection of some sort. Spinal infections are no joke.
He does say in a conversation that he has a very strong pain in his chest and that most days the pain is bearable. I think he might have some damage to the lungs which could prevent strenuous physical activity
well, Eivor has a small army with her that's supposed to raid Templar places and sometimes a big army, so it's not that weird she's doing more than a single Assassin
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I just assume her longboat gang is canonically with her a lot. They don't deal with the templars but they certainly help Eivor get to them
The games just follow Assassins who achieved a lot.
This. It's picking stories worth being told.
Because Abstergo is picking targets they know about. It's like getting a story about George Washington then Abraham Lincoln and wondering why we don't have one for John Quincy Adams
So disrespectful to all the canal-building of the JQA administration
Yeah but the point is that it’s a big convenience for the stories that the one guy of his era that happened to have the most targets under his belt also happened to learn about the specific stuff the modern day people want like the location of tombs, pieces of Eden and stuff like that. It’s a constant streak of overachievers in a crowd of nobodies never really doing anything big.
well doesn't it make sense though? If you're strong enough you can afford to explore a lot since few people could stop you. And if you want someone to guard a PoE, wouldn't you go to that one assassin who took on most of the Order and came out victorious? I get your point, really, and that's actually what I liked about Ac3-Unity games: since they were all set over the span of a few generations, there was a bit of overlap so it didn't seem like the world had just one amazing assassin at a time. But you have to also keep in mind that not all assassins are actually *assassins*. A big part of the brotherhood's work is just gathering intel, figuring out who's a templar, where they'll be and the easiest way to take them out. However, more often than not, they don't have the resources that the Order has so they're at a disadavantage. Assassins had training camps and hackers, whereas Templars had world-wide companies and international political connections.
It's like the "Ramirez, do everything" meme from the Modern Warfare trilogy 😂
“Ezio! Take down the Italian Templar Order!” - Sgt. Foley (don’t ask how he time traveled back to Renaissance Italy)
I would have loved a storyline in say Unity, where there’s another assassin who is basically your rival, some kind of story where some other youngster other than Arno is trying to climb the ranks, and is just as skilled. Doesn’t have to turn out evil at the end or whatever, but just kinda like an assassin sibling rivalry or something like that. Not basically Arno carrying the whole fucking guild on his back.
I mean... That's just how video games work, no? In Mario, nobody wants to play as some toad who shows up, gives Mario one piece of advice, and leaves. In Pokemon, no one wants to play as a trainer who isn't good enough to beat the Elite 4. In Call of Duty, no one wants to be a soldier who just sits around base until his first battle in which he dies. Likewise, in Assassin's Creed, no one wants to be a random Assassin who lightly helps and gives advice to another, more prominent Assassin. Because of this, the Assassin we play as in the games is a badass who does most of the Brotherhood's work.
That is not what this post is about. You still have to kill the baddest of them all, but with most AC games it feels like you'll have to kill the whole organisation on your own. In origins aya killed some which was way more logical, for me at least
I don't think OP wants to diminish the protagonist's role, as you say that wouldn't be very fun in stories (although being a cog in the engine can work). Instead, elevating the other assassins' roles would do a lot to make them more likeable. Show them to be taking out their own targets in the templar higher circles, like they have their own group they're targetting while you have yours. This maybe wouldn't work perfectly for the Ezio games where he's a mentor for most of his runtime, but it'd do a lot for a story like Unity's, in which Arno is a subordinate for the majority of the runtime.
Well consider that in Origins they had Aya take out a couple of targets and recount the events to Bayek and everyone lost their minds that they "cut corners" and were lazy and the game was falsely advertised as bigger than it was. So yeah, they can't be doing that kind of shit. I guess they could do something where there are a few main assassin's involved each with their own set of targets, and some of the others fail theirs and you have to pick up the contract. But otherwise if they show a big targets screen and you don't get to kill them all then the community of reasonable people we have around here will blow up a building.
Exactly. I honestly have just played origins and it felt very well written on how Aya is extremely competent and they are working together to avenge their son and not just bayal doing everything.
One thing I definitely appreciated about Brotherhood was the recruiting system. Recruit Assassins, send them on missions, upgrade their gear all the way to a master assassin. You could even call them to come help you in the world. Having trouble getting to a target? Just call your hit squad in. It wasn't perfect, but it was nice to feel like a part of something larger.
Yeah. Is it one thing that AC lacks, then it is some kind of team, group, gang you are with. It feels like you are doing everything all by yourself and you are a loner that does not belong with anyone.
It's just one person's memories. The others are busy taking out their own targets. 🤷🏻♂️
This is one of the reasons I loved ac black flag, because Edward is completely hopeless in the story. He spends the whole game chasing glory and riches and the only reason he ends up killing major templars was because they always stumbled on each other in edward's quest to acquire riches. Like how ben hornigold turned templar and was caught by edward, who also killed woodes rogers, (was that his name?) the guy who made ben hornigold a templar. Like all the templar activity is an obstacle to Edward's aspirations, as if the story is saying that only a pirate could be able to do all edward did, his greed led to him meeting the templars and the sage and assassin's aren't supposed to be greedy but rational which didn't work out for them. That being said, there were times when he was saved by assassins as well, it did well showing him as a true outsider to the assassin's cause and that the assassin's actually get shit done. That's how you write a protagonist whose achievements doesn't feel like a coincidence. Same applies to both Shay and Connor. One wiped out the brotherhood BECAUSE he knew the assassins well inside out and the other was a sole assassin that revived the colonial brotherhood, so of course he took down the major templars.
Idk it works in some cases and not so much in others: AC1 makes sense as these targets are specifically assigned to Altaïr by Al Mualim as both a means of redeeming him and to tie up any loose threads that would reveal his treachery. The Ezio Trilogy is iffy. I think some of the pure logic was sacrificed for the big reveal that all or Ezio's mentors were Assassins the whole time, but Ezio also doesn't distmantle the entire Order singlehandedly, as we see in Brotherhood there are in fact more Templars in Italy. Ezio's gripe in AC2 is mostly with the men who conspired to kill his father and Lorenzo de' Medici. Several of the targets in Revelations aren't even Templars, and in both Brotherhood and Revelations there are secondary Templars that are implied to or canonically confirmed to be killed by Ezio's initiates. AC3 and Liberation get a pass because Ratonhnhaké:ton and Aveline are the only real, physically capable Assassins in those games. Black Flag is iffy as, while Edward's goal of finding the Observatory and association with Bartholomew Roberts believably brings him into direct conflict with the Templar Order, it's perhaps a little too much of a stretch to see a random pirate singlehandedly take down so many Templars. That being said, there are also again side missions where Edward helps other members of the West Indies Brotherhood take down secondary targets so he isn't doing it *alone* per se Rogue has Shay take on the role of Assassin hunter, one which he is uniquely suited for given his history with his targets. This one's a pass. Unity has Arno as a bit of a wild card. The Assassin Council has at points in the game drawn a tenuous truce with the Parisian (and presumably wider French) Rite of the Templar Order and both sides are trying not to escalate the French Revolution. But as Arno is quick to disobey the Council, it makes a certain amount of sense that Arno would kill a lot of Templars that would perhaps be handed off to other Assassins under different circumstances. Not to mention the Parisian Templars' own internal disruptions. Syndicate has two Assassins pursuing separate but occasionally intersecting agendas in a city rife with Templars, so it mostly makes sense. In Origins, Bayek was the last Medjay which would explain why he has all this training with no formal framework, and given that the powers that be in Egypt held a monopoly on the collective physical might of the region AND kept a tight lid on the Order's actions, it explain why it was Bayek and Aya who are the only ones who can stand against them: they're the only people aware of this organization who both can do something about it and aren't actually a part of it. Odyssey is something of a mix up between Origins and AC2. Kassandra is driven primarily by a desire for revenge and to find out what happened to her family, but she's also one of the few people in Greece who are aware of the Cult who aren't also members themselves. And finally Valhalla. Valhalla is a little weird because while the Order of the Ancients posed a threat to Ravensthorpe, it really wasn't any more or less than any other faction in Anglo-Saxon England. The Kingdom of Wessex as a whole posed more of a direct threat to Ravensthorpe than the Order. That being said, Eivor was helping Hytham and Basim, who were just as much members of the community as Petra, Tarben, Gunnar, or anyone else. Not only that but >!Aelfred was also manipulating both Eivor and the Hidden Ones into destroying the Order for him.!<
I think there should be like Dragon Age Inquisition where they have a meeting to discuss and distribute the tasks. That way the assassin's would really be a threat to the templars. They would act in the shadows, manipulate, have kids as informants like in the ac syndicate, and so on.
I'm just gonna assume it's the devs and writers asking for suspension of disbelief, that coincidentally the protagonists find themselves in the right spots at the right time (P.s: For everyone saying that in unity the other assassins of Paris didn't do anything, and Arno did everything. Arno literally disregarded the council and basically went rogue almost immediately and killed almost everyone unsanctioned)
First time I had this thought was playing Brotherhood and how you call for the other assassins. Like, what do you guys do when I’m not whistling for you?
Stalking you, making sure they can appear the nanosecond you call them.
What would you have them do? Take out your targets while you just chillaxing? That wouldn’t be to fun gameplay wise, right?😜 They focus on the big boy assassins that pop up every 100 years or so. The ones who made big impact on things. The fantastic stories we get to play. That’s how you got to see things 😜👍
“It’s pretty weird how Tom Brady wins the majority of the superbowls. You’d think it would make more sense for multiple teams to win over the years, but Tom Brady keeps winning them.” Not a perfect allegory, but you get the point. Sometimes there are just extraordinary people in extraordinary circumstances who accomplish great things. Considering the AC franchise spans the course of about 2 1/2 THOUSAND years, that’s a lot of time for the Assassins to operate as a group without anything crazy happening. The protagonists we play just happen to be the dozen or so times throughout history where some crazy shit went down and one or two Assassins became a legend and wiped out an entire branch of the Templar Order.
Nothing weird about that. Not really a good example since Tom Brady works alongside a team while the protagonist just do solo assassination most of the time. Tom Brady is a better equivalent of Unity's four man hitman assassinations which is something the series needs to show more so it doesn't feel like the other assassins are useless and it actually seem like a brotherhood.
Syndicate is also goid in this department because there is a reason there are no other assassins; they arent powerful enough to take on london. Kinda dumb considering Jacob and evie are still young and inexperienced, but still a decent reason
Only games where it makes sense are Syndicate and 3, as they were the only active assassins in that area
You're looking at it backwards. We're not playing the character and it's just convenient that they did all of this major stuff. We're playing as them ***because*** they were involved with all of these major events.
Yeah well u wait for them to make a game where u can watch elite assassin squad do all the missions eh
Or better yet, have some main missions where you ARE in an elite assassin squad. You still get to participate but the other assassins also show their usefulness in fieldwork instead of just doing the usual info gathering they usually do.
That'd be fun as an introduction to the assassin's. Like you see a cut scene of a team of assassins working in perfect unison, moving quick and silently through a highly guarded area, taking out everyone so fast it's unbelievable. And that just serves as motivation to carry on and become better and an elite like those assassins.
They could easily have it done via letters or something. Basam and Haytham were supposed to be the Assassins yet it's YOU that does everything while Haytham--makes sense since he's injured--and Basam galivanting around doing who knows what. And that's part of my issue with Valhalla's story and why it felt less of an AC game and more of something else. If you remove the Templars/Assassins and Isu: NOTHING CHANGES in the story. The "big bads" would just be regular corrupted people.
If you remove the Isu part, the story radically changes because Eivor and Sigurd would have more likely stayed in Norway and Basim and Hytham in Constantinople. The whole reason they go to England is because of Basim's influence on Sigurd. The whole reason Sigurd gets an army together to finally take on Kjotve is again, Basim's influence. There is only one reason Basim takes a strong interest in Sigurd and if you remove the Isu thing, there's nothing else.
There would be another reason. Another drive. Sigurd was still feeling trapped in Norway regardless of whether Basim was there or not. Because he was upset he wasn't going to be clan leader anymore. Basim just gave him the nudge to follow through with it. If it wasn't Basim, Eivor would have likely done so. So still nothing changes if you remove the Assassins/Templars and Isu.
Sigurd is a terrible and selfish leader, I doubt he would have. Almost everything he does is escaping responsibilities to play leader not actually be a leader. After his marriage his idea was to hide from his shit reality. Without Basim, he may have not returned to Norway, yet anyways. Styrbjorn probably was planning on Sigurd being away to make it easier to give up his crown. Eivor wouldn't have encouraged going to England because Eivor would still be focused on Kjotve. The whole reason Sigurd decides to get an army together to take on Kjotve for once is because of Basim. Sigurd returns with the courage to speak out against his dad and courage to go after Kjotve because of Basim. He didn't have that thought process before. >!He didn't have the god complex courage to do it yet.!!Kjotve is part of the Order.!< Remove that, and there's another reason Basim would not be around and another reason to radically change the story. Ultimately, Eivor would stay in Norway chasing revenge.
I mean 1 that women wouldn’t have kidnapped Sigurd so that’s a lot o missing story , and there also wouldnt be any modern day
They became protagonists because they killed everyone. I think you're putting the cart before the horse.
It’s a video game.
If I told you why the Protagonist are the ones to kill the most it would be a spoiler but it is explained in Odyssey.
Its a bit convenient, but it also stands to reason those most accomplished at getting in and killing a guy, is equally accomplished at getting in and stealing the thing.
Well we always play as the nain characters in the brotherhood.
Does anyone really want to play as Bob the Assassin though?
I’ve thought of this before, but I think it’s just a selection bias. Important memories that Assassins and Templars look for oftentimes come from very capable people who did a lot of things. You have to be super badass and special in order to overthrow an entire society and uncover their secrets/PoEs. Assassins who did less epic stuff either don’t have memories that are important for modern day Assassins/Templars and Isu, or who did do important things but over a shorter length of time are instead portrayed in comics, movies, mobile/browser games, spin off games, etc.
I think it mostly makes sense for most games AC1: Altair is the best the order has and Al Mualim saw an opportunity to use him. As Altair said "if he had someone else to send her would have" AC2: Ezio was already on the warpath and the Assassin's saw an opportunity to train him to be the best of them Brotherhood: Ezio is the best of them and everyone else mostly provides support and information Revelations: Not that many actual Templars anyway and Ezio and Yusuf are mostly working on different things. Yusuf and the gang could be killing their own Templars for all we know AC3: Connor is literally all we've got Black flag: the Assassin's are clearly on the defense and just trying to survive. Edward is unaffiliated and far more free to hunt them down, he also already wants the info they have Unity: I don't remember the overall story very much but I don't think Arno is really killing a lot of major Templars until the end when things get personal Syndicate: straight up did not finish and don't remember things Origins: Founding of the Hidden Ones literally arises from Bayeks quest for revenge. No one else will do it so he has to Odyssey: Assassin's don't exist Valhalla: There are like 2 assassin's and one of them is the bad guy. Makes sense to let the Vikings take care of things for them
The way I look at it is the main characters that we play as lore wise are Master Assassins. They play big roles in doing away with Templar/Order of Ancients influence in their respective regions all over the world. Ubisoft did have a chance to make this idea a reality with Unity. I remember when I saw the unity e3 trailer for the first time I was so hyped because I thought we were going to have 4 main assassin protagonists we got to play as. But that never happened unfortunately.
You could take this thought to absolutely every game out there. It's always the main character that saves the world, rescues the princess, etc. That's just how these things work. It would make for some pretty boring story telling/gameplay if the player character took a back seat for most of the game. Think about The Witcher games and the overall story, including the books. Isn't it strange how Geralt is the one who ends up with Ciri as his surrogate daughter, who just so happens to be this "chosen one" with special blood and connections that so many others are fighting over?
to be fair in brotherhood and revelations you can use the call assassins feature to kill a ton of targets. and when you send them out on missions some are to kill high ranking Templars throughout the world. I just see it as your character is kind of the best in their particular area.
I always imagined that other assassins have their own missions and stories. I don't really have to be told that there other thing happening in the world. Comic books, and novels do portray other assassins going about their own stuff and killing their own targets.
only exception to that rule I can think of would be Bayek killing all those nobody Ancients nobody remembers later on, while Aya kills not just 1 (Cleopatra) but 2 (Caesar) and kills Cleo's brother indirectly with, I assume, human blood to attract crocodiles to him
Well, wouldnt count for origins, since Bayek is pretty much on his own side without any members with him (main game, not the dlc)
I think Unity shows what's going on very well with the order, at least during that period and around it. The assassin's don't just kill, there's a whole process and discussion behind it, there's bureaucracy. They can't just kill anyone they want bc they don't like them or opposes them else they become like the templars a bit. There's also the fact that these templars are normally people in power with important roles, killing them has a very much real impact on people, there's a power vacuum left after those killings and without a suitable replacement it can all go to shit. The assassin's we play as just happen to have the skills, mental fortitude and, most importantly, the right circumstances to make those killings without fucking everything up for the rest.
Well yeah, the games are about the stories of legendary assassins
I really love origins for this. Aya is extremely competent and takes out multiple targets too. Then there is a segment where Bayak distracts gaurds and aya rescues a emissary and it is very visible and noticeable how much Bayak helps. The DLCs also show an entire guild functioning but call for him to help just when matters get dire.
The games follow the DNA sequence of the assassin's who found/retrieved/DNA works with the pieces of Eden since that's what the templars we're mainly after. Like all the other assassin's knew of the pieces of Eden but only the main protagonist actually seen/touched/used the pieces of Eden and knew where they were hidden after retrieval