Assassin's Creed is an award-winning historical science fiction third person action-adventure game series that as of 2011 consists of four main games and a number of supporting materials. The games have appeared on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation Vita, Mac OS X, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, iOS, HP webOS, Android, Nokia Symbian and Windows Phone 7 platforms. The main games in the franchise were developed by Ubisoft Montreal, with the handheld titles developed by Gameloft and Gryptonite Studios, with additional development by Ubisoft Montreal. All games in the franchise are published by Ubisoft.
Premise
All of the Assassin's Creed games take place in 2012, featuring the protagonist Desmond Miles, a barkeeper who is unknowingly a descendent of a line of Assassins. He is initially kidnapped by the megacorporation Abstergo Industries, the modern-day face of the Knights Templar, and forced to use the "Animus", a device that allows him to experience his ancestral memories. Abstergo is seeking to discover the location of several artifacts of great power to control mankind and alter its fate. Desmond is later rescued by a small team of modern-day Assassins, and taken to a secure location where he willingly enters the new Animus 2.0 device to help locate these artifacts before Abstergo can recover them. Within the Animus, Desmond experiences the memories of Altaïr ibn-La'Ahad, an Assassin during the Crusades, and Ezio Auditore da Firenze, an Assassin in Italy during the late 14th and early 15th Centuries, both who came into contact with one of the artifacts, "The Piece of Eden". Throughout these events, Desmond learns of allusions to the prophetic the end of the world in 2012 from a former Animus subject, as well as from a holographic figure calling herself Minerva that speaks directly to Desmond through Ezio's experience. Minerva warns Desmond that only he can stop these events and prevent another catastrophe.The story takes inspiration from a novel called Alamut, by the Slovenian writer Vladimir Bartol.
Gameplay
Though the game is presented through the protagonist Desmond Miles, the bulk of the game is played as Desmond experiences the memories of either Altair or Ezio through the Animus. This provides a means of a diegetic interface for the player, showing Altair or Ezio's health, equipment, goals, and other features as part of the Animus interface. The Animus is based on the player, as Desmond, controlling the assassin to maintain the synchronization between Desmond and his ancestor's memories. Performing actions that go against the Assassin's way or dying breaks the synchronization, effectively requiring the player to restart at a previous checkpoint. Furthermore, the player cannot explore outside of areas that the assassin has not experienced yet. There are also abnormalities within the Animus from previous users of the device that the player can find, linking to the larger story.While playing as the Assassin characters, the games are generally presented as third-person in an open world, focusing on stealth and parkour. The games use a mission structure to follow the main story, generally 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 Desmond, who by nature of the Animus use has learned Assassin techniques through a bleeding effect. Through the Animus interface, the player can go back to 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 by only killing the mission's target.
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 band on the Assassin's arm, and which is also can be used to quietly assassinate targets.
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