It started with a finger. Or rather, the lack of one. When Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad stepped onto the screen in 2007, nobody really knew what to make of this weird, semi-historical parkour sim. It was clunky. Honestly, it was repetitive. But it changed everything. Looking back at Assassin's Creed all games, it’s a miracle the franchise survived its own growing pains to become the juggernaut it is today.
Most people think they know the series. They think it’s just guys in hoods jumping into haystacks. It’s way weirder than that. You’ve got ancient aliens, genetic memory, and a meta-narrative that has arguably been "in progress" for nearly two decades without a clear exit strategy.
The Early Days: When Being an Assassin Actually Meant Something
The original Assassin's Creed was basically a tech demo disguised as a game. Jade Raymond and Patrice Désilets had this wild vision of social stealth—blending into crowds instead of hiding in shadows. It worked, mostly. But if you play it now? It’s rough. You save a citizen, you climb a tower, you eavesdrop. Rinse and repeat.
Then came Ezio Auditore da Firenze.
Assassin's Creed II is why we are still talking about this franchise. It took the drab grays of the Third Crusade and replaced them with the vibrant, blood-soaked gold of the Italian Renaissance. Ezio wasn't just a protagonist; he was a person. We saw him born. We saw his family murdered. We saw him grow old in Brotherhood and Revelations. This trilogy is the peak for many fans because it had a soul. It wasn't just a checklist of icons on a map. Not yet.
The Great Identity Crisis
By the time we hit Assassin's Creed III, things got messy. Connor Kenway was a polarizing lead. He was stoic, maybe even a bit boring compared to the charismatic Ezio. The American Revolution setting was ambitious, but the engine was struggling.
Then came the pivot.
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Black Flag is arguably the best pirate game ever made, but it’s a pretty mediocre "Assassin" game. Edward Kenway doesn't even care about the Creed for 80% of the story. He just wants to get paid and drink rum. This started a trend in Assassin's Creed all games where the actual title of the game felt like a secondary concern to the historical setting.
Ubisoft started churning these out annually. Unity launched as a broken, nightmare-inducing mess with faceless NPCs and game-breaking bugs. Syndicate tried to fix things with a grappling hook and a twin-protagonist system in Victorian London, but the fatigue was real. People were tired. The formula was stale.
The RPG Pivot: Love It or Hate It
In 2017, Ubisoft decided to blow the whole thing up. Origins took us to Ancient Egypt and turned the series into a full-blown RPG. Levels? Check. Loot rarity? Check. A map so big it felt like a second job? Absolutely.
Bayek of Siwa is perhaps the most underrated protagonist in the series. His grief is palpable. But the shift to hitbox-based combat instead of the "counter-kill" dance of the older games divided the fanbase. Then came Odyssey.
Odyssey is massive. It’s beautiful. It also has almost nothing to do with Assassins. You play as a mercenary (Misthios) in the Peloponnesian War. You fight Medusa. You kick people off cliffs. It’s a fantastic Greek hero simulator, but it pushed the sci-fi "First Civilization" (Isu) lore into territory that felt more like high fantasy than historical fiction.
Valhalla tried to find a middle ground. It brought back the hidden blade (sort of) and social stealth (barely), but it doubled down on the "bloated" map style. Completing Valhalla takes upwards of 100 hours. For many, that's just too much. It’s exhausting.
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What Actually Links Every Game?
If you look at the timeline, the connective tissue is the Animus. This is the part most newcomers hate. You’re playing as a Viking, having a blast, and suddenly you’re pulled out of the simulation to read emails in a basement.
But for the die-hards, the modern-day story is the point. From Desmond Miles to Layla Hassan, the struggle between Templars (Order) and Assassins (Chaos) is what gives the historical vignettes meaning. Without the Isu—those "Those Who Came Before"—the games would just be disconnected history lessons.
The Isu are the secret sauce. They are the reason for the Pieces of Eden. They are the reason the world keeps almost ending. It's wild that a series about history is actually a sci-fi epic about preventing the apocalypse using a VR chair built on DNA.
The Technical Evolution of the Creed
Let's talk tech for a second. The Anvil engine has gone through more iterations than a Silicon Valley startup. The parkour in Unity is still considered the gold standard by the community—it was fluid, weighty, and looked incredible. In contrast, the parkour in the newer RPG entries feels floaty and simplified. You just hold one button and your character climbs everything like Spider-Man. No thought required.
This loss of "mechanical depth" in movement is a huge point of contention. In the early games, you had to actually look for handholds. Now, you just push the stick forward. It’s more accessible, sure, but something was lost in the transition.
Mirage and the Future: A Return to Roots?
Recently, Assassin's Creed Mirage attempted to go back to basics. It was smaller. It was set in Baghdad. It focused on stealth. It felt like a love letter to the 2007 original. But it also highlighted how much the industry has changed. A "smaller" game now feels like a budget title to some, while others see it as a relief from the 100-hour grinds.
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Going forward, we have Assassin's Creed Shadows (set in Feudal Japan) and Hexe. The franchise is splitting. It’s no longer one thing. It’s an ecosystem.
Why Most People Rank the Games Wrong
Most "best of" lists are just popularity contests. If you really want to understand Assassin's Creed all games, you have to look at what they tried to innovate.
- AC1 gave us the concept.
- Brotherhood gave us the "call in your homies" mechanic.
- Black Flag mastered naval combat.
- Unity mastered the crowd and the city.
- Origins mastered the world-building.
The "worst" games are usually the ones that didn't take a risk. Syndicate was safe. Revelations was more of the same. The series is at its best when it's being weird and experimental, even if it fails.
The Ethics of History
One thing Ubisoft gets right (mostly) is the historical tourism. They hire actual historians. They built an entire "Discovery Tour" mode where you can just walk around Egypt or Greece and learn things without killing anyone. It’s used in schools. That’s incredible.
They do take liberties, obviously. George Washington wasn't actually using an Apple of Eden (at least, we don't think so). But the attention to detail in the architecture of Notre Dame or the Parthenon is unmatched in gaming. When Notre Dame burned in real life, Ubisoft's 3D scans were cited as potential resources for the reconstruction. That’s the legacy of this series.
What You Should Do Next
If you’re looking to dive into the series for the first time or catch up before the next big release, don't just play them in order. You'll burn out by game three.
- Start with the Ezio Collection. It’s the heart of the franchise. If you don't like Ezio, you probably won't like the series.
- Play Black Flag if you hate stealth. It’s just a great pirate adventure.
- Skip to Origins if you like modern RPGs. It’s the most cohesive of the "new style" games.
- Ignore the side quests. Seriously. In the newer games, the "map bloat" is real. Focus on the golden path (main story) or you’ll quit halfway through.
The series is a sprawling, messy, beautiful disaster of historical fiction and sci-fi nonsense. It’s inconsistent. It’s sometimes frustrating. But there’s nothing else quite like it. Whether you're leaping off a cathedral in Paris or sailing through a storm in the Caribbean, the feeling of "being there" is something Ubisoft has perfected. Just watch out for the haystacks—they aren't as soft as they look.
Actionable Steps for Fans:
- Check your hardware: If you're playing the RPG trilogy (Origins, Odyssey, Valhalla) on PC, ensure you have an SSD; the load times on traditional HDDs are brutal due to the massive world assets.
- Toggle the HUD: For a more immersive experience in Mirage or Valhalla, turn off the compass and mini-map. It forces you to actually look at the world landmarks to navigate, just like the original intended.
- Deep Dive the Lore: If the Isu story confuses you, watch a "modern day" summary on YouTube before starting Shadows. The "real world" plot is currently in a soft-reboot phase that started at the end of Valhalla.