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Historically, games have respected women about the same as you might respect a banana peel, or a used tissue. Women have been sexualised, objectified, belittled, discriminated against and misrepresented at every juncture.

But in the past couple of years, more and more games have started to feature women characters not as damsels in distress, or jiggle-physics-enabled arm candy, but protagonists. The Last of Us: Left Behind and Tomb Raider are a couple of noteworthy efforts, also Gone Home, Life is Strange and Remember Me. By no means have these titles "fixed" gaming's relationship with women, but they are, for the most part, a step in the right direction - at the very least, they're a step towards the right direction.

Lately however, I think there's been something opportunistic about the way games are treating women. The announcement this week that the new Assassin's Creed, entitled Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, would feature a playable female as well as male protagonist smacks, to me, not of an industry that genuinely cares about women, but one that is prepared to use them for the sake of publicity.

The fact that "female characters will be playable" is a press release at all - that Ubisoft, the game's developer, felt it pertinent to drip release that information - makes me feel as if women, especially in this case, have become a cynical kind of marketing tactic, deployed to whip up online chatter between GamerGate sexists, and make the rest of us normal people simply feel a bit warm and fuzzy.
Stirring up publicity or covering their backs
I'm relieved, of course, that women are finally receiving some stature in videogames, but these pre-launch "we will have female characters" press releases, like Syndicate, like Bedlam, like t his from the Mortal Kombat X developers, don't feel to me like developers trying to include and ingratiate women into games. Instead, it seems like game-makers are either trying to stir up publicity or merely cover their backs and demonstrate, like a restaurateur to the health inspector, that they are in compliance with expected standards.

There's a "you want it? Here then, have it!" kind of tone to these announcements - if the developers and writers actually thought or cared about women, they wouldn't shout about it this way.

This isn't what the process of creating gender equality in games looks like. More helpful - more powerful - would be to simply HAVE female characters in games, for them to simply BE THERE, not for developers to point out and proclaim it like it's some noteworthy oddity. Admittedly, it is noteworthy.

As I've said, videogames traditionally have treated women abysmally. But I don't think it's instructive or helpful to draw direct attention to women being in games. It still feels like the process of "othering" women, only now approached from a different angle - othering, but via the back door.

As long as the existence of female playable characters, or just female characters that aren't heinous caricatures, is drawn attention to, women in games will feel like an alien presence. You might argue that developers announcing their female characters this way is spreading the word somehow - it's encouraging other game-makers to do the same. But I don't buy that. This is just marketing.
Flaunted and touted

'The defences, or explanations, I read for this kind of trash are usually along the lines of "that's Kojima's style" or "it's a Japanese thing", as if, simply because a fashion of game design is individual, either to a person or a culture, it's excusable - nay - applaudable.' Read Ed's take on P.T. here.

The female characters in videogames are not given half as much attention as their male oppressors. On the contrary, they're still objects being flaunted and touted by developers, only now via different language. Especially in the case of Syndicate, female characters feel like a badge of honour that the developer has chosen to wear not out of any sense of purpose of principle, but simply for reasons of appearance - simply for convenience.

It's an affectation. If you're using women characters so nakedly as marketing material, I can't possibly believe that you actually care about them. If you did, you wouldn't reduce them to this mere window dressing.

"It's better than nothing" is the best defence I can come up with for this kind of marketing. Or rather, it's better than what predominated before, which was still women being used to promote games, except barely clothed, ludicrously proportioned sexist caricatures. But it's still tragic.

What dire straits is videogaming in when the mere presence of a woman in a game, in any role outside of damsel or eye candy, is considered news worthy, not just by the game's developer, but by the press also? How low do your standards as a creative have to be that you contact journalists to boast how your latest story has a woman in it?
Ed Smith writes about games, films and culture for IBTimes UK. He has also written for The Observer, Vice, New Statesman and Edge magazine. Find him on Twitter @mostsincerelyed

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Assassin's Creed Syndicate: Is Ubisoft exploiting feminism for easy PR?

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Historically, games have respected women about the same as you might respect a banana peel, or a used tissue. Women have been sexualised, objectified, belittled, discriminated against and misrepresented at every juncture. But in the past couple of years, more and more games have started to feature women characters not as damsels in distress, or jiggle-physics-enabled arm candy, but protagonists.

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An assassin heroine would "feel kind of wrong" against the manly backdrop of the American Revolution. So says the creative director of Assassin's Creed III, for whom the period is "a history of men." Ubisoft Sofia must not have got the memo, because here is Assassin's Creed III: Liberation--a game set at the same time, starring a female protagonist who feels exactly right.

That protagonist is Aveline, whose character materialised out of the studio's preliminary research into old-timey New Orleans, the city in and around which the game is set. "From the beginning, she was there," says producer Martin Capel.

Aveline is the daughter of a French merchant and his African wife, troubling the status quo as both a Templar-stabbing assassin and a female. She does her murderous work in a time and place when, says Capel, certain women were finding new levels of influence and independence, albeit with less cross-dressing than the star of Liberation.

Still, hers is a lovely looking character design, styling out braids and a sweet tricorn hat as her assassin uniform rather than the traditional peaked hood, with a machete (a "sugar cane machete," says the trailer) and blowpipe as signature weapons.

The game takes place over 15 years, with our first glimpse set at the time of the Louisiana Rebellion, in which New Orleans settlers resisted their city being turned over to Spain. So it is that Spanish guards walk the streets and rooftops of Aveline's home city, through which she free-runs in much the same way as her fellow mixed-race assassin, Connor.

The developer intended to squeeze as much of the Assassin's Creed III experience onto the Vita as possible, with tree climbing and wilderness-type areas (such as the swampy bayous) yet to be shown off, says Capel. It's done a fair job, too, though animations are a shade less smooth than those in the console game.

Otherwise, the visuals are impressive. New Orleans especially is handsome, roads lined with palms and the climbable St. Louis Cathedral at its centre. It looks as sunny as signature-city Boston looks chilly in Assassin's Creed III.

We see some of Connor's manoeuvres also making the transition to the Vita; a Spanish guard makes as effective a meat shield against musket fire as a British redcoat. The touch screen on the Vita provides new kinds of control, as well. Charging a power gauge with regular combat kills enables a chain kill, in which you freeze the action, tap each victim in the order you want them dead, then unfreeze it, setting Aveline loose with a quick combo of executions.

The Vita's touch-sensitive display is also used to steer when racing a horse-drawn cart of smouldering gunpowder barrels through the streets of the city, though this looks less convincingly enjoyable than the power trip of a chain kill.

Capel calls the historical setting of his game one of being "outside the Revolution, looking in," another contrast with Liberation's big brother, multi-format, Revolution-set title. His game concerns itself instead with French and Spanish powers vying for the city, smuggling, and, surely, slavery, still thriving in the period of the game. But the games don't exist in isolation of each other: Connor and Aveline will cross paths in some way, says Capel, though elaborating no further than "a crossover is planned."

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Assassin's Creed III: Liberation - At Last, a Lady Assassin

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An assassin heroine would "feel kind of wrong" against the manly backdrop of the American Revolution. So says the creative director of Assassin's Creed III, for whom the period is "a history of men." Ubisoft Sofia must not have got the memo, because here is Assassin's Creed III: Liberation--a game set at the same time, starring a female protagonist who feels exactly right.

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Research into Assassin's Creed players. (Played mostly by Couples)

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Research into Assassin's Creed players. (Played mostly by Couples)

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Concept art for Assassin's Creed Unity

Most Assassin's Creed games are purchased by men, but that doesn't mean women aren't also getting in on the action. Ubisoft executive Alain Corre tells The Wall Street Journal that studies have shown that couples often play Assassin's Creed games together.

"We've done some studies on this and, interestingly, we notice that many couples seem to be playing games like Assassin's Creed together," he said. "So while a game like Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed is predominantly purchased by males, it isn't necessarily played [just] by guys."

Presumably, Corre is talking about heterosexual couples. We have followed up with Ubisoft, asking for further results from the study, as well as details about methodology. These types of demographic surveys are often kept confidential, but we will update this post with anything we hear back from the French publisher.

Couples playing Assassin's Creed games together in the past needed to hand controllers back and forth, but

Corre's comments were made as part of The Wall Street Journal's wider story on the role of women in the video game industry today. The story also features a quote from The Division producer Fredrik Rundqvist, who said, "We see a big and fast increase in female players." In addition, The Sims 4 executive producer Rachel Franklin says half of The Sims' player base are women, and there is room to grow further.

"It is a demographic that clearly loves to play games," she said. "Women make up a huge part of the available gaming audience, and it is up to developers to decide whether or not to reach out to them."

According to the latest data [PDF] from The Entertainment Software Association, the group that represents the video game industry's interests on Capitol Hill, 48 percent of gamers in the United States are women. In addition, women age 18 or older make up a much larger portion of gamers (36 percent) than boys age 18 or younger (17 percent).

The topic of the representation of women in games has been a major talking point this year, following news out of E3 in June that Assassin's Creed Unity and Far Cry 4 would not feature playable female characters. Opinions on the subject have flooded in, with some people saying Ubisoft was unfairly singled out, while others maintain that the industry should not shy away from the women-in-games discussion.
Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

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Study Shows That Assassin's Creed Games Are Often Played By Couples

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Most Assassin's Creed games are purchased by men, but that doesn't mean women aren't also getting in on the action. Ubisoft executive Alain Corre tells The Wall Street Journal that studies have shown that couples often play Assassin's Creed games together.

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Assassin's Creed publisher Ubisoft is hoping to attract a younger audience to the brand.

Ubisoft will use companies like Mega Bloks to expand the Assassin's Creed franchise, whose games are rated for players 18 and older, to children.

Ubisoft's Yannick Spagna said (via GamesIndustry.biz): "On a big IP, like Assassin's Creed or that type of game, I think now the idea is to reach a maximum of people, so it's not about needing advertisement to get additional revenue.

"Plus I'm not sure this is the right business model to do that. When you think about it, would you like to have, while playing Assassin's Creed, shaving cream advertising every five minutes when you spent $70 to buy the game? I'm not sure this is what you want.

"For big IPs, smart brands are the best partners. They do a line with Mega Bloks together. On their side, it's nice because toys are looking for the hype around video games. And we are looking for a new audience: kids, children, it's more like that."

Spagna suggested that the company could even potentially create a kid-friendly spinoff.

"This quote is not about Assassin's Creed the game," Spagna continued. "It's about Assassin's Creed the brand. It's the same way you have The Lord of the Rings brand - the books, Shadow of Mordor, the Lego.

"It's a huge franchise, a brand, and within that you have different experiences that are tailored to specific audiences.

"If you think about it, we could even do an Assassin's Creed game tailored for kids.

"Imagine a Lego game. It would mean changing a lot of things... I played hours and hours of Lego Lord of the Rings, and you kill people but not kill people, because they're Lego characters."

Ubisoft recently released Assassin's Creed Unity and Assassin's Creed Rogue.

Assassin's Creed Unity has experienced a number of issues since launch. Ubisoft is currently working on frame rate and collision issues.
Assassin's Creed Unity review (Xbox One): Paris sequel another stellar entry
Watch a trailer for Assassin's Creed Unity below:

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Assassin's Creed publisher Ubisoft is hoping to attract a younger audience to the brand. Ubisoft will use companies like Mega Bloks to expand the Assassin's Creed franchise, whose games are rated for players 18 and older, to children.

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Critique and Info on the context of the game

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Critique and Info on the context of the game

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Aveline de Grandpre is a fascinating character. Not only is the heroine of Assassin's Creed III: Liberation the series' first female protagonist, but her backstory deals with one of the darkest periods in American history. This is a woman born from the romance between a wealthy father and a slave mother, someone who has overcome her uncertain upbringing to find a new life in the Assassin Brotherhood. She's the sort of figure capable of anchoring a truly special game--making it all the more disappointing that Liberation, taken as a whole, is a bit dull.

The New Orleans of Assassin's Creed III: Liberation is a beautiful, if somewhat dangerous, place.

It's not that Liberation lacks for new ideas. In fact, this Vita spin-off introduces a number of intriguing concepts. Rather than one of Desmond Miles' trips through the Animus, the narrative in Liberation is framed as a piece of historical entertainment delivered by Abstergo Industries, the illusive corporation that serves as the series' overarching antagonist. It is, in other words, a story about Assassins as told by Templars.

There's great potential here for the type of storytelling unique to an unreliable narrator, yet Liberation takes little advantage of its own narrative format. Though the story deals with such heavy themes as slavery and the cultural identity of a city transitioning from French to Spanish rule, it's a largely aimless and hastily delivered plot that sees Aveline bounce around like a pinball from one enemy to the next for the bulk of the game. There are occasional flashes of excitement when a mysterious hacker infiltrates Abstergo's narrative to offer you the "truth" about these events, but they amount to little more than a handful of extended cutscenes back-loaded toward the end of the game.

The bayou is filled with trees to climb and swamps to swim through. Too bad there isn't much more to do.

The greatest casualty of Liberation's muddled storytelling is Aveline herself. She's introduced as an intriguing and strong-willed character, but Aveline's personality is hardly explored beyond that initial introduction. Her recruitment into the Assassin Brotherhood is quickly glossed over, while her gender and mixed ethnicity only occasionally factor into the story. These are interesting traits that you wish the game would explore in more detail, but it's more concerned with a dizzying roster of villains and side characters than spending much time on the heroine at its center.

Where Liberation shines brightest is its re-creation of the city Aveline calls home. This is a brilliant version of 18th-century New Orleans, one that beautifully reflects the diverse cultural ambience formed over years of operating as a French trading port. You often venture outside the city too, spending time with smugglers in the bayou as well as journeying to a couple more locations well beyond Louisiana (though to name them would be spoiling things). These locales look terrific, easily rivaling the rich vistas of Liberation's console counterparts. It's enough to make you stop and soak up the atmosphere during those moments you're scaling a church tower to synchronize the world map.

Unfortunately, you really do have to stop to appreciate the world around you because when things get moving, the Vita hardware tends to struggle under the weight of Ubisoft's graphical ambitions. The frame rate drops precipitously when you hit a dead sprint, and large-scale fights against more than four or five enemies will make things chug as well. It's too bad, because these frame rate issues severely impact the fluid and freewheeling style of urban parkour that has long been the greatest strength of this franchise. Likewise, these visual hiccups don't do any favors to an otherwise refined combat system, which disposes of manual lock-on in favor of a more flexible and intuitive approach to swordfights.

It's a good thing, then, that Liberation offers you plenty of opportunities to slow things down and take out enemies one by one. There are occasional bombastic set pieces, but much of the mission design harks back to older Assassin's Creed games, where stalking your targets from the rooftops or silently following them to their hideouts took precedence over vehicular chases and scripted chaos.

Indeed, Aveline is every bit the capable assassin Ezio and Altair were. And in many ways, she's got even more tricks up her sleeve. Liberation introduces a multiple-identity system that allows Aveline to dress in slave garb, ladies' formal wear, or stylish assassin gear. Each guise carries its own strengths and weaknesses, while notoriety levels are split across three separate pools. It's an interesting system in the game's early goings, allowing you to do things like charm your way past guards as a well-dressed lady or infiltrate plantations as a slave. But any strategic depth this identity system offers is eclipsed by its limitations: the slave persona is useful only in extremely specific story moments, while the formal wear prohibits her from sprinting and platforming; she's forced to navigate the sprawling city at a light jog. By the end of the game, you find yourself defaulting to the tried-and-true assassin's attire at nearly every opportunity.

It's especially odd that Liberation would take away your ability to freely dart about the world, because, frame rate issues aside, the platforming is more exciting than it has ever been. As in Assassin's Creed III, you're no longer limited to climbing buildings and man-made structures; you can now dash up trees, scale cliffs, and leap effortlessly from branch to branch. These traversal enhancements are especially highlighted in Liberation's swampy, imposing version of the Louisiana bayou, where fallen trees and endless swamps dominate the scenery.

If only there were more going on out there. Aside from the occasional alligator encounter, there's almost nothing to do in the wilderness. There's no hunting, no cabin in the woods to build up--it's almost entirely navigating from one story mission to the next. That's less of an issue in the city portion of the gameworld, where there is a decent collection of side quests and optional distractions; still, Liberation's New Orleans isn't nearly as rich with content as the cities Ezio explored.

Which is not to say that Liberation is free of secondary content. As the story unfolds, Aveline becomes involved in her father's business empire. This allows you to invest your money in the purchase of ships and various goods (coffee, fruit, leather, and so on) and send those vessels along trade routes all over the Atlantic in an effort to gain the maximum return on your investments. Like managing assassins in previous games, it's an oddly compelling strategy minigame that serves as a nice change of pace from the action surrounding it.

Even more interesting (though perhaps not as well executed) is the online multiplayer, which pits Assassins against Templars in a map-based battle for worldwide domination. It's essentially a card game where you collect assassins of various statistical abilities and then send them into fights across the world in an effort to capture those cities for your chosen side. There's a strange allure in the way it feels like a science-fiction-tinged cross between Pokemon and Risk, but it's hard to imagine this feature has the staying power of the console multiplayer experience.

And yet, such fun diversions are more the exception than the rule. Though Assassin's Creed III: Liberation toys around with intriguing concepts and centers its story around a character you desperately want to know more about, none of it comes together especially well. Liberation often excels, but it stumbles just as much. The result is a game that fails to bear the standard of quality that has defined this series for years.

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Aveline de Grandpre is a fascinating character. Not only is the heroine of Assassin's Creed III: Liberation the series' first female protagonist, but her backstory deals with one of the darkest periods in American history.

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The Assassin's Creed series is an award-winning video game series that currently consists of nine main games, seventeen spin-off games, several short films and various transmedia projects. Each of the main games have spawned novelizations, adapting and adding to the story of their respective game.

The entire franchise is developed primarily by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft, with the exception of Assassin's Creed: Altaïr's Chronicles and the mobile version of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, which were developed by Gameloft, Assassin's Creed Chronicles by Climax Studios, and Assassin's Creed: Syndicate by Ubisoft Québec.

The series has made appearances on the following video game platforms: iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, Windows Phone, iPad, Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Wii U. The gameplay, while varying slightly from game to game, falls in the historic action-adventure genre, with a heavy emphasis on stealth, combat and free-running.

As of September, 2016, the series has sold over 100 million copies.

Spin-off games

Compilations

Remastered

Other media

Films and television

Compilations

Board games

Ubisoft has made several statements about future installments. In 2012, Assassin's Creed III's creative Alex Hutchinson said that settings such as World War II, Feudal Japan and Egypt - popular requests among fans - were not likely to be featured, as they were considered "boring" and unoriginal for Assassin's Creed games. However both WW2 and ancient Egypt have since been explored in the main game series.

Hutchison also said that they would refrain from creating trilogies for one single protagonist, like they did for Ezio Auditore. Following Unity, Darby McDevitt spoke of the company's intention to bring more focus back onto the series' modern-day storyline for future titles.

References

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assassin's creed: brotherhood (mobile game)

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The Assassin's Creed series is an award-winning video game series that currently consists of nine main games, seventeen spin-off games, several short films and various transmedia projects. Each of the main games have spawned novelizations, adapting and adding to the story of their respective game.

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As a whole, Assassin's Creed Liberation HD is not a very good game. The PC port of this former PS Vita exclusive looks gorgeous, but that doesn't hide the problems underneath. The maps are huge, without providing any real reason to explore (beyond a few bland side quests and collectible items). The pacing is choppy, indicative of its easy-to-set-aside handheld origins. Bugs are everywhere, ranging from unprompted costume changes to finicky usable objects to falling rocks hanging in mid-air. Stabbing, climbing, and being stealthy are normally my jam, but within a couple hours, the missions felt routine. There were a few bright points, but overall, I was underwhelmed.

And yet, I can forgive Liberation its flaws. This game fell short of the adventure I was hoping for, but it's worth playing for one glorious, shining reason. Her name is Aveline de Grandpré.

The setting is New Orleans, 1765. Our protagonist is a child of plaçage, a form of temporary marriage common in French slave colonies. Her father is a successful French merchant; her mother, a freed African slave. Aveline has been granted the privileges of upper class life - education, wealth, the possibility of respectable marriage. Though she will be unable to inherit her father's shipping business, he highly values her assistance with his work, and gives her plenty of free reign in managing his assets. She buys out rival businesses and gives their slaves paid employment, setting them, as she puts it, "on the path to freedom."

All of this is done in her spare time, of course, because her main gig is murder and mayhem. Aveline is secretly a member of the Assassin Brotherhood, sworn to destroy the insidious Templar Order (this game will make little sense if you don't go in with at least a basic grasp of the franchise's lore and sci-fi overtones). She's a walking weapon, capable of executing her targets without ever being seen. She wears retractable blades in her tailored sleeves. She can take out a group of guards with her bare hands. She can scale buildings, leap between trees, swim without breaking the water. She kills with efficiency and grace. She is a spectacularly dangerous woman.

Though I was unimpressed with the gameplay, there is one mechanic I have to mention: the Persona system. As you guide Aveline through her bloody business, you risk gaining notoriety, a tiered ranking which determines the likelihood that guards will aggro. Low notoriety means a guard might glance your way, but will shrug it off if you move on quickly. High notoriety means being attacked on sight. The Persona system allows the player to mitigate notoriety, and more importantly, to access different social abilities.

Aveline has three distinct ways she can present herself. Her Assassin garb carries notoriety no matter what, but gives her full access to her combat skills. The Lady Persona means no climbing or jumping (because, let's be real, corsets are not conducive to parkour), but she can bribe guards to look the other way, coax them to follow her into the last secluded corner they'll ever see, or silently dispose of them with her parasol gun. Her parasol gun. This Persona gains notoriety very slowly - she's a lady, after all. She can get away with a lot. Quite different from the Slave Persona, which accrues notoriety for acts as minor as knocking into someone on the street. Guards need little excuse to rough up a slave. The trade-off is that in this guise, Aveline can blend into the background. Just pick up a crate, stand close to other workers, and disappear into the crowd. A fine way to escape from the scene of a crime.

Story-wise, the Persona system translates like this: Aveline is a master social engineer, able to manipulate class, race, and gender expectations to her advantage. She knows that the same townspeople who wave and call "Bonjour!" when she wears snappy green silk won't look twice at her if she's wearing rough cotton and carrying a broom. She knows when to flaunt her beauty and charm, and when to look down and play stupid. She wears a different face with everyone. With her family, she is spirited and affectionate. With her mentor, assertive and attentive. With her targets, menacing. Or coquettish. Or invisible.

Aveline's malleability is further underlined by her cultural identity - or, rather, identities. She speaks with high-society polish and quips about the inferiority of Spanish wine, yet feels right at home among swamp-dwelling smugglers and runaways. She respects her African elders. She respects her French peers. She despises slave owners, but genuinely loves her father, who once owned her mother. The way she approaches her duality is complex, but this isn't the story of an outcast. This is the story of a calculating woman who found herself with one foot on either side of a divide, and built a bridge to walk between.

The parental figures in Aveline's life provide her with additional nuance. Her doting father, Philippe, encourages her independence, while her Assassin mentor, Agaté, disparages her impulsiveness. Her French stepmother, Madeleine, is abolitionist-minded, and treats Aveline as her own. Interesting as these characters were, none were more compelling than Aveline's mother, Jeanne, who mysteriously vanishes in the opening moments of the game. Jeanne's story is unraveled through her collectable diary pages, the one side quest I could not leave unfinished. Her diary begins with her struggle to become literate, and continues through her sale to Aveline's father. I won't give away the details, but suffice it to say, Jeanne's feelings toward Philippe are poignantly layered. There's fondness, yes, but I think it falls short of forgiveness.

I've played games that deal with themes of race and class, but I've never played a game that addresses them with such clarity. I've never seen a character like Aveline. I have no one to compare her to. She is totally unique.

Aveline's strong characterization is bolstered by her excellent visual design. Five minutes into the game, I was struck by how badass she looked in her Assassin gear. For several hours, I was too busy muttering "wow, she looks cool" to fully realize why. There's a key detail, one typically rare for female player characters in combat settings. Here, look at her outfit on the left:

Do you see it? It's not the weapons, or the gauntlets, or even the flat-soled boots.
She's not wearing boob armor.
The take-away here is not that boob armor is inherently bad. There's a time and a place for boob armor. There's even sensible, tough-looking boob armor (Exhibit A: Commander Shepard). But Aveline is wearing a neck-high leather doublet, without a plunging neckline or sculpted cups (in game, at least - the promo art is more busty). It's the most obvious, practical choice for someone who needs both protection and mobility. As someone who has worn a snug leather doublet before, trust me, they don't meld to your curves like shrink wrap. Everything gets compressed, much like you see here (an ideal thing if you're doing a lot of running and jumping - this is why sports bras exist). Aveline's clothing makes perfect sense in her line of work. It doesn't make her look like less feminine, it makes her look competent. This is a woman out do to some serious damage. When I look at a female character portrayed in such a way, when I see no dissonance between her appearance and her skill set, when I think, "Yeah, that's exactly what I would want to wear if I was in her shoes" - combine that with a well-developed personality, and you've got a power fantasy I can unequivocally engage with. It feels like Christmas.

Aveline never stopped feeling dominant, even when she changed into brocade and lace. When Aveline puts on a fabulous dress and a coy smile, she's not doing it for the player. Oh, no. When Aveline flirts, it means someone is about to get played. And/or stabbed. Aveline is always in control, no matter what her appearance or her behavior. Assuming a traditionally masculine role does not compromise her femininity. Assuming a traditionally feminine role does not compromise her power.

God, I love this character.

I've seen little written about Aveline, which is unsurprising, given Liberation's initially limited release and lackluster reviews. But she should be written about. This is a character bursting with fuel for critique, from as many angles as possible. My own impressions are limited to my racial perspective (that of being white) and my shamefully meager knowledge of American colonial history. I am itching to hear more varied thoughts on her, and for that, I'm glad that this game - buggy and blasé as it can be - is now available to a wider audience (Xbox 360 and PS3 owners, you're good to go, too). Aveline deserves to be out there. And yeah, she deserves a better game. You should play this one anyway.
Becky Chambers writes essays, science fiction, and stuff about video games. Like most internet people, she has a website. She can also be found on Twitter.

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Join Me For Unabashed Gushing Over Assassin's Creed: Liberation's Female Protagonist

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As a whole, Assassin's Creed Liberation HD is not a very good game. The PC port of this former PS Vita exclusive looks gorgeous, but that doesn't hide the problems underneath. The maps are huge, without providing any real reason to explore (beyond a few bland side quests and collectible items).

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Assassins Creed what we need to study[1]

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Ubisoft Financial standings and more (net worth $3.69 billio

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Ubisoft Financial standings and more (net worth $3.69 billio

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Ubisoft is a publishing and distribution company of interactive entertainment products worldwide.

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Assassin_s creed Liberation basic info[1]

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Assassin_s Creed III Liberation PlayStation Vita Commercial[1]

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Production

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As a former exclusive on the PlayStation Vita, Assassin's Creed III: Liberation arrived in time for the 2012 holidays as a promising system seller for Sony's fledgling handheld. While it fell short of its lofty goal, Liberation was nonetheless an impressive showcase of possibilities for open-world play on the portable platform. Now that it has been released on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Assassin's Creed fans uninterested in the Vita can now experience all of the franchise's 18th-century storylines. Assassin's Creed: Liberation HD delivers what you would expect in upgraded visuals. And if you're hoping for the exact same gameplay that Vita owners experienced, you get that as well, even though it includes Liberation's original bugs.

Unlike other portable Assassin's Creed titles, Liberation continues the main narrative thrust of the major entries in the series. Aveline de Grandpre, the franchise's first playable female assassin, has intriguing ties to the protagonist of Assassin's Creed III, Connor Kenway, though it's a shame that Liberation doesn't feature more collaborative interplay between the two assassins. Liberation's framing premise also works as a prelude to the modern-day story portions of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, since these adventures are the first two "games" by Abstergo Industries' entertainment division.

"Aveline, why are you not facing me? And why are your feet underground?" -Agate

Like Assassin's Creed III, Liberation is set in a time of upheaval, a common occurrence in the New World in the 1700s. The Spanish have taken control of New Orleans from the French, there's a defection among the Assassin ranks, and the governor of New Orleans is in cahoots with the Templars. And that's just the first couple of chapters in a story arc that spans 12 years. The supporting cast features some of the more colorful characters you'll find in an Assassin's Creed game, including a pair of enterprising smugglers and an unlikely mentor in the Louisiana bayou. Then there's Gerald Blanc, who supports Aveline in various capacities and represents the behind-the-scenes administrative side of the Assassin's Order (someone has to keep their books balanced). Think of him as Alfred to Aveline's Batman, except that Gerald also has a crush on Aveline. Gerald's bland personality puts the "mild" in mild-mannered, and his inability to organize his thoughts in front of Aveline makes him more of a frustrating character than an endearing one.

The supporting cast features some of the more colorful characters you'll find in an Assassin's Creed game.

The majority of Aveline's missions are fundamentally recognizable, right down to the tailing and escort missions. As an assassin's playground, New Orleans isn't particularly noteworthy; it's easy to get around, and you don't even need to rely on hopping fences or rushing down side alleys to evade pursers. The bayou is a fitting wilderness of surprises like alligator ambushes. With spotty pockets of settlements, the bayou can feel larger than it really is, even in spite of objective markers you can still get lost very easily. Aveline's objectives in the bayou mirror Connor's missions in the woods of Assassin's Creed III. She speedily navigates large tree branches while stalking hostiles on the ground.

It would have been nice to see these two hang out more.

When you have a game series that places such a huge emphasis on stealth, it's surprising that it wasn't until Liberation that a disguise system was introduced. The ability to don the persona of a socialite, a slave, and an assassin is reflective of Aveline's complicated background as the daughter of a French merchant and a slave, and the game forces you to use all three personas in equal measure, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. If you dress as a slave, you don't have to worry about sneaking around in a plantation, though you won't have your best killing tools available. Unsurprisingly, Aveline is most useful in her assassin garb, but she sticks out from the crowd. She is attractive no matter the outfit, though her socialite ensemble makes her the most welcome guest at parties. Not only does she come off as charming in conversation, but she even has a charm prompt whenever she's near guards and powerful men. It's an asset that other assassins lacked, though to be fair to the equally charming Ezio Auditore, he didn't have enough targets of the opposite sex to impress in his Assassin's Creed trilogy.

Liberation on consoles is best appreciated during combat. It's simply more comfortable to play on a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 controller versus the denser button layout of the Vita. This HD version made me feel more confident about using the series' defensive moves, not that I could have protected myself from every attack. The exploitable Assassin's Creed smoke bomb returns once again , allowing you to breeze through combat by killing up to four enemies without interruption. Luckily, the combat remains compelling; Aveline is both adept and brutal in her use of weapons, like the cleaver-shaped sugarcane machete.

Liberation's cinematics have been overhauled to the point that you don't need to hold up the Vita version to tell the differences in textures. In fact, the changes in skin tone, eyes, and other facial features are so significant that, depending on the lighting and camera angles, some characters don't even look like their Vita counterparts. Roaming New Orleans in higher resolution is impressive, even though it doesn't achieve the level of detail of Black Flag. By going from the 5-inch screen of the Vita to a 50-inch television, I had an easier time noticing lighting effects like the orange hue of candles illuminating windows at night or torches lit in the villages of the bayou.

It's easy to travel in the bayou.

If you're the type who expects HD remasters to be an opportunity for developers to fix the original version's bugs, expect some minor disappointments with Liberation HD. Don't be surprised if characters are positioned oddly during conversations, and don't expect rope swing functionality to work consistently. There are even issues that work to your benefit, such as when the game skips an entire combat sequence altogether. And while this game retains the series' notoriety system, it's easy to avoid confrontation. Guards are so slow to react to Aveline's presence that I didn't need to waste time tearing down wanted posters to decrease her notoriety.

Gerald's bland personality puts the "mild" in mild-mannered.

This ease of play speaks not only to Liberation HD's low difficulty level, but also to the lack of incentives to deviate from the storyline. The game isn't short on side missions, which include a foot race, the theft of a ship, and the freeing of slaves. Liberation HD does a poor job of letting you know that these missions exist, especially when the game doesn't raise financial hurdles that force you to raise funds and take a break from the story. Many missions in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag required money and resources, which was a minor problem that could be overcome by hijacking ships or taking on optional assassination assignments. Liberation rarely encourages you to pursue side tasks, even though it has an economy system where you can kill business rivals and take over their shops, thereby making goods cheaper for yourself. The problem is that you don't need to buy a lot of things, and the game's most useful items, like the poison and berserk darts, often auto-replenish as you progress through the story.

Attaching "HD" to a previously released game often means you're getting a high-definition remaster rather than a remake with visuals reconstructed from the ground up. Judging by the quality of the cutscenes, developer Ubisoft Sofia aspired to the latter but ended up with the former. The time and care it put into those cinematics is obvious, so it's disappointing that the gameplay and its bugs--issues that existed in the Vita version--didn't receive the same level of attention. I still recommend Assassin's Creed: Liberation for fans of the series, but it's hardly worth revisiting if you've completed the Vita version.

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Assassin's Creed III: Liberation HD Review

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As a former exclusive on the PlayStation Vita, Assassin's Creed III: Liberation arrived in time for the 2012 holidays as a promising system seller for Sony's fledgling handheld. While it fell short of its lofty goal, Liberation was nonetheless an impressive showcase of possibilities for open-world play on the portable platform.

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Assassin_s Creed 3 Liberation Story Trailer[1]

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KO Assassin's Creed III Liberation public

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Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; French: ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Montreuil. It is known for publishing games for several acclaimed video game franchises including Assassin's Creed , , , Prince of Persia , , Raving Rabbids , and Tom Clancy's .

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Video game controversies refers to a wide range of debates on the social effects of video games on players and broader society, as well as debates within the video game industry. Since the early 2000s, advocates of video games have emphasized their use as an expressive medium, arguing for their protection under the laws governing freedom of speech and also as an educational tool. Detractors argue that video games are harmful and therefore should be subject to legislative oversight and restrictions. The positive and negative characteristics and effects of video games are the subject of scientific study. Academic research has examined the links between video games and addiction, aggression, violence, social development, and a variety of stereotyping and sexual morality issues.

Video games since their inception have been the subject of concern due to the depictions of violence they may contain, which have heightened as the technology behind video games improve the amount of visual detail and realism of games. Video games are often seen as a possible cause to violent actions, notably in the aftermath of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, but academic studies have yet to identify solid evidences linking violence in video games and violent behavior. The American Psychological Association stated, in 2015, that a correlation between the use of violent video games and aggressive behavior was observed. However, it was noted, "the interpretations of these effects have varied dramatically, contributing to the public debate about the effects of violent video games." In 2017, Division 46 (Society for Media Psychology and Technology) of the American Psychological Association stated that "Scant evidence has emerged that makes any causal or correlational connection between playing violent video games and actually committing violent activities." Despite the lack of solid evidence and academic consensus, politicians and activists have sought for ways to restrict the sale of violent video games, particularly to minors, on the basis that they can lead to violent behavior. Within the United States, the issues of video game sales regulation led to both the formation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board in 1994, and the 2011 Supreme Court of the United States landmark case Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association that ruled that video games are a protected class of free speech and blocking legislation on such sales restrictions. According to The Pew Research Center, in 2008, a study found that 97% of kids from the ages 12-17 engaged with video games, and two-thirds of the kids in the study played some sort of action or adventure game which tended to contain violent content. Another analysis discovered that more than 50% of all games rated by ESRB included violence, which encompasses more than 90% of the games rated as suitable for kids 10 years or older.

Tolerance of sexual themes in video games varies between nations. Controversy over sexual themes has occurred in the US. For instance, in June 2005, an entire portion of unused code was found within the main script of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, allowing the player to simulate sexual intercourse with the main character's girlfriends. This mode, Hot Coffee, could be accessed in the PC version via mod, and through Action Replay codes in the PS2 and Xbox versions. The scene was left on the disc and could be accessed by altering a few bytes of the game's code via a hex editor. This feature prompted the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) to change the rating of San Andreas on 20 July 2005 to "adults only". Furthermore, the game was withdrawn from sale in many stores. Rockstar Games posted a loss of $28.8 million in that financial quarter. This event was dubbed the Hot Coffee mod controversy.

In Japan, controversy over an eroge called Rape in 1989 led to the game being banned a few months after its release. The game , a Japanese eroge with a storyline centering on the player's character stalking and raping a mother and her two daughters, also caused controversy. Campaigns against the sale of the game resulted in its being banned in many countries. RapeLay's publisher, which intended the game only to be available in Japan, withdrew it from distribution.

Since 2018, Sony has now issued new regulations for PlayStation 4 games with sexual content and fan service. For the localized release of Senran Kagura Burst Re: Newal, "Intimacy Mode", a mode where the player can play with the characters' bodies was removed, but by comparison, the same mode that was featured in previous titles like Senran Kagura: Estival Versus and Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash was not removed. PC release of Burst Re: Newal was not changed. The PS4 release of Nekopara Vol. 1 was censored for similar reasons, resulting in the game receiving an "E" rating by the ESRB by comparison to the "M" rating for versions on Nintendo Switch and PC. Sony claimed it was their decision to ban Omega Labyrinth Z outside of Japan due to its content. According to Idea Factory International, the localized release of Date a Live: Rio Reincarnation will feature changes to certain event scenes and removal of illustrations that show characters in suggestive positions, although the PC version won't be changed.

Support for video game regulation has been linked to moral panic. Even so, governments have enacted, or have tried to enact, legislation that regulates distribution of video games through censorship based on content rating systems or banning. In 2005, David Gauntlett claimed that grant funding, news headlines, and professional prestige more commonly go to authors who, in good faith, promote anti-media beliefs. Tom Grimes, James A. Anderson, and Lori Bergen reiterated these claims in a 2008 book examining sociological effects on the production of media effects research.

In 2013, the Entertainment Software Association, the lobbying group for the video game industry, had enlisted over 500,000 members to the "Video Game Voters Network", a "grassroots" lobbying group to mobilize gamers to act against public policy that may negatively impact the gaming industry. The VGV was launched in 2006 by the ESA, and uses social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to inform members of allies and opponents. In 2013, the ESA spent over US$3.9 million on lobbying, including but not limited to against VGV legislation. This included opposing a bipartisan federal bill that would direct the National Academy of Sciences to study the effects of all forms of violent media. Such bills themselves had come under criticisms from some scholars for pressuring scientists to find specific outcomes rather than studying the issues neutrally.

Video game consoles were banned in Mainland China in June 2000. This ban was finally lifted in January 2014. However, the Chinese would still police video games which would be "hostile to China or not in conformity with the outlook of China's government". Reported by Bloomberg, metaphorically speaking, Cai Wu, head of China's Ministry of Culture, said "We want to open the window a crack to get some fresh air, but we still need a screen to block the flies and mosquitoes."

Voluntary regulation

Voluntary rating systems adopted by the video game industry, such as the ESRB rating system in the United States and Canada (established in 1994), and the Pan European Game Information (PEGI) rating system in Europe (established in 2003), are aimed at informing parents about the types of games their children are playing (or are asking to play). Some ratings of controversial games indicate they are not targeted at young children ("Mature" (M) or "Adults Only" (AO) in the US, or 15 or 18 in the UK). The packaging warns such games should not be sold to children. In the US, ESRB ratings are not legally binding, but many retailers take it upon themselves to refuse the sale of these games to minors. In the United Kingdom (UK), the BBFC ratings are legally binding. UK retailers also enforce the PEGI ratings, which are not legally binding.

US government legislation

No video game console manufacturer has allowed any game marked AO to be published in North America; however, the PC gaming service Steam has allowed AO titles such as Hatred to be published on its platform. No major retailers are willing to sell AO-rated games. However, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was rated AO after the presence of the Hot Coffee add-on became evident. The add-on was later removed and the game rated M. In the 109th Congress and 110th Congress, the Video Games Enforcement Act was introduced to the US House of Representatives. The act required an identification check for the purchase of M and AO rated games. The bill and others like it did not succeed because of likely First Amendment violations. Although no law mandates identification checking for games with adult content, a 2008 survey by the Federal Trade Commission showed that video game retailers have voluntarily increased ID verification for M- and AO-rated games, and sales of those games to underage potential buyers decreased from 83% in 2000 to 20% in 2008. A further survey in April 2011, found that video game retailers continued to enforce the ratings by allowing only 13% of underage teenage shoppers to buy M-rated video games, a statistically significant decrease from the 20% purchase rate in 2009.

On 7 January 2009, Joe Baca, representative of California's 43rd District, introduced H.R. 231, the Video game health labelling act. This bill called for a label to be placed in a "clear and conspicuous location on the packaging" on all video games with an ESRB rating of T (Teen) or higher stating, "WARNING: Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior." The proposed legislation was referred to the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection. On 24 January 2011, Joe Baca reintroduced the Video game health labelling act as H.R. 400 of the 112th Congress. The bill was once again passed onto the subcommittee.

On 27 June 2011, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association. Video games were protected speech under the First Amendment. The case centered on a California law that sought to restrict sales of violent video games to minors. The video game industry, led by the Entertainment Merchants Association and the Entertainment Software Association, successfully obtained an injunction on the bill, believing that the definition of violence as stated in the California law was too vague and would not treat video games as protected speech. This opinion was upheld in lower courts, and supported by the Supreme Court's decision. The majority of the justices did not consider the studies brought to their attention as convincing evidence of harm, and stated that they could not create a new class of restricted speech that was not applied to other forms of media. However, Justice Breyer's minority decision found the evidence more convincing.

Deana Pollard Sacks, Brad Bushman, and Craig A. Anderson objected to the ruling, claiming that the thirteen experts who authored the Statement on Video Game Violence on the Brown side were considerably more academically merited, and had on average authored over 28 times as many peer-reviewed journal articles about aggression/violence based on original empirical research as the signatories supporting the EMA, whereas the over 100 signatories supporting Brown had on average authored over 14 times as many. Richard Hall, Ryan Hall, and Terri Day replied: "It is not surprising that Anderson and Bushman found their own qualifications and the qualifications of those who agree with them to be superior to the qualifications of those who disagree with them", and claimed that they might have used methodology which have undercounted contributions of some scholars. On 3 April 2013, Dianne Feinstein, a Californian senator and Democrat, spoke in San Francisco to a group of 500 constituents about gun violence. She said video games have "a very negative role for young people, and the industry ought to take note of that" and that Congress might have to step in if the video game industry did not cease to glorify guns.

While religion is seen as a serious topic, video games are considered entertainment. As such, the use of religion and religious motifs in video games can sometimes be controversial. For example, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin (2002) sparked controversy due to a level featuring the killing of Sikhs within a depiction of their most holy site, the Harmandir Sahib.

Some scholars have expressed the concern that video games may have the effect of reinforcing sexist stereotypes. In 1998, a study by Dietz, conducted at the University of Central Florida, found that of thirty-three games sampled, 41% did not feature female characters, 28% sexually objectified women, 21% depicted violence against women, and 30% did not represent the female population at all. Furthermore, characterizations of women tended to be stereotypical: highly sexualized ("visions of beauty with large breasts and hips"), dependent ("victim or as the proverbial Damsel in Distress"), opponents ("evil or as obstacles to the goal of the game"), and trivial ("females depicted in fairly non-significant roles"). However, the study is criticized for not including a wide range of video games for study and for including old games published up to twenty years ago which do not represent current industry standards, for example, an increased presence of strong female characters.

In 2002, Kennedy considered the characteristics of the character, Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider video game series. She is presented as a beautiful, clever, athletic, and brave English archaeologist-adventurer. Lara Croft has achieved popularity with both males and females as an action heroine, although depending on what perspective is applied she can either represent 'a positive role model for young girls' or a 'combination of eye and thumb candy for the boys'. Dietz's findings are supported by a survey commissioned in 2003 by Children Now. The survey found that gender stereotypes pervade most video games: male characters (52%) were more likely than females (32%) to engage in physical aggression; nearly 20% of female characters were hyper-sexualized in some way, while 35% of male characters were extremely muscular.

In 2004, the game developer, Eidos, remodeled Lara Croft for Tomb Raider: Legend. The character was modified to have a more believable figure with less revealing clothing. In 2005, Terry Flew, academic, expressed a similar opinion: gender bias and stereotyping exists in many games. Male characters are portrayed as hard bodied, muscled men while female characters are portrayed as soft bodied, nearly naked women with large breasts, portrayed in a narrowly stereotypical manner. Females are usually constructed as visual objects in need of protection who wait for male rescue, whereas men are portrayed with more power. According to Flew, such depiction of females in games reflects underlying social ideas of male dominance and themes of masculinity. Although not all video games contain such stereotypes, Flew suggests that there are enough to make it a general trait and that "...different genders have different gaming."

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) characters have been depicted in some video games since the 1980s, with Caper in the Castro in 1989 as one of the first games focusing on LGBT themes. LGBT content has been subject to changing rules and regulations by game companies. These rules are generally examples of heterosexism in that heterosexuality is normalized while homosexuality is subject to additional censorship or ridicule. Sexual orientation and gender identity were significant in some console and PC games, with the trend being toward greater visibility of LGBT identities, particularly in Japanese popular culture and games marketed to LGBT consumers.

Portrayal of race, nationality, and ethnicity

Video games may influence the learning of young players about race and urban culture. The portrayal of race in some video games such as the Grand Theft Auto series, Custer's Revenge, 50 Cent: Bulletproof, and Def Jam: Fight for NY has been controversial. The 2002 game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was criticized as promoting racist hate crime. The game takes place in 1986, in "Vice City", a fictionalized Miami. It involves a gang war between Haitian and Cuban refugees which involves the player's character. However, it is possible to play the game without excessive killing. The 2009 game Resident Evil 5 is set in Africa, and as such has the player kill numerous African antagonists. In response to criticism, promoters of Resident Evil 5 argued that to censor the portrayal of black antagonists was discrimination in itself.

War-themed video games such as Medal of Honor: Warfighter and Call of Duty: Black Ops II have been criticized for how they portray Arab people and predominantly Islamic countries like Pakistan.

Gaming addiction, gaming disorder, and other health-related concerns

Video game addiction is the excessive or compulsive use of computer and video games that interferes with daily life. Instances have been reported in which users play compulsively, isolating themselves from family and friends or from other forms of social contact, and focus almost entirely on in-game achievements rather than broader life events. The first video game to attract political controversy for its "addictive properties" was the 1978 arcade game Space Invaders. One study from Chung Ang University observed that other structures affected by the use of video games include the anterior cingulate cortex and orbitofrontal cortex. The results from this experiment suggest an increase in stimulation of these areas, resembling a pattern similar to those with substance dependence. Researchers interpreted their results of this increase in activity of the anterior cingulate and orbitofrontal cortices to be an indication of an early stage of video game addiction.

The World Health Organization has included "gaming disorder" in the 11th edition of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, which was approved by May 2019. It was defined as "a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour ('digital gaming' or 'video-gaming')", defined by three criteria: the lack of control of playing video games, priority given to video games over other interests, and inability to stop playing video games even after being affected by negative consequences. The addition was contested by the video game industry and several academics, believing that its inclusion was too early and that more studies were needed.

Outside of mental health, medical researchers are concerned that long-term playing of video games can lead to musculoskeletal issues, vision impairment, and obesity.

A further issue that can occur through gaming is online harassment or bullying behaviors. Esports communities seem to be particularly suffering from toxic behaviors. Especially in competitive esports games, negative behavior, such as harassment, can create barriers to players achieving high performance and can reduce players' enjoyment which may cause them to leave the game. With its largely young, male-dominated population, gamers may exhibit habits and behaviors sometimes seen by outside groups as toxic and misogynistic, leading to harassment of other players. A specific example of harassing behavior occurring within a game can be found in Xbox Live services. With its online chat and party system, this leaves the service open to unwanted harassment, trolling, or bullying to occur between players. To address these concerns, Microsoft made improvements with reputation levels for a player's Xbox Live account. The system is set to warn, then punish bad behavior in hopes of better regulating Xbox Live accounts.

The anonymous nature of the internet may be a factor of encouraging anti-social behavior. This type of behavior expands to other parts of the internet separate from gaming, such as online forums, social media sites, etc. Lack of accountability for one's actions on the internet may encourage others to engage in harassing behavior. Without minimal threat of punishment, some may find it easier to carry out negative behavior over online gaming. The Gamergate controversy that started in 2014 drew media attention to the negative portions of the culture of the video game community, highlighting the need to take steps against online harassment.

Regarding whether attitudes towards women in games and gaming culture extend as far as misogyny, opinions have been divided. For example, VentureBeat writer Rus McLaughlin sees it as a status quo "ingrained in video-game DNA", while Joe Yang (writing for the same source) regards such claims to be misleading, and sees misogyny as a problem where it does occur, but disputes that it is inherent or normative, or that the whole culture should be described that way.

A further issue related to online behavior is the presence of younger players who may be exposed to behaviors of more mature players beyond the ability for parents to control this exposure, coupled with issues such as harassment and bullying. In the past, this has typically been controlled through the closed online environments from each of the major console systems that could maintain a safe environment, but with the wider availability of cross-platform play to allow console players on one system to play with those on other systems or with players on personal computers, these environments are no longer as controlled. In December 2020, the three major console manufacturers Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo announced a joint plan to promote safer gaming based on the three principles of prevention, partnership, and responsibility to combat harassing and troubling behavior.

Related to video game content (particularly violence), gaming addiction, and online harassment, there is ongoing concern that video games may have a negative impact on the development of children. Video games are commonly marketed towards younger audiences, and in a 2008 Pew Research Center study, 97% of teenagers from ages 12 to 17 played video games, with games featuring violent content generally among the preferred types of games these minors played. Many of the studies related to linking violence and gambling addiction to video games are performed in consideration of how younger minds can be more susceptible to the possible effects. There has also been studies to try to consider positive effects of video games on youth development, since they encourage cognitive skills and thinking and cooperative participation.

Some countries have adopted laws or regulations to limit minors' access to video games. Most notably is China, which was the first country to classify video games as having potentially addictive measures in 2008. Since 2005, China has passed regulations that are aimed to regulate how long a minor can play a video game, with new regulations imposing more stricter means to track this. As of 2019, the current Chinese law limits minors to 90 minutes of video games each weekday, and three hours on weekends. Other countries enforce content limits for video games that may be purchased by minors. The Australian Classification Board's content ratings have legal weight, preventing games that are refused classification from being sold and requiring strict checks on a purchaser's age for those given a rating of MA15+, R18+, or X18+. Germany's Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle also has similar restrictions on retail of games that are considered harmful to minors. Otherwise, these content rating systems are used as guidelines that are otherwise not directly enforceable, but typically still practiced in retail to prevent direct sale of mature titles to minors. For example, with the U.S.'s ESRB system, retailers generally will check age identification before selling M (mature) rated games to minors, and will refuse to stock AO (Adults Only) games.

Other options to monitor and regulation video game playing by youth are given through parental controls implemented in hardware or software. According to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), parents believe that parental controls on gaming consoles are useful. Parents have resources they can use to gain more knowledge about the media that their children are consuming. Researchers of video game violence, Dr. Cheryl Olson and Dr. Lawrence Kutner, have compiled a list of advice for parents who want to better monitor their children. The Entertainment Software Rating Board provides easy access to the ratings of a large database of video games. Common Sense Media is database which shows the ratings of movies, games, TV shows, and other media. For each piece of media, it lists a suggested age rating, and scales that measure positive messages, language, violence, drug use, and consumerism. It also provides a summary of the content of the media from a fellow-parent's perspective. The ESRB's website states that "Our rating system was established with the help of child development and academic experts, based on an analysis of other rating systems and what kind of information is valuable to parents. We found that consumers respond best to an age-based rating system that includes information about the content of a game. As games evolved, we found that parents place equal importance on understanding the ways in which some [video] games are played, such as interacting with others online and spending money on in-game items."

A connection between video gaming and the alt-right has been suggested, tied to the Gamergate controversy in 2014, which contributed to a culture war at that time that continued with the election of Donald Trump as United States President. The interactivity of video games may encourage players to gain enjoyment from far-right themes, which may potentially lead them to be more open to the extreme right positions, effectively being an incubator for the far right. Based on this, some alt- and far-right groups have been discovered to be organizing efforts to reach out to other players in various competitive online games and forums, typically to the younger and male ones, to indoctrinate them into their ways of thinking. Since these game chats and forums typically go unmoderated, it has been difficult to detect and prevent such recruitment from occurring. This has further been pushed by violent events, such as the 2017 Unite the Right rally where the Discord chat application developed for video game players was found to be hosting the far-right groups that were planning the rally. A 2021 report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that gaming services like Steam, Discord, DLive, and Twitch had drawn groups of far-right and neo-Nazi people together in shared communities, some which try to use propaganda to recruit new members but most as a means for the multinational groups to congregate. The Institute found that Steam had the largest population of such groups, attributed to the lack of moderation used on the service's social features.

Video game advocates have challenged the notion that video games are inherently right-wing. They argue games may allow play towards what would be alt- or far-right actions, but they can also be played to more liberal goals as well, and it is how the player chooses to play that should be of concern. Advocates caution that there is a lack of scale in the concerns raised; not all games foster the environments that would promote alt-right ideals or recruits, and many games are apolitical, simply meant to be enjoyed.

Criminal activity, online safety, and cybersecurity

Other common occurrences include online casino scams, phishing, cell phone dialers, malware in illegal downloads, and money laundering. Others have found ways to use a built-in systems for illegal profit, notably the use of skin gambling tied to games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive drew attention to how in-game virtual items could be used for gambling for real-world funds.

Players have increasingly been targeted by cybercriminals. According to cybersecurity firm Akamai, between July 2018 and June 2020, 1 in 10 of the 100 billion credential stuffing attacks recorded were targeted at the video game industry and its players, along with 1.4 in 10 of the web application attacks (152 million out of 10.6 billion). Cybercriminals attack video game players to steal their credentials, ID or data, as well as to steal payment card details or cash held in gaming accounts. Part of the motivation for attacking players is that they are seen as both a honeypot (they have something worth stealing), are a relatively vulnerable target (because many are young people or children) and some of their activities increase the opportunity to attack them (social behaviour, accessing cheats, downloading and sharing free games). Sometimes the target of attacks is not the players themselves but the companies who produce the games, with cybersecurity researchers finding over a million compromised corporate accounts of game companies in January 2021.

Cyber attacks targeted at this sector include:

DDoS attacks - according to NexusGuard, DDoS attacks increased by 287% in Q3 2020 and 77% of these attacks targeted the online gaming and gambling industries

Teslacrypt, a ransomware attack that stops players from playing their favourite games unless they pay.

ESEA hack compromised 1,503,707 player profiles leaving them open to further attacks and exploitation

Syrk, a type of ransomware attack, which was disguised as a Fortnite cheat hack and which encrypts players' files and deletes them every two hours until they pay.

Video games have nearly always been subject to cheating by players. Early on, prior to online games, cheating had little impact to other players and was considered innocuous: players would find secret cheat codes in games typically left as testing codes by the developer (such as the Konami code that would give them numerous lives or other bonuses), or there were devices that could edit a game cartridge's memory on the fly, such as the Game Genie. Players often developed trainers to extend options and give a player additional cheats for games with more advanced personal computer games. These cheats would allow players to complete games, and rarely would have any further advantage for the player.

As multiplayer games developed which used a client-server architecture, certain players began developing a number of tools like aimbots and wallhacks that modified the game on the client side for the benefit of that player, giving them an advantage over others. With the potential to earn in-game or real-world prizes within virtual economies from online games, these tools became more sophisticated with more and more features, with developers charging money to use these tools. This in turn led to game and middleware developers creating anti-cheat technology solutions to try to detect when these tools were being used to automatically ban such players from the game. This has led to a constant battle between the game developers and publishers to eliminate cheaters from their games, and cheat creators to find new methods to bypass these automated detection tools. As these cheats often violate acceptable use policies and other conditions for using the game, developers and publishers have also been successful in litigation against cheat developers as another means to stop their use.

Related to cheating are similar means of exploiting video games for financial gains. Examples of such include gold farming, paying low-income labors to level characters or earn in-game items that can then be sold to players at a profit, and twinking or smurfing, paying skilled players to quickly level low-level characters.

Just as with representation of women, LGBT, and minorities in video games themselves, these groups also can be marginalized within the video game development industry in Western markets. The industry is primarily made up of Caucasian, heterosexual males, according to 2017 industry studies, a result of the marketing of video games during the 70s and 80s. Experts have stressed the need to draw underrepresented groups into the industry to help developers gain broader insights for the stories and characters for video games, so that new games will appeal to the largest possible audiences. While the industry has had isolated cases where minorities reported mistreatment, there had not yet been a moment like the Me Too movement in other entertainment fields as of 2021. However, with major legal cases of sexual misconduct towards female employees at Riot Games, Ubisoft and Activision Blizzard filed from 2018 to 2021, some analysts and academics see such a watershed moment for the video game industry to be approaching.

Video game developers are considered creative professionals and thus typically do not qualify for overtime pay. Larger studios, particularly those backed by Triple A publishers, will frequently set game completion deadlines, and require employees to complete their tasks by this deadline, often requires several weeks of overtime work. This has become known as " crunch time" within the industry. While infrequent periods of crunch time are tolerated, there have been several reported cases where developers have been forced into a crunch time mode for months at a time, even well before a game's set completion deadline. Such practices have caused developers and other groups starting in 2018 for discussing unionization within the industry and establishing reasonable limits on crunch time and other workers' rights.

A 2015 article stated that crediting "has long been a sensitive topic in the game industry". There have been instances of employees, or even entire studios, not being listed in the credits of a game. Sometimes, this is mutually agreed upon by publishers and developers, or even desired by the developing party; see Video game development § Outsourcing for more information on this. In other instances, it is against their wishes, or something they reluctantly consent to because it's the only work they can get. Lack of crediting has been a contended issue since the early days of the industry. In the 1970s and 80s, Atari never credited developers, which game designer Warren Robinett said was "a power play to keep the game designers from getting recognition and therefore more bargaining power". This led Robinett to create the first well-known Easter egg in (1980) to acknowledge his authorship.

In-game credits serve as official references, and are aggregated by websites such as MobyGames and Giant Bomb. If a person is not credited, they could still include their work experience in their portfolio or CV, but they might have difficulties backing this up during a job interview. Moreover, non-disclosure agreements might actually prevent them from doing so. In 2006, a survey by the IGDA found that 35% of the respondents either "don't ever" or "only sometimes" receive official credit. In subsequent years, Mythic, Codemasters, and Rockstar Games all self-confirmed that they at some point had a policy of only crediting employees who stayed until the end of development. This has been denounced as a way of trapping workers in the company, and punishing them if they leave. Rockstar, which was particularly criticized over this, eventually abolished the policy. A 2021 Washington Post article stated the issue was still "a huge area of concern". Švelch (2021), in Games and Culture, found that credit omission frequently occurs when work is outsourced, and is particularly common in freemium games.

Video games as computer software are potentially easy to copy and duplicate outside of the copyright owner's control, which can lead to widespread copyright infringement. Prior to digital distribution, some games included an in-game step that required the player to check part of the game's printed manual or material shipped with the game such as a code wheel, which they entered into the game to validate ownership, though such simply checks were easily defeated through photocopies and shared information. With wide availability of the Internet making such physical schemes impractical to control copyright infringement, many developers and publishers turned to digital rights management (DRM) to control the use of digital content and devices after purchase and to protect an entity's intellectual property from public access. DRM technologies typically tie the specific installation of a game to the computer it is installed on, preventing a user from sharing the same files with a second user; however this also can limit legitimate reuse of the installation of the game by the purchaser on different computers they own. Because of limitations placed on what a user can do with purchases games bundled with DRM, consumers argue it inconveniences legitimate customers and allows big business to stifle innovation and competition. In some types of "always-in DRM", the DRM must have a persistent connection to an external server, which has raised further concerns about the ability for a user to play a game if they temporarily lack an Internet connection, and the fate of the game if the DRM server should be discontinued.

With the advent of digital distribution and online storefronts for video games, publishers and developers sought ways to further monetize the game as to obtain further revenue after the initial sale. Larger expansion packs led way to the nature of microtransactions, small purchases, typically under US$5 for a small benefit in the game. One of the first examples of this was a piece of horse armor for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which proved controversial. Publishers and developers would continue to develop other monetization methods, such as freemium games that are free to play but the player benefits by spending real-life money for in-game boosts. A more recent approach is the idea of loot boxes, popularized in games like , where the player can purchase with either in-game or real-life funds a virtual box that contains a set of in-game items, with the items being distributed by various rarity levels. Loot boxes came under intense government and media scrutiny in 2018 as it felt these mechanics were too close or were like gambling, and would violate their local laws. Some countries like Denmark and the Netherlands banned the use of loot boxes, while other countries like the United States and United Kingdom urged the video game industry to voluntarily regulate the use of loot boxes.

The video game industry does contribute towards environmental concerns with how large it has grown in the 2010s. Both the sourcing of electronics hardware to make consoles and personal computers, and the generation of electricity for playing games are considered part of the industry's environmental footprint. Newer game technology such as cloud gaming utilize data centers which is also generally less energy efficient compared to traditional computing, though provide performance benefits. In the United States, as of 2019, it was estimated that the total power used by video games was about 34 TWh/year or 2.4% of the total domestic energy market, and associated 24 MT/year of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to that of 5 million gas-engine automobiles. Major console manufactures Sony and Microsoft have both committed to improving their console hardware to be more sustainable and reducing power requirements.

On 22 November 1997, Noah Wilson, aged 13, died when his friend, Yancy, stabbed him in the chest with a kitchen knife. Wilson's mother, Andrea Wilson, alleged her son was stabbed to death because of an obsession with the 1995 Midway game Mortal Kombat 3; that Yancy was so obsessed with the game that he believed himself to be the character, Cyrax, who uses a finishing move which Wilson claims involves taking the opponent in a headlock and stabbing them in the chest, despite the fact that Cyrax has never used this Fatality in any game he has appeared in. The court found "Wilson's complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted."

There have also been video game-related crimes which took place at schools. On 24 March 1998, 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson and 11-year-old Andrew Golden killed four students and a teacher in the 1998 Westside Middle School shooting. Although no connection to video games was drawn by the press at the time, the case was re-examined by commentators a year later, subsequent to the events of the Columbine High School massacre, and it was determined that the two boys had often played GoldenEye 007 together and they enjoyed playing first-person shooter games.

On 20 April 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students, a teacher, and themselves in the Columbine High School massacre. The two were allegedly obsessed with the video game . Harris also created WADs for the game, and created a large mod named "Tier" which he called his "life's work". Contrary to rumor, however, neither student had made a Doom level mimicking the school's layout, and there is no evidence the pair practiced the massacre in Doom.

Controversy related to video games was sparked again in November 2001, when twenty-one-year-old Shawn Woolley committed suicide in a state his mother described as an addiction to EverQuest. Woolley's mother said,

"I think the way the game is written is that when you first start playing it, it is fun, and you make great accomplishments. And then the further you get into it, the higher level you get, the longer you have to stay on it to move onward, and then it isn't fun anymore. But by then you're addicted, and you can't leave it."

Later video game controversies centered on whether some murderers were inspired by crime simulators. In February 2003, 16-year-old American Dustin Lynch was charged with aggravated murder. He pleaded insanity in that he was obsessed with Grand Theft Auto III. Jack Thompson, an attorney and an opponent of video games, offered to represent Lynch. Thompson encouraged the father of the victim to pass a note to the judge that read "the attorneys had better tell the jury about the violent video game that trained this kid [and] showed him how to kill our daughter, JoLynn. If they don't, I will." Lynch later retracted his insanity plea. His mother, Jerrilyn Thomas, said,

"It has nothing to do with video games or Paxil, and my son's no murderer."

On 7 June 2003, 18-year-old American Devin Moore shot and killed two policemen and a dispatcher after grabbing one of the officers' weapons following an arrest for the possession of a stolen vehicle. At trial, the defense claimed that Moore had been inspired by the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. On 25 June 2003, two American step brothers, Joshua and William Buckner, aged 14 and 16, respectively, used a rifle to fire at vehicles on Interstate 40 in Tennessee, killing a 45-year-old man and wounding a 19-year-old woman. The two shooters told investigators they had been inspired by Grand Theft Auto III. In June 2007, 22-year-old Texan Alejandro Garcia shot and killed his cousin after arguing over whose turn it was to play the game Scarface: The World Is Yours. He pleaded guilty at his murder trial on 6 April 2011, and was sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison.

In September 2007, in Ohio, 16-year-old Daniel Petric sneaked out of his bedroom window to purchase the game against the orders of his father, a minister at New Life Assembly of God in Wellington, Ohio, U.S. His parents eventually banned him from the game after he spent up to 18 hours a day with it, and secured it in a lockbox in a closet where the father also kept a 9mm handgun according to prosecutors. In October 2007, Daniel used his father's key to open the lockbox and remove the gun and the game. He then entered the living room of his house and shot both of them in the head, killing his mother and wounding his father. Petric was sentenced to life in prison without parole, which was later commuted to 23 years in prison. Defense attorneys argued that Petric was influenced by video game addiction. The court dismissed these claims. The judge, James Burge, commented that while he thought there was ample evidence the boy knew what he was doing, Burge thought the game had affected him like a drug, saying "I firmly believe that Daniel Petric had no idea at the time he hatched this plot that if he killed his parents they would be dead forever."

In December 2007, 17-year-old Lamar Roberts and his 16-year-old girlfriend, Heather Trujillo, were accused of beating a 7-year-old girl to death. They were said to have been imitating the content of Mortal Kombat. In July 2008, Heather was sentenced to 18 years in prison and 6 years in a youth-offender program, and, on 16 January 2009, Lamar was sentenced to 36 years in prison.

In June 2008, four teens allegedly obsessed with Grand Theft Auto IV went on a crime spree after being in New Hyde Park, New York. They first robbed a man, knocking out his teeth and then they stopped a woman driving a black BMW and stole her car and her cigarettes.

In April 2009, Joseph Johnson III was charged with murder after shooting his friend, Danny Taylor, during a quarrel over a video game in Taylor's apartment in Chicago, Illinois.

In January 2010, 9-year-old Anthony Maldonado was stabbed to death by his 25-year-old relative, Alejandro Morales, after an argument regarding Maldonado's recently purchased copy of Tony Hawk: Ride and a PlayStation 3 console.

On 29 November 2010 in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a 16-year-old boy, Kendall Anderson, bludgeoned his mother to death in her sleep with a claw hammer after she took away his PlayStation.

On 24 March 2012, 13-year-old Noah Crooks was accused of shooting Gretchen, his 32-year-old mother, dead with a .22 caliber rifle after a failed attempt to rape her. He was charged with first-degree murder and assault. During the dispatch call to 911 shortly following the murder, Crooks revealed that his mother had taken away his Call of Duty video game because his grades had turned poor and that this was the reason why he snapped. According to dispatch, Crooks did not seem emotional even though he had killed his mother a couple of hours earlier.

After the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on 14 December 2012, initial media reports mis-identified the shooter as Ryan Lanza, the brother of the perpetrator. After discovering that Ryan had liked Mass Effect on Facebook, an internet mob immediately attacked the game's Facebook page, labelling the developers "child killers". Once it was discovered that it was his brother, Adam, who had carried out the massacre, initial news stories claimed a link to two video games, and Dance Dance Revolution. After a UK tabloid claimed that Lanza had a Call of Duty obsession, this was widely repeated across the internet, Subsequently, a small town near Sandy Hook organized the collection and burning of video games in exchange for a gift certificate. A report by CBS claimed that anonymous law enforcement sources suggested a link to video games, which was later dismissed by the Connecticut police, saying that it was "all speculation". However, the incident prompted a wave of legislative and bureaucratic efforts against violent video games in the following months, including a meeting between US vice president Joe Biden and representatives from the video game industry on the topic of video game violence. The official investigation report, released on 25 November 2013, discussed video games only briefly in the 48-page document and did not suggest they contributed to Lanza's motive. The report revealed that Lanza played a variety of video games, although he was most fond of non-violent video games such as Dance, Dance Revolution and Super Mario Brothers. The report particularly focused on Dance, Dance Revolution which he played regularly, for hours, with an associate.

In the wake of the El Paso, Texas shooting on 3 August, and the Dayton, Ohio shooting on 4 August in 2019, President Donald Trump partially attributed the shootings to video games. Trump stated "We must stop the glorification of violence in our society. This includes the gruesome and grisly video games that are now commonplace. It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence." Similar concerns were raised by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

In April 2000, a Spanish 16-year-old, José Rabadán Pardo, murdered his father, mother, and his sister with a katana, proclaiming that he was on an "avenging mission" for Squall Leonhart, the main character of the video game Final Fantasy VIII.

On 27 February 2004, in Leicester, England, 17-year-old Warren Leblanc lured 14-year-old Stefan Pakeerah into a park and murdered him by stabbing him repeatedly with a claw hammer and a knife. Leblanc was reportedly obsessed with , although investigation quickly revealed that the killer did not even own a copy of the game. The victim's mother, Giselle Pakeerah, has been campaigning against violent video games in the UK ever since. The police investigating the case have dismissed any link.

In October 2004, a 41-year-old Chinese man named Qiu Chengwei stabbed 26-year-old Zhu Caoyuan to death over a dispute regarding the sale of a virtual weapon the two had jointly won in the game The Legend of Mir 3.

On 27 December 2004, 13-year-old Xiao Yi committed suicide by jumping from a twenty-four story building in Tianjin, China, as a result of the effects of his video game addiction, hoping to be "reunited" with his fellow gamers in the afterlife, according to his suicide notes. Prior to his death, he had spent thirty-six consecutive hours playing Warcraft III.

In August 2005, 28-year-old South Korean Lee Seung Seop died after continuously playing for 50 hours.

In September 2007, a Chinese man in Guangzhou, China, died after playing internet video games for three consecutive days in an internet cafe.

In December 2007, a Russian man was beaten to death over an argument about . The man was killed when his guild and a rival challenged each other to a real-life brawl.

On 2 August 2008, Polwat Chinno, a 19-year-old Thai teenager, stabbed and killed a Bangkok taxi driver during an attempt to steal the driver's cab in order to obtain money to buy a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV. A police official said that the teen was trying to copy a similar act in the game. As a consequence, officials ordered the banning of the game and later the series, which led its distributor, New Era Interactive Media, to withdraw it, including its installment, from shops across Thailand.

On 13 October 2008, the disappearance of Brandon Crisp and his subsequent death involved, according to his parents, obsessive playing of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has been referenced in discussions about video game obsession and spawned a report aired by CBC's The Fifth Estate TV show on video game addiction and Crisp's story titled "Top Gun", subtitled "When a video gaming obsession turns to addiction and tragedy".

In January 2010, Gary Alcock punched, slapped and pinched his partner's 15-month-old daughter in the three weeks leading up to her death before he delivered a fatal blow to the stomach which tore her internal organs because she interrupted him playing his Xbox. She died from internal bleeding after suffering thirty-five separate injuries including multiple bruises, rib fractures and brain damage, which were comparable to injuries suffered in a car crash. Alcock was jailed for life and must serve at least 21 years.

In May 2010, French gamer Julien Barreaux located and stabbed a fellow player known only as "Mikhael" who had stabbed Barreaux in the game Counter-Strike 6 months earlier. The judge at his trial called him "a menace to society".

On 9 April 2011 in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands, 24-year-old Tristan van der Vlis opened fire in a shopping mall, firing more than a hundred times with a semi-automatic rifle and a handgun, killing 6 people and wounding 17 others, after which he also killed himself. A fair amount of attention was given to Van Der Vlis' playing of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and to the alleged similarities between the events in Alphen a/d Rijn and the controversial "No Russian" mission in the game, where the player can choose to (or choose not to) partake in the killing of a large group of innocent people inside an airport terminal.

On 22 July 2011, Anders Behring Breivik perpetrated the 2011 Norway attacks, detonating a car bomb in the executive government quarter, and then travelled to a summer camp for teenagers, where he proceeded to stalk and kill a large number of people. Seventy-seven people were killed in the attacks, a majority of them being teenagers who were at the summer camp. Hundreds were injured by the car bomb explosion. Breivik himself claimed in court that he had deliberately used the 2009 video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to train for the attacks, specifically by practicing his aim using a "holographic aiming device". He stated in his manifesto that he had been planning the attacks since 2002.

On the night of 14 April 2012, in Clydebank, Scotland, a 13-year-old boy slashed his friend's throat after a session of Gears of War 3. The wound was deep enough to expose his trachea and required 20 staples after his surgery. In March 2013, Brian Docherty, a chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, commented that "These games are rated 18 and shouldn't be played by children of this young age" and that "We need to look again at what we can do to [prevent children from playing games meant for adults]." Similar and other effects were denounced in 2004 by Gary Webb in his article The Killing Game, exposing the use of increased reality video games by the US Army.

In February 2018, after 15-year-old Ben Walmsley of Greater Manchester, England, committed suicide, his father Darren stated that he believed the visual novel Doki Doki Literature Club! may have contributed to "dragging" his son into a dark place, due to a subplot of the game involving two characters (Sayori and Yuri) suffering from depression who independently commit suicide. Walmsley also claimed that Ben had been frequently awoken at night due to text messages he attributed to coming from the game's characters, despite no such function existing in the game. In June 2018, the controversy was discussed by Victoria Derbyshire on BBC News, and she called the game a "risk to children" and thought it should've had a higher age rating. The game being blamed for Walmsley's death, as well as the BBC interview discussing the controversy, was met with criticism on social media, with some being sick of video games being blamed for instigating tragic events, while others thought the game's discussion on the BBC was not necessary. Darren Walmsley was also criticized for claiming the video game characters had literally been sending his son text messages due to it not being a feature in the game.

Some researchers claim that video games, more than causing no harm, are beneficial to social and cognitive development and psychological well-being. Certain scholars admit that games can be addictive, and part of their research explores how games connect to the reward circuits of the human brain. But they recognize the cognitive benefits of playing video games: pattern recognition, system thinking, and patience.

Action video game players have better hand-eye coordination and visuo-motor skills, such as resistance to distraction, sensitivity to information in the peripheral vision and ability to count briefly presented objects, than non-players. Through the development of the PlayStation Move, Kinect and Wii, video games can help develop motor skills through full body movement. Furthermore, video games have also been linked with increased visual and attentional skills. Studies have shown that video game players were not only able to track 2 more objects on average than non video-game players, but were also more likely to recognize targets in a cluttered area. Experiments have indicated increases in cognition and problem solving skills in professional gamers. A common viewpoint is that playing video games is an intellectually lazy activity, but research suggests it may actually strengthen children's spatial navigation, reasoning, memory and perception skills.

In 1994, a study conducted by the University of California in which fifth graders played extensive hours of video games, they managed to gain better spatial skills. The children were split into two groups, with the experimental group playing Marble Madness, while the control group played Conjecture. The distinction is important because Marble Madness requires spatial skills while Conjecture does not. The results may not be generalizable, since the sample of kids is taken from a single private school, and may not necessarily be representative of the population. The children practiced their respective game for forty-five minutes per session for three sessions, all on separate days. Appropriate pre- and post-tests were also assessed for spatial ability, on the day before and after the sessions. Irrespective of gender, practicing Marble Madness significantly increased spatial ability, especially in the children who had low performance on the spatial ability pre-test. Conversely, playing Conjecture did not increase children's spatial skills. This indicates that the type of game is important to consider when changes to cognitive abilities appear to be present. It is unknown if these increases in spatial ability persist into the long-term. This could mean that any benefits to practicing may only last if practice sessions are done at least intermittently.

Olsen suggests video games can have social benefits for children, for example, video games can provide a topic of discussion and something over which children can bond, and can help children make friends; playing video games can increase a child's self-esteem when they are struggling in one aspect of their life, but are able to do something correctly in a video game; and, children can also learn to take on leadership roles within a multi-player online game. Christopher Ferguson, a psychologist well known for his video game research, conducted a study in which results suggest that violent games reduce depression and hostile feelings in players through mood management.

According to a research paper done by Radboud University, creating positive emotions help to build motivation, relationships, and cope with failure. It also helps to monitor negative emotions such as anger, frustration or anxiety and control these emotions in order to achieve a goal (Isabela Granic, Adam Lobel, and Rutger C.M.E. Engels). By learning to motivate themselves, students could push themselves to achieve goals and improve their performance academically as they would improve their performance similarly in their video games. Also, social games that rely on interactions with other people would promote healthy relationships and better communication between their fellow students, teachers and others outside of school. This could also benefit the students to work harder in class to achieve better grades and learn from their mistakes and improve rather than become frustrated. As video games are a favored pastime among many students, having a game that promotes positive emotions will help to alleviate stress in the classroom, making the environment fun and sociable.

A 2020 Oxford Internet Institute study involving over 3000 adult players involving the games Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville during the COVID-19 pandemic found that those that played games longer felt happier and were less stressed. The researches concluded that these effects were partially contributed by a combination of the competence and social interaction brought through the games, and suggested that longer play times could improve a player's well-being. However, the researchers also identified other factors that could influence this benefit, including the player's experiences outside of the game which may actually lead to a negative impact on well-being with longer playtimes.

Studies have also tried using video games to assist in physical rehabilitation. Researchers used video games to provide physical therapy, improved disease self-management, distraction from discomfort, and increased physical activity, among other things. All of the above studies showed a significant improvement among testers. In addition, research done in Taiwan has shown that video game therapy can be used to improve the physical health of children with developmental delays.

Other studies have examined the benefits of multiplayer video games in a family setting; the use of video games in a classroom setting; online gaming; and the effects of video game playing on dexterity, computer literacy, fact recall processes and problem solving skills. Glazer, a researcher, suggests, "A kid in the classroom has to worry about looking like an idiot. In a game, they're raising their hand all the time, and true learning comes from failing." Not all video games are mindless. According to John L. Sherry, assistant professor at Michigan State University, 'educators are increasingly using educational games in the classroom as a motivational tool. The right video games help children master everything from basic grammar to complex math without the drudgery of old-school flash cards.'

Certain studies indicate that video games may have value in terms of academic performance, perhaps because of the skills that are developed in the process. "When you play ... games you're solving puzzles to move to the next level and that involves using some of the general knowledge and skills in maths, reading and science that you've been taught during the day," said Alberto Posso, an associate professor at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, after analysing data from the results of standardized testing completed by over 12,000 high school students across Australia. As summarized by The Guardian, the study [published in the International Journal of Communication], "found that students who played online games almost every day scored 15 points above average in maths and reading tests and 17 points above average in science". However, the reporter also stated that "[the] methodology cannot prove that playing video games were the cause of the improvement". The Guardian also reported that a Columbia University study indicated that extensive video gaming by students in the 6 to 11 age group provided a greatly increased chance of high intellectual functioning and overall school competence.

In a study done in 2017 by the International Conference Educational Technologies they explored the educational purposes of the video game Minecraft. The results that they concluded from this experiment was that it increased collaboration between groups, increased problem solving skills, improved computer skills and more.

In an interview with CNN, Edward Castronova, a professor of Telecommunications at Indiana University Bloomington said he was not surprised by the outcome of the Australian study but also discussed the issue of causal connection. "Though there is a link between gaming and higher math and science scores, it doesn't mean playing games caused the higher scores. It could just be that kids who are sharp are looking for a challenge, and they don't find it on social media, and maybe they do find it on board games and video games," he explained.

In 1997, Herz and in 2006, Wade and Beck, authors, suggested video game playing may increase entrepreneurial skills. Herz argued that many so-called negative effects of video games, such as aggression and lack of pro-social behavior, are both necessary and useful traits to have in a capitalistic society. Specifically, Herz argued that many academic researchers have an anti-capitalist bias, and thus failed to notice the benefits of such traits.

In 2010, Tobias Greitemeyer and Silvia Osswald conducted a series of 4 experiments where some people played a prosocially themed video game, and others played a neutral video game. They found that the people who played the prosocial game were more helpful compared to the people who played the neutral game when another person had a mishap and asked for help. The people who played prosocial games were also more likely to assist in further experiments as a favor to the researcher, and more likely to step in and calm down a situation where someone was being harassed.

In 2012, a study approved by Iowa State University assessed whether prosocial games could promote helpful behavior in children. In this study, children aged 9-14 years old played three different types of video games. They were first assessed for aggression in order to avoid confounding. Afterwards, they completed a puzzle task with a partner and then assigned tangrams to a fictitious person in another room. The participants were told that the person in the other room, who they did not know was not actually real, had an opportunity to win a prize. The children were told they were not eligible for the gift card. The measure for helpful or hurtful behavior was based on how many easy or difficult tangrams they assigned to the fictitious person. Results indicated that playing prosocial games significantly more helpful behaviors in children than those who played violent video games. Conversely, playing violent video games had significantly more hurtful behaviors in children than the children who played prosocial games. Deviations from the expected pattern were also non-significant. The short-term effects observed after only thirty minutes of playing are substantial enough to consider the possibility that the longer amount of time a child plays a video game, the more effect it will have on their behavior. The researchers concluded that playing prosocial games affects a child's social cognition, because it changes their attitudes and affect. It is also important to note that outside the confines of a study, playing a video game may affect how a child acts, but it is not the only factor present that can affect this.

A study conducted in June 2014 at the University of Buffalo concluded that violent behavior in a virtual environment could lead to players' increased sensitivity of the moral codes that they violated, due to immoral behavior in video games eliciting guilt in players.

Studies have shown that video games, whether they are designed to be therapeutic or not, can be used to lower anxiety levels of those who suffer from chronic anxiety issues. Furthermore, a study done on children with mental disorders showed specifically designed therapeutic games, that provide a "lifelike alternate reality", which can help treat problems such as schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, and ADHD.

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26. ^ Yarwood, Jack (18 May 2021). "So, you worked on a video game. You might not appear in the credits". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 18 May 2021. [T]he widespread use of nondisclosure agreements often prevents both in-house and freelance talent from discussing the projects they've worked on, which makes compiling CVs and portfolios particularly difficult.

27. ^ Faylor, Chris (19 August 2008). "Warhammer Online Not Crediting All Developers". . Archived from the original on 28 February 2011. only current employees that have continued until the end will be credited in the final game

28. ^ Alexander, Leigh (16 December 2009). "They Worked On The Game You Played, But Didn't Get Credit". Kotaku. Archived from the original on 24 February 2021. Codemasters says its crediting is reserved for 'Those that are with a team through the successful completion of a game, or those that completed their contribution to a specific element of a game'

29. ^ Schreier (2018): "That has been a consistent policy because we have always felt that we want the team to get to the finish line".

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31. ^ Švelch, Jan (29 July 2021). "Developer Credit: Para-Industrial Hierarchies of In-Game Credit Attribution in the Video Game Industry". Games and Culture. 17 (3): 374-398. doi:10.1177/15554120211034408. S2CID 238775902.

32. ^ "The pros, cons, and future of DRM". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 7 August 2009. Accessed 7 January 2012.

33. Kain E. "^ Diablo III fans should stay angry about always-online DRM". Forbes 17 May 2012. Accessed 5 March 2013.

34. ^ Mills, Evan; Bourassa, Norman; Rainer, Leo; Mai, Jimmy; Shehabi, Arman; Mills, Nathaniel (30 October 2019). "Toward Greener Gaming: Estimating National Energy Use and Energy Efficiency Potential". The Computer Games Journal. 2019 (3-4): 157-178. doi:10.1007/s40869-019-00084-2. S2CID 204942378.

35. ^ Kent S. "The Mainstream and All Its Perils" The ultimate history of video games:... Three Rivers Press, New York 2001 pp. 544-545. ISBN 0761536434

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38. ^ Owen Good (17 January 2009). ""Mortal Kombat Killer" Gets 36 Years". Kotaku. Archived from the original on 22 February 2017.

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43. ^ Pidd, Helen (19 April 2012). "Anders Breivik 'trained' for shooting attacks by playing Call of Duty". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 17 November 2019. The 33-year-old said he practiced his shot using a "holographic aiming device" on the war simulation game, which he said is used by armies around the world for training. "You develop target acquisition", he said. He used a similar device during the shooting attacks that left 69 dead at a political youth camp on the island of Utøya on 22 July.

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49. ^ Scholten, Hanekke (2016). "A Randomized Controlled Trial to Test the Effectiveness of an Immersive 3D Video Game for Anxiety Prevention among Adolescents". PLOS ONE. 11 (1): e0147763. Bibcode:2016PLoSO..1147763S. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0147763. PMC . PMID 26816292.

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52. ^ Scutti, Susan (8 August 2016). "Teen gamers do better at math than social media stars, study says". CNN Health. Archived from the original on 13 August 2016. Video games' bad reputation may be unfair. Teens who were regular gamers scored higher than average in math, reading and science on an international exam, a new study found.

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56. ^ Saleem, M.; Anderson, C.A.; Gentile, D.A. (2012). "Effects of prosocial, neutral, and violent video games on children's helpful and hurtful behaviors". Aggressive Behavior. 38 (4): 281-287. doi:10.1002/ab.21428. PMID 25363697. S2CID 23614155. Archived from the original on 20 November 2020.

57. ^ Grizzard, Matthew; Tamborini, Ron; Lewis, Robert J.; Wang, Lu; Prabhu, Sujay (2014). "Being Bad in a Video Game Can Make Us Morally Sensitive". Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. 17 (8): 499-504. doi:10.1089/cyber.2013.0658. hdl:. PMID 24950172.

58. ^ Hsieh, Ru-Lan (2016). "The Impact of Short Term Video Games on Performance among Children with Developmental Delays: A Randomized Controlled Trial". PLOS ONE. 11 (3): e0149714. Bibcode:2016PLoSO..1149714H. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0149714. PMC . PMID 26983099.

59. Concepcion, H., (2017). "Video Game Therapy as an Intervention for Children With Disabilities Literature Review and Program Protocol". (Vol. 51, ^ Therapeutic Recreation Journal) Retrieved from http://search.lib.virginia.edu/articles/article?id=s3h%3A125493486 Archived 2020-09-22 at the Wayback Machine

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Video game controversies refers to a wide range of debates on the social effects of video games on players and broader society, as well as debates within the video game industry. Since the early 2000s, advocates of video games have emphasized their use as an expressive medium, arguing for their protection under the laws governing freedom of speech and also as an educational tool.

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Julian Gollop was born in 1965. He came of age in Harlow, England. When he was a child, his father introduced him to many different types of games, including chess, card games, and board games. His family played games regularly, choosing to play games instead of going to see movies.

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assassin's creed: brotherhood (video game)

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All Assassin's Creed E3 Cinematic trailers back to back from Assassin's Creed I to Assassin's Creed Rogue & Unity.

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Support for video game regulation has at times been linked to moral panic. Even so, governments have enacted, or have tried to enact, legislation that regulates distribution of video games through censorship based on content rating systems or banning.

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Assassin's Creed
Production

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assassin's creed iii: liberation |ot| vita la revolution

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Assassin's Creed III: Liberation |OT| VITA LA REVOLUTION

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Assassin's Creed III: Liberation |OT| VITA LA REVOLUTION Gaming Community

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Impacts of changing tech.... (PC development)

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Impacts of changing tech.... (PC development)

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2004: Sony VAIO X505

Notable specs: 1.1GHz Pentium M processor, 20GB hard drive, 1.73-pound weight, 10.4-inch (1,024 x 768) display.

Sony didn't realize it at the time, but it was laying the groundwork for the next decade of laptops with the VAIO X505. The 10-inch system was so featherlight and slender that it was easy to take anywhere, much like a netbook or Ultrabook. If it weren't for the astronomical $2,999 price tag, it's possible it could have started a mobile-computing revolution.

2005: IBM ThinkPad T43

Notable specs: 1.6GHz to 2.13GHz Pentium M processors, 30GB or larger hard drive, 6-pound weight, DVD drive, 14.1-inch (1,024 x 768 or 1,400 x 1,050) display.

The ThinkPad T43 was the swan song for an era of computing when laptops were mostly for globe-trotting professionals. One of the last PCs to bear the IBM name before Lenovo closed its acquisition of IBM's PC business, it represented everything good about the ThinkPad badge: It was fast, well-built and relatively easy to carry in a briefcase.

2006: Dell XPS 700

Notable specs: Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Extreme processors, dual 320GB hard drives, dual DVD drives, dual GeForce 7900 GTX graphics.

Dell had built up a reputation for high-performance PCs well before 2006, but the XPS 700 was the system to own that year if you wanted a gaming desktop from a major brand. Its aggressive design still holds up today, and it was often as powerful as custom-built rigs. It was a dream machine at a time when you still needed a giant tower for serious online gaming.

2007: ASUS Eee PC 701

Notable specs: 800MHz or 900MHz Celeron M processors, 2GB to 8GB solid-state drives, 2-pound weight, 7-inch (800 x 480) display.

The Eee PC 701 marked the official start of the netbook craze, which lasted until the iPad's arrival in 2010. Its screen, speed and storage were very modest even when new, but it showed that you didn't need a big, expensive portable just to check your email at the coffee shop.

2008: Apple MacBook Air

Notable specs: 1.6GHz or 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo processors, 80GB hard drive or 64GB solid-state drive, 3-pound weight, 13.3-inch (1,280 x 800) display.

The archetypal Ultrabook. While it wasn't without its quirks, the MacBook Air successfully bridged the gap between ultraportables and full laptops. It was fast enough for most tasks, yet light enough that you'd hardly notice it in your bag.

2009: HP Firebird

Notable specs: 2.66GHz or 2.83GHz Core 2 Quad processors, dual 250GB or 320GB hard drives, DVD or Blu-ray drives, dual GeForce 9800S graphics.

While HP's Firebird line wasn't perfect by any stretch, it showed how efficient desktops had become. You could get a reasonably quick, ready-made gaming PC that both looked good and didn't swallow up too much surface area. It's arguably the prototype for the small-yet-strong Steam Machines that would follow five years later.

2010: Lenovo IdeaCentre A300

Notable specs: 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 500GB hard drive, 21.5-inch (1,920 x 1,080) display.

Although the iMac is virtually synonymous with all-in-one computers, Lenovo's sleekly designed IdeaCentre A300 was proof that Apple didn't have a complete lock on the category. Rather than glom the computer on to the A300's back, Lenovo tucked it away in the base. The result was a relatively subtle, stylish desktop that looked right at home in just about any environment.

2011: Samsung Chromebook Series 5

Notable specs: 1.66GHz Atom processor, 16GB solid-state drive, 3.3-pound weight, 12.1-inch (1,280 x 800) display.

Unlike the other PCs here, the Chromebook Series 5's real revolution was its software -- with Chrome OS, both Google and Samsung were betting that you only needed a web browser for most of your day-to-day computing. That was optimistic on a slow, Atom-based machine circa 2011, but the Series 5 helped launch a wave of stripped-down, affordable laptops that could do a lot without relying on conventional apps.

2012: Apple MacBook Pro with Retina display

Notable specs: 2.3GHz or 2.6GHz Core i7 processors, 256GB to 768GB solid-state drives, 4.5-pound weight, 15.4-inch (2,880 x 1,800) display.

Apple's 2012 MacBook Pro redesign was just an iterative upgrade in some ways, but it was also a bellwether for where laptop design would go. It wasn't just that extra-sharp Retina display that turned heads; this was also one of the first high-end, full-size laptops to ditch optical discs and hard drives in the name of both an easier-to-carry body and faster, flash-based storage.

2013: Acer Aspire R7

Notable specs: 1.8GHz Core i5 processor, 500GB hybrid hard drive, 15.6-inch (1,920 x 1,080) adjustable display.

Windows 8's touch-friendly interface prompted a flood of PCs that tried to be everything to everyone, and that's epitomized in Acer's one-of-a-kind Aspire R7. Depending on how you adjusted its multi-hinged display, the R7 could serve as a desktop, laptop or tablet. It wasn't especially good at any of these, but it revealed how eager PC makers were to keep you from buying mobile tablets.

2014: Microsoft Surface Pro 3

Notable specs: Core i3, i5 or i7 processor, 64GB to 512GB solid-state drive, 12-inch (2,160 x 1,440) display.

If you want a system emblematic of the changes to PCs in the past 10 years, you only need to look at Microsoft's latest flagship device, the Surface Pro 3. So long as you get its (practically mandatory) keyboard cover, it blurs the lines between tablet and laptop -- it's as useful for watching movies on the couch as it is for serious media editing at your desk.
Jon Turi contributed to this post.

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The evolution of the PC: A decade of design

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Notable specs: 1.1GHz Pentium M processor, 20GB hard drive, 1.73-pound weight, 10.4-inch (1,024 x 768) display. Sony didn't realize it at the time, but it was laying the groundwork for the next decade of laptops with the VAIO X505. The 10-inch system was so featherlight and slender that it was easy to take anywhere, much like a netbook or Ultrabook.

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Retailers that sell video games to children are now liable for imprisonment or a fine, under a tough new age-classification system designed to crack down on violent and unsuitable content.

Under the new rules that came into force on Monday, all games sold in the UK will now be regulated under a system called PEGI, the Pan European Game Information scheme, which makes it illegal to sell 12-rated video games to children under that age for the first time.

Until now the British Board of Film Classification has provided 15 and 18 certificates that are legally enforceable. But there had never been the equivalent for 12-rated games, making it technically legal for children to buy them.

The PEGI system, which is viewed in the industry as adopting stricter ratings, will see small diagrams introduced to give shoppers guidance on references to sex, drugs, fear, gambling or online gaming elements in each title. There will also be indicators for bad language, discrimination and violence.

"Today's simplification of the ratings system benefits both industry and consumers and will help ensure that the millions of games sold in the UK each year are being played by the audiences they were intended for," said culture minister Ed Vaizey.

Backers of the new regime said that the shift to a single system would help consumers, and especially parents, make informed decisions.

The government moved to tighten video game content rules following recommendations made by Tanya Byron's Safer Children in a Digital World and Reg Bailey's Letting Children be Children review.

Under the regulations, retailers could face a prison sentence of up to six months and a fine of up to £5,000 for selling a game to someone under the age-rating classification.

The new system will end the BBFC's role in rating video games. All video games will be rated under the PEGI system by the Video Standards Council, unless the title contains explicit sexual content.

In the event that a title may require an R18 rating, the BBFC would classify the game.

"We very much believe that the sole adoption of PEGI will provide a clear and consistent direction on age ratings for parents and will be a vital tool in helping them to understand they types of games that their children should be playing," said Dr Jo Twist, chief executive of the Association of UK Interactive Entertainment.

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Retailers that sell video games to children are now liable for imprisonment or a fine, under a tough new age-classification system designed to crack down on violent and unsuitable content.

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Assassin's Creed III: Liberation (Video Game 2012)

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With JB Blanc, Dave Fennoy, Amber Goldfarb, Andreas Apergis. In 18th century Louisiana, a female assassin named Aveline has to infiltrate the Templars' order and uncover and destroy their schemes.

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Soundtrack
Production

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Assassin's Creed III: Liberation (Original Game Soundtrack)

The Assassin's Creed III: Liberation soundtrack is a collection of music tracks written by American composer Winifred Phillips and produced by Winnie Waldron that were used as background music in Assassin's Creed III: Liberation. The album was released online on October 30, 2012.

Track listing

1. Liberation Main Theme - 2:01

2. Stealth - 2:11

3. Virtual Pursuit - 2:12

4. The Docks - 2:02

5. Abstergo Ops - 3:43

6. Secrets of the Bayou - 2:02

7. Poverty - 2:10

8. Aveline's Escape - 3:36

9. Society Suite in 4 Movements - 7:16

10. Ride to Oblivion - 2:12

11. Mayan Labyrinth - 2:04

12. Chasing Freedom - 2:19

13. The Hunt - 2:13

14. Bayou Fortress - 2:00

15. Safe Harbor - 2:07

16. Shanty Town - 2:01

17. Deliverance - 2:27

18. Winter in the North - 2:04

19. The Cathedral Grounds - 2:05

20. In the Bayou - 2:23

21. Mayan Ruins - 2:03

22. River of the Mayans - 2:35

23. Agate's Power - 3:26

24. In the Service of Humanity - 3:11

25. Virtual Reality Room - 3:26

Creation of the score

General - In composing the score for Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, Winifred Phillips considered both the setting and the protagonist, Aveline de Grandpré, as main inspirations. As the daughter of a French aristocrat and an African slave, Aveline possessed strong contrasting cultural influences. The French style focused on Baroque string orchestra with an emphasis on the refined and sophisticated style of this genre, while the African style was embodied by complex and intricate percussion, authentic African vocals and the bright and vivid chords and melodies of African musical structure. In crafting the game's score, Phillips blended these music styles and also introduced some musical elements from folk songs.

Aveline - With the protagonist navigating multiple distinct social spheres, all of which suggest particular choices in musical instrumentation and style, the score needed to reflect that Aveline's inner world was very much a combination of all of these layers. As Aveline lost her mother at an early age, some of the tracks expressly permeate a sense of melancholy. At the same time, she is fiercely opposed to slavery and the oppression of the occupying Spanish forces. To strike a balance between these two aspects, Phillips used a soprano to communicate Aveline's vulnerability and gentleness, which was juxtaposed against the more aggressive elements of the musical score. As much of the storyline revolves around the mystery of the Company Man's identity, Aveline's theme is also associated with yearning, questioning and looking for answers.

Louisiana Bayou - For the bayou, Phillips largely focused on African percussion, using instruments such as dunun drums, the balafon, wooden flutes and rice shakers, making the location feel as though it was infused with African culture.

Mayan ruins - Mayan civilization possesses a very different cultural foundation from 18th century New Orleans, making for a change in musical instruments. For these soundtracks, Phillips used instruments including the Mesoamerican ocarina, the rainstick, hollow log drums and shell shakers.

Sci-fi elements - As in previous entries in the franchise, a modern element was present in the soundtrack to reference the technological marvel of the Animus, usually in the form of synths and contemporary rhythms. Phillips also associated the reliving of memories with visions, which she introduced into some of the tracks via floating ambient synths and unsettling musical effects. She believed that, in this way, "the instruments that typify the New Orleans regional sound have the potential to drift to the surface of the ambient soundscape and make themselves known, like hazy images in a dream".

Samples of the tracks were released on a French website before the release of the game.

References

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assassin's creed iii: liberation soundtrack

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Assassin's Creed III: Liberation soundtrack

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Assassin's Creed III: Liberation soundtrack is a collection of music tracks written by American composer Winifred Phillips and produced by Winnie Waldron that were used as background music in Assassin's Creed III: Liberation. The album was released online on October 30, 2012.

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Impact of changing tech...(Xbox 360 - Xbox One)

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Impact of changing tech...(Xbox 360 - Xbox One)

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If you're laughing at the very idea of comparing the Xbox One with the Xbox 360, you should think again. Although the newest Xbox is a superior product, it's also more expensive. And the Xbox 360 is considered by many to be the best games console in history - and for many less hardcore gamers, that may well be enough.

In this article we examine how the Xbox 360 stacks up today as a gaming and entertainment device, and we ask whether for you personally it may still be a better deal than the Xbox One.

More than a decade after its launch Microsoft has ended support for the Xbox 360, which you might like to keep in mind when reading our comparison of the two consoles below. You can still buy the Xbox 360 today as shops sell the last of their stock, but no new consoles are being made.

How much do they cost in the UK?

You can pick up a 500GB Xbox 360 direct from the Microsoft Store for just £149.99, including a copy of Forza Horizon 2.

Shop around and you might find it for less or bundled with several games for a bigger bargain. At that price it remains a good deal: perhaps not for everyone, but don't be fooled into thinking that the Xbox One is the only Microsoft console worth buying.

The 500GB Xbox One S, meanwhile, costs around £249.99 from the Microsoft Store, but other retails often offer bundles with single games from as little as £210.

With both consoles there's a hidden cost: the annual fee for the subscription service required for online play. An Xbox Live Gold membership costs £40 per year, or £5.99 per month.

Hardware and specs

With the Xbox One, Microsoft seems to have fixed the reliability issues that plagued the early Xbox 360 consoles, but it is worth pointing out that any Xbox 360 you buy as new these days will also be unlikely to suffer from issues.

The Xbox One is based on the same AMD Jaguar processor technology found in its Temash and Kabini APUs. It has eight CPU cores, running at 1.75Ghz. The GPU is derived from the Bonaire architecture found in the Radeon HD 7790, and has 12 GCN compute units to play with, and runs at 853MHz, while the redesigned Xbox One S GPU runs slightly faster at 914MHz.

It can also call on 8GB of 2133MHz DDR3 RAM. This uses a 32MB ESRAM cache to keep data flowing smoothly. All of this gives the Xbox One the gaming power of a mid-range gaming PC.

Turning to the Xbox 360 we find a custom-designed triple-core 64-bit PowerPC-based CPU, known as 'Xenon' by Microsoft. The Xbox 360's GPU is an ATI Xenos chip, and you get only 512MB GDDR3 RAM clocked at 700MHz. This relatively paltry amount of memory is shared by the CPU and the GPU via the unified memory architecture.

Clearly this hardware bears no comparison with the Xbox One's, and as time goes by this is likely to make newer games a less satisfying experience on the Xbox 360. You get what you pay for, after all.

Back to the Xbox One, you'll find a bewildering array of ports, with three USB ports, Ethernet, an optical output and a specific port for Kinect, plus two HDMI sockets. One of these is an output for your TV, but the other is designed to take a signal from your Freeview/Freesat PVR or Virgin/Sky set-top-box. This sends the TV signal through your Xbox One, and allows you to choose programmes using the console's OneGuide.

The more recent Xbox One S offers a similar selection, but drops the dedicated Kinect port - instead you can connect the Kinect through one of the three standard USB 3.0 ports.

The Xbox 360 cannot compete on connectivity terms. There is a detachable and upgradeable hard drive, and a 12x dual-layer DVD-ROM drive. Three USB 2.0 ports and two memory unit slots round out the wired connectivity, and a Wi-Fi connector is available as a paid upgrade.

In terms of power, performance, and connectivity, the Xbox One is a clear winner. But that doesn't mean that the Xbox 360 isn't fit for purpose: just that you have to think about exactly what you want from your console, and how much you are prepared to pay for the privilege, to figure out if a current-gen console is right for you.

User Interface

The Xbox One's interface has a similar feel to Windows 10 (and is in fact built on a variant of the computer OS), with a start screen and live tiles for games and apps, but it can make simple operations like checking on your achievements or finding out what friends are doing seem like hard work.

Some find it's best used with Kinect and voice commands, as you don't need to remember which screen to find an app or feature on, you just utter the appropriate command.

The Xbox One can give you a split-screen view to run two apps or one game and one app at once, plus an instant resume which allows you to put your console in standby, turn it on again, and carry on playing exactly where you left off.

The Xbox 360 boasts a similar interface, though it's not quite as slick. This takes away many of the visual and interface differences between the two Xbox consoles, offering features such as cloud storage for game saves and profiles, as well as live television, Bing voice search, access to YouTube videos and better support for Kinect voice commands.

There's little to choose between the two consoles considered here in terms of the user interface.

Cameras

The Xbox One's second-generation Kinect camera is a big improvement on the first, with more accurate motion tracking that works better across a range of lighting conditions, and it can also track your body in more detail, even down to the individual finger joints. Despite that, interest in Kinect seems to have waned, and there aren't many titles that use it.

Aside from games, the main reason for having it is voice controls, used in some games, and also within the main interface to launch games and apps or search for content. It makes the Xbox One's entertainment features much easier to use, but if you mostly want to play games, then spending £370 to £390 on a Kinect/console bundle doesn't make a lot of sense.

You can use the Kinect camera with the Xbox 360, but it is an additional cost for an extra device. Current versions of the Xbox 360 come with a dedicated port for the Kinect Sensor, but a quick scout around the internet suggests that it will set you back at least £100.

At this stage you'd have to question whether an Xbox 360 plus Kinect Sensor makes a good deal. If you want Kinect, I'd argue that the Xbox One is a better investment, but the Xbox 360 works fine without one. It's a well-priced lower-spec gaming device, after all.

Backwards Compatibility

While it didn't offer backwards compatibility when it first launched, the Xbox One now lets you play games from the older console - though not all of them are compatible.

Microsoft offers a list of backwards compatible titles on its website, and is continuing to add to it. So far over 300 Xbox 360 games are playable on the Xbox One, but that's compared to a full library of over 1,000 titles - so there are still a lot of games you can't play on the more modern console, though most of the biggest, most popular titles are available.

For many, this could be a deciding factor. If most of the 360 games you care about are playable on the Xbox One, you should probably grab that console and get the best of both the worlds. But if there are some major older games you want to play that won't run on the new machine, buying a 360 might be the only way to get your hands on them.

Games

The main reason to buy the latest console is to play its exclusive games. And here the Xbox One has a few fantastic Forza racing games, Halo 5, Gears of War 4, Halo Wars, and more.

Those aside, the best games on the Xbox One have mostly come from third parties, with Far Cry 4, Assassin's Creed: Unity, Destiny, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and an enhanced Grand Theft Auto V all pushing graphical boundaries or, in Destiny's case, transforming the way we play online.

And yet the fact remains that the Xbox 360 retains a vast library of excellent games, albeit without the bells and whistles of the very latest titles. Again: if you can get over the fact that the Xbox 360 isn't the latest and best, it is still an excllent purchase. But if you are serious about playing the best games in the best format, you need the upgrade.

Entertainment features

Microsoft originally sold the Xbox One as the ultimate all-in-one entertainment system, pushing how voice controls and integrated TV would put it right at the heart of the living room. It still has arguably the best set of entertainment features of any console, with apps for all the major catch-up TV services bar ITV Player, plus all the major video-streaming services, including Amazon Instant Video, YouTube Netflix, Blinkbox and Now TV.

The Xbox One also has a Blu-ray drive and playback app, and DLNA media streaming both through the console's own Media Player and an app for Plesk. Throw in Microsoft's own music and video services and its TV features, and it's the best console for those who want to do more with their console than play games.

In terms of content, the Xbox 360 can happily compete. You can watch all the great content on Xbox Movies, of course, and also Netflix (with a subscription), Amazon Instant Video and YouTube. Plus the catchup apps. The Xbox 360 offers that DVD-ROM drive, too.

But you can't use it as your central home hub in quite the same way as you can the Xbox One. It is more of an additional entertainment source. And remember that you need an additional device to connect wirelessly to the web.

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The Xbox One is great, but is the 360 still worth your time?

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If you're laughing at the very idea of comparing the Xbox One with the Xbox 360, you should think again. Although the newest Xbox is a superior product, it's also more expensive. And the Xbox 360 is considered by many to be the best games console in history - and for many less hardcore gamers, that may well be enough.

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This article is about the real world video game. You may be looking for its in-universe counterpart.

"I seek liberty and freedom, not for myself, but for those whom such fundamental rights are denied. I am their shield, their sword, their only hope. The roads I travel are dark, but they bring me closer to the light. I move unseen and strike when they least expect it. I am Aveline de Grandpré. I am an Assassin."

―Aveline de Grandpré, Assassin's Creed III: Liberation Features Trailer (North America).

Assassin's Creed III: Liberation

US release

30 October 2012 (PS Vita)
14 January 2014 (PS3)[1]
15 January 2014 (Xbox 360, PC)[2]

UK release

31 October 2012 (PS Vita)
15 January 2014 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)[2]

Genre

Historic action-adventure

Game modes

Single-player, Multi-player

Assassin's Creed III: Liberation is a video game released in 2012 for the PlayStation Vita, developed by Ubisoft Sofia. It was released alongside Assassin's Creed III on 30 October 2012. A high definition rework of the game with additional missions, entitled Assassin's Creed: Liberation HD, was released on 14 January 2014 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and 15 January for PC.

Assassin's Creed III: Liberation did not feature Desmond Miles, but rather an unknown individual, due to the game being a product released by Abstergo Industries to the public. Liberation was created and used by Abstergo as a propaganda tool to depict a grey area side of the conflict between the Assassins and Templars, through censoring out negative acts by the Templars and depicting only the positive points of their influence, along with the misguided and disorganized Assassin Order.

However, Liberation was breached early on by Erudito, a hacking collective operating in opposition to Abstergo. Erudito gave players the opportunity to view uncensored memories that Abstergo had originally covered up, revealing to them the truth about the Assassins and Templars.

The game was set between 1765 and 1777, taking place around the end of the French and Indian War. It primarily featured Aveline de Grandpré, a female French- African Assassin.

Liberation was set in and around the city of New Orleans and the Louisiana Bayou, with the swamp itself hosting many wild animals and dangerous threats, such as alligators and smugglers. This made navigating through trees a safer alternative for traveling through the area.

Both Liberation and Assassin's Creed III operated on the same game engine, meaning gameplay in Liberation is very similar to Assassin's Creed III in terms of climbing and combat. Many of the new features that were present in Assassin's Creed III were available to Aveline, such as double-counters and combo kills, as well as the ability to freerun through trees.

Liberation included a variety of weapons from previous installments, as well as cleavers, hatchets and axes, pistols, a blowpipe and a whip.

Liberation also included multiplayer "specifically tailored to the Vita experience," and utilized cross-goods between itself and Assassin's Creed III on the PlayStation 3, with synchronizing the pair granting Aveline the use of Connor's tomahawk, and allowed the player to play from Connor's perspective during a mission in New York. Accompanying this, pre-order content featured a "Mysteries of the Bayou" pack, including an exclusive hat, an Animi Avatar, a dagger and an upgrade in ammunition. In an exclusive edition (excluding pre-order content), the game was also bundled with a special "Crystal White PS Vita Wi-Fi."

Liberation also included a new mechanic in the form of chain-kill, which allowed Aveline to take out multiple opponents after interacting with the Vita's touch screen, amongst other features such as stroking the touch-screen up or down to row faster or slower while in canoes. Accompanying this, Aveline was able to enter an outfit shop to dress in disguises, which provided advantages and disadvantages for each of the costumes available.

Assassin's Creed III: Liberation took place in Louisiana near the end of the French and Indian War, where France's defeat resulted in the city of New Orleans being taken over by the Spanish government. The citizens were upset over the transition from French to Spanish control and Spain's new occupation within the city. However, in 1765, the French governor Jean-Jacques Blaise d'Abbadie formed a negotiation with Templar Rafael Joaquín de Ferrer to remain as governor of New Orleans. This plot was later uncovered by the Assassin Aveline de Grandpré, who infiltrated the governor's mansion and assassinated him.

Following this, de Ferrer made another deal with a man named Baptiste, who was hoping to defect from the Assassins to the Templar Order. Baptiste took on the identity of the recently deceased François Mackandal, as a ruse to attract followers to his cause. His plan was to poison New Orleans' nobles and take control of smuggling operations within the Louisiana Bayou, although his sole purpose was actually to force Agaté, Assassin and mentor to Aveline, out of hiding in the bayou. His plot failed however, as Aveline tracked Baptiste down, killed his followers and assassinated the false Mackandal.

In 1766, the Templar Antonio de Ulloa arrived in New Orleans, to serve as the Spanish governor. However, he left control of the area to French officials and allowed the French flag to remain over the city. Two years afterwards, he made strict trade restrictions and set up a covert slave-trading operation to transport slaves to a Templar worksite in Mexico. This act flared up a rebellion from French officials and the citizens of New Orleans.

Subsequently, Agaté ordered Aveline to assassinate de Ulloa to eradicate Templar presence in New Orleans. Aveline ambushed de Ulloa's carriage and confronted the governor, who told her that slaves had been taken to Chichén Itzá. However, Aveline spared his life and let de Ulloa leave the city, in return for a lens used to decode Templar documents and a map leading her to the Templar worksite in Chichén Itzá. Aveline's act of mercy destroyed any trust Agaté had in his student, as she had disobeyed his explicit orders.

Against her mentor's wishes, Aveline disguised herself as a slave bound for Mexico and made her way to the Templar worksite at Chichén Itzá. Whilst there, she came across a defiant slave who mentioned that Jeanne, a woman similar in description to Aveline's mother, was stationed in Chichén Itzá. Aveline investigated thoroughly and uncovered a page from Jeanne's diary and a map that lead to an artifact located inside a nearby cenote. Upon exploring this cave system, she came across an ancient chamber filled with ruins from the First Civilization, along with a fragment of the artifact she was searching for, a device known as the Prophecy Disk.

Shortly after Aveline had acquired the artifact, de Ferrer, who was supervising the Templar worksite at Chichén Itzá, broke through into the chamber. However, Aveline overpowered his soldiers and killed him, before escaping through the mines he had entered through. At the end of the tunnels, she found her mother.

Jeanne, however, realized that her daughter was an Assassin and believed that Agaté had sent Aveline to kill her. She fled, though not before warning Aveline that the Prophecy Disk should never reach Agaté.

After two years of absence, Aveline returned to New Orleans to find that Spanish control was strong. After speaking to Gérald Blanc, Aveline's fellow Assassin and trusted friend, she learnt that someone was bribing Spanish soldiers. Upon investigating, Aveline discovered that a man by the name of Vázquez was using Spanish soldiers to seize control of the bayou.

It was Vázquez's plot to take control of the bayou's smuggling operations, which would eventually lead him to discover the location of Agaté. Believing Vázquez to be the head Templar of Louisiana, the "Company Man" de Ferrer had mentioned in Chichen Itza, Aveline immediately hurried to Agaté's hut to warn him of the threat posed by Vázquez's soldiers. Agaté told her to use the power of voodoo to spook the Spanish soldiers into abandoning their mission. Using her blowpipe, Aveline poisoned several of Vázquez's soldiers, causing the rest to believe they were cursed, and flee the bayou as a result.

Soon after, Aveline returned to Chichén Itzá and made peace with her mother, who directed her to a canoe inside another cenote; Aveline then navigated her way through the cenote and retrieved the final piece of the Prophecy Disk. On her return, she offered to bring her mother back to New Orleans, but Jeanne decided to stay behind to take care of the community, which had now been rid of Templar influence.

To this, Aveline returned to New Orleans, continuously working to free slaves in the city. Her stepmother, Madeleine de L'Isle, became aware of her work and asked her to help a slave named George escape north. Aveline found a safe passage through the bayou for George to leave through. Whilst escorting him through the swamp, she met with her smuggler allies Élise Lafleur and Roussillon, helping them to deliver supples to American Patriots who were fighting in the American Revolutionary War.

Vázquez attempted to stop Aveline and her allies by sending Spanish soldiers their way, but failed; Aveline defeated Vázquez's guards and ensured George and the supplies reached their destination.

After returning to the city, Aveline dressed herself as a lady and attended a governor's ball, in the hopes that Vázquez himself would be there. Upon speaking with several guests, she located Vázquez and asked him to dance. Using her charm, Aveline lured him to quiet corner and assassinated him. However, to her surprise, Vázquez revealed that he was not the Company Man. Following this, Aveline learned that her father, who had been ill for some time, had passed away.

Aveline was weary and felt defeated, but was determined to uncover the identity of the Company Man and root out the head of the Templars in Louisiana. She spoke to Gérald, who told her that a Templar working for the Company Man had been found on the New York frontier. Aveline headed north in 1777, learning that the Templar was called Officer Davidson, a Loyalist soldier. Upon arriving, she met Connor, a Kanien'kehá:ka Assassin fighting the Templars in the British Colonies to the north.

Aveline and Connor made their way through the frontier to a fort where Officer Davidson was located. While Connor distracted the guards, Aveline slipped inside the fort. There, she confronted Officer Davidson, shocked to learn that he was actually George, the escaped slave she had helped flee north. He attempted to escape, but Aveline managed to shoot his carriage and prevent his departure. From him, Aveline finally discovered the identity of the Company Man: Madeleine de L'Isle, her stepmother.

Upon returning to Louisiana, Aveline hurried to her family's mansion and confronted her stepmother, who did not deny her accusations. Madeleine revealed to Aveline that she had secretly manipulated her life, preparing her for induction into the Templar Order, with the belief they shared a common goal.

Afterwards, Aveline traveled to the bayou and met with Agaté, informing him of Madeleine's identity as the Company Man. Agaté was unable to accept his failure and believing that Aveline had sided with the Templars, attacked her. Aveline overpowered him and attempted to convince him to leave Louisiana for his own safety, but Agaté could not live with the humiliation and instead chose to dive to his death. On realizing this, Aveline quickly attempted to save him, but only managed to grasp his necklace which tore away from his neck.

Following her mentor's death, Aveline saw her situation as an opportunity to infiltrate the Templars and eradicate it from within. Upon returning to New Orleans, she made her way to the Saint Louis Cathedral and handed Agaté's necklace to Madeleine, symbolising her new allegiance. Following this, she was inducted into the Templar Order by her stepmother. Aveline then gave her the two halves of the Prophecy Disk, which Madeleine placed on an altar and connected the halves into a whole.

However, she could not make sense of the scrambled messages within and became frustrated, giving Aveline the perfect moment to strike. She successfully eliminated all of the Templars inside the cathedral and assassinated Madeleine, reclaiming the Prophecy Disk.

Now alone inside the cathedral, Aveline stepped up to the altar where the Prophecy Disk had been placed. She connected the locket she wore around her neck - which once belonged to her mother - to the artifact, causing it to display a holographic recording that detailed a message from the time of the First Civilization. This message recounted the election of Eve as the leader of the rebellion during the Human-Isu War.

The HD version was announced as a result of a petition on Ubi Forums by Aveline's fans, who wished for a PC port of Liberation, as well as an Aveline DLC for PC.
The HD port makes Liberation the first game to be initially released as an exclusive and then ported to other consoles.

Liberation marks the first game in the series where both the main protagonist and antagonist are female.

Appearances

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Assassin's Creed III: Liberation is a video game released in 2012 for the PlayStation Vita, developed by Ubisoft Sofia. It was released alongside Assassin's Creed III on 30 October 2012. A high definition rework of the game with additional missions, entitled Assassin's Creed: Liberation HD, was released on 14 January 2014 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and 15 January for PC.

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A Similar game to compare to (Tomb Raider Series)

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A Similar game to compare to (Tomb Raider Series)

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The first six Tomb Raider games were developed by Core Design, a British video game development company owned by Eidos Interactive. After the sixth game in the series released to a lukewarm reception in 2003, development was transferred to North American studio Crystal Dynamics, who have handled the main series since then.

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Assassin's Creed III: Liberation - Wikipedia

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Assassin's Creed III: Liberation is a 2012 action-adventure video game developed and published by Ubisoft, initially as an exclusive title for PlayStation Vita. Sony announced the game at its press conference during the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2012, few days after first leaks about the game presented in Game Informer .

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Similar to Liberation
(Released at the same time)

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Assassin's Creed III is a 2012 action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U, and Microsoft Windows. It is the fifth major installment in the Assassin's Creed series, and a direct sequel to 2011's Assassin's Creed: Revelations .

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TIMELINE OF ASSASSIN'S CREED MEDIA & RELATED GAMES

Assassin's Creed is by far the greatest game series of all time to feature the word 'Ass' two times in it's title. Bringing together two of modern Sci-fi's most popular tropes, the alternate history and the Alien Creation Myth (thankfully skipping over steampunk anime girls and cliché post-apocalyptic settings), it was a smash hit from day one. So, today take your spin through thousands of years of stabbing people in the neck or kidney across the varied and colourful spectrum of human history and make sure you do it in the right order.

Prince Of Persia

circa. 1000 AD
- Prince of Persia
( 1989, Apple II/Amiga/Amstrad CPC/Atari ST/MS-DOS/SAM Coupé/NEC PC-9801/Sharp X68000/TurboGrafx-16/Master System/Game Gear/Sega CD/Game Boy/FM Towns/Super Nintendo Entertainment System/Nintendo Entertainment System/Macintosh/Genesis/Game Boy Color/iOS/Nintendo 3DS/Wii)
- Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame
( 1993, DOS/Mac OS/SNES/FM Towns/Android/iOS/Xbox)
- Prince of Persia 3D
( 1999, Microsoft Windows/Dreamcast)
- Prince of Persia: The Graphic Novel
( 2008, Non-canon Graphic Novel which isn't based on either of PoP's iterations, aut. Jordan Mechner/A.B. Sina/LeUyen Pham/Alex Puvilland)
- Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
( 2003, Playstation 2/Xbox/GameCube/Game Boy Advance/Microsoft Windows/Mobile/Playstation 3)
- Battle of Prince of Persia
( 2005, Nintendo DS)

- Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within
( 2004, Playstation 2/GameCube/Xbox/Microsoft Windows/Playstation 3/iOS/Playstation Portable)
- Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones
( 2005, Playstation 2/Xbox/GameCube/Playstation 3/Wii/Playstation Portable/Mac OS X/Microsoft Windows)
- Prince of Persia
( 2008, Playstation 3/Xbox 360/Mac OS X/Microsoft Windows)
- Prince of Persia: The Fallen King
( 2008, Nintendo DS)
- Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
( 2010, DVD/Blu-Ray, dir. Mike Newell)
- Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
( 2010, Playstation 3/Xbox 360/Wii/Microsoft Windows/Nintendo DS/Playstation Portable)

Alamut

- Alamut
( 1938 novel that served as the main inspiration for the Assassin Brotherhood in the series, aut. Vladimir Bartol)

Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad

1190 AD
- Assassin's Creed: Altaïr's Chronicles
( 2008, Nintendo DS/iOS/Windows Phone)

1191-2 AD
- Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines
( 2009, Playstation Portable/Playstation Network)

1257 AD
- Assassin's Creed: The Secret Crusade
( 2011, Paperback, aut. Oliver Bowden)

Ezio Auditore da Firenze

1476 AD
- Assassin's Creed: Lineage
( 2009, YouTube)
- Assassin's Creed II
( 2009, Microsoft Windows/Mac OS X/Playstation 3/Xbox 360)
- Assassin's Creed: Renaissance
( 2009, Paperback, aut. Oliver Bowden)

1499 AD
- Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood ( 1)
( 2010, Playstation 3/Xbox 360/Microsoft Windows)
- Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood ( 2)
( 2010, Paperback, aut. Oliver Bowden)

1511 AD
- Assassin's Creed: Revelations ( 1)
( 2011, Playstation 3/Xbox 360/Microsoft Windows)

- Assassin's Creed: Revelations ( 2)
( 2011, Paperback, aut. Oliver Bowden)

Shao Jun & Ezio Auditore da Firenze

1526 AD
- Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China
( 2015, Playstation 4/Xbox One/Microsoft Windows)

Edward Kenway & Adéwalé

1715 AD
-Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag ( 1)( 2013, Microsoft Windows/Playstation 3/Playstation 4/Wii U/Xbox 360/Xbox One)- Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag ( 2)( 2013, Paperback, aut. Oliver Bowden)

1716 AD- Assassin's Creed: Pirates
( 2013, iOS/Android/Windows Phone)

Haytham Kenway & Shay Cormac

1735 AD- Assassin's Creed: Forsaken
( 2012, Paperback, aut. Oliver Bowden)

circa. 1755 - 1760 AD
- Assassin's Creed: Rogue
( 2015, Playstation 3/Xbox 360/Microsoft Windows)

Haytham Kenway & Ratonhnhaké:ton

1754 - 1783 AD
- Assassin's Creed III
( 2012, Playstation 3/Xbox 360/Microsoft Windows/Wii U)

Aveline de Grandpré

Arno Dorian

1788 AD
- Assassin's Creed: Unity ( 1)( 2014, Playstation 4/Xbox One/Microsoft Windows)
- Assassin's Creed: Unity ( 2)
( 2014, Paperback, aut. Oliver Bowden)

Arbaaz Mir

1839 AD
- Assassin's Creed: Brahmin( 2013, Graphic Novel, aut. Karl Kerschl/Brenden Fletcher/Cameron Stewart)

1841 AD
- Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India
( 2016, Playstation 4/Xbox One/Microsoft Windows/PS Vita)

Jacob Frye, Evie Frye & Sir Henry Green

Nikolai Orelov

1918 AD- Assassin's Creed Chronicles: Russia
( 2016, Playstation 4/Xbox One/Microsoft Windows/PS Vita)
- Assassin's Creed: The Chain( 2012, Graphic Novel, aut. Karl Kerschl/Cameron Stewart)

Posted in Tagged Image Video Games 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 3, 3D, 4, Adéwalé, Alfred Molina, Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Android, Animus, App, Apple II, Arbaaz Mir, Arno Dorian, Assassin, Assassin's Creed, Atari ST, Avalanche Software, Aveline de Grandpré, Ben Kingsley, Black Flag, Bloodlines, Brøderbund, Brotherhood, Casablanca, cheap, China, Chronicles, Chronology, Comic, Connor, Discovery, download, Edward Kenway, Evie Frye, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, Film, FM Towns, free, Game, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color, Game Gear, Gameloft, Games, GB, GBA, GBC, Gemma Arterton, Graphic Novel, Haytham Kenway, II, III, iOS, IV, Jacob Frye, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jean-Christophe Guyot, Jerry Bruckheimer, Jordan Mechner, Learning Company, Macintosh, Master System, Mattel Interactive, Media, Microsoft Windows, Montreal, Movie, MS-DOS, NEC PC-9801, NES, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Entertainment System, of, Order, Patrice Désilets, Persia, Pipeworks Software, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Playstation Portable, Prince, Prince of Persia, Prince of Persia 2, Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame, Prince of Persia 3D, PS Vita, Ratonhnhaké:ton, Real World, recruit, Red Orb, Red Orb Entertainment, Revelations, Rogue, Russia, SAM Coupé, Sega CD, Sega Dreamcast, Sega Game Gear, Sega Genesis, Sega Master System, Sequel, Shao Jun, Sharp X68000, Sir Henry Green, SNES, Steam, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Syndicate, Templar, The Learning Company, The Shadow and the Flame, Timeline, TurboGrafx-16, Ubisoft, Unity, Uplay, Video Game, Video Games, WATCH_DOGS, Wii, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Yuri Lowenthal

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Assassin's Creed Chronology & Timeline of Media

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TIMELINE OF ASSASSIN'S CREED MEDIA & RELATED GAMES Assassin's Creed is by far the greatest game series of all time to feature the word 'Ass' two times in it's title. Bringing together two of modern Sci-fi's most popular tropes, the alternate history and the Alien Creation Myth (thankfully skipping over steampunk anime girls and cliché post-apocalyptic...

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Assassin's Creed is an open-world, action-adventure, and stealth game 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 by the Slovenian writer Vladimir Bartol, based on the historical Hashashin sect of the medieval Middle East.

The first Assassin's Creed was released in 2007, and it has featured twelve main games in total, the most recent being Assassin's Creed Valhalla in 2020. 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 while also attempting to prevent a catastrophic event, referencing the 2012 phenomenon, said to wipe out humanity by the end of 2012. From Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag to Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Assassin initiates and employees of Abstergo (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 most recent games, Assassin's Creed Origins, Assassin's Creed 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 as of September 2022, becoming Ubisoft's best-selling franchise and one of the highest 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, novelizations, and novels have also been published. A live-action film adaptation of the series, titled Assassin's Creed, 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. Phase one, covering up to Assassin's Creed Syndicate, featured games structured around single-player content, and while centering on open world spaces and 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 will launch with Assassin's Creed: Red, 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, all to be backed by the Infinity hub system.

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 . 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 , , 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.

After Syndicate, 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 2022, Ubisoft announced several additional games for the series. Assassin's Creed Infinity has been described by its executive producer, Marc-Alexis Côté, as a "new design philosophy" for the series, as well as a hub that will provide the releases of future games. The first two games to be included in Infinity will be Assassin's Creed: Red, set in Feudal Japan, and Assassin's Creed: Hexe, rumoured to be set in Central Europe in the 16th century. Ubisoft also announced Assassin's Creed Mirage, a smaller game intended to bring the series back to its stealth-oriented roots. The game is expected to release in 2023, and is set in Baghdad twenty years before the events of Valhalla.

An Assassin's Creed III demo showing the parkour 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 on the Assassin's arm, which can be used to perform surreptitious assassinations.

The logo of the fictional Abstergo Industries, whose slogan is "We change the world. Every day, in a hundred different ways."

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

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 Isu began to die out while humanity thrived. Three Isu-Minerva, Juno, and Jupiter-attempted to prepare humanity for a solar flare they knew would come centuries later. Minerva and Jupiter prepared vaults from which humanity could activate a protective shield around Earth with the Pieces of Eden and the Eye, a means to communicate how to find and use these vaults; however, Juno saw humanity as a threat and attempted to sabotage Minerva and Jupiter's plan. Minerva and Jupiter were forced to destroy Juno, unaware she had hidden her consciousness to wake upon activation of the Eye. All that remained of the Isu were the traces of their memories in the world's mythologies, and religions, while the Pieces of Eden were lost to time.

The series 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 user 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.

The first five main games in the series focus on Desmond Miles, a bartender 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 during the late 15th and early 16th centuries; and Ratonhnhaké:ton (better 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 freed by Lucy Stillman, an undercover agent for the Assassins. Lucy takes Desmond to meet Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane, two other members of the modern-day Assassins. The group is joined later by William Miles, Desmond's father. They continue to explore Desmond's memories and eventually discover the Eye and Minerva's warning of another possible solar flare. They also inadvertently free Juno, who then kills Lucy, revealed to be a double agent for the Templars. The group continues to find the vaults across the globe via Desmond's memories, and Desmond ultimately activates them in time to block the solar flare, at the cost of his own life.

Starting with Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, William goes into exile, while Shaun and Rebecca continue to monitor Abstergo by posing as employees of one of their spin-off companies, Abstergo Entertainment. Abstergo has refined the Animus technology to allow anyone to experience genetic memories from the DNA material of another person, allowing Abstergo to continue their search for the Pieces of Eden under the guise of creating entertainment products. In Black Flag, the player assumes the role of an unnamed Abstergo employee tasked with scanning the memories of Edward Kenway, a privateer-turned-pirate during the Golden Age of Piracy and Connor's grandfather. During their investigation, the player is blackmailed into helping a fellow employee, John Standish, recover sensitive information and deliver it 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 his plan can come to fruition. In Assassin's Creed Rogue, the player controls another Abstergo employee who is recruited by the Templars to clean their servers after the Assassins breach them and recover data on the life of Shay Patrick Cormac, an Assassin-turned-Templar from the 18th century. The Assassins are ultimately forced to go underground once more, and the player character is invited to join the Templars.

By the time of Assassin's Creed Unity, Abstergo distributes its Animus product via a video game console named Helix, tapping into an extensive, unaware player base to help them locate more Pieces of Eden and determine the fates of various Sages as part of the Phoenix Project, an attempt to recreate the genetic structure of the Isu. The Assassins locate select players and bring them in as Initiates to help their cause. In Unity, the player character is contacted by an Assassin named Bishop and asked to experience the memories of Arno Dorian, an Assassin active during the French Revolution, so that the modern-day Assassins can locate the body of a Sage and hide it from Abstergo. Despite the Assassins' efforts, Abstergo collects enough samples of other Sages by the start of Assassin's Creed Syndicate to move forward with the Phoenix Project. Again, Bishop contacts the Initiate and asks them to explore the memories of Jacob and Evie Frye, twin Assassins from Victorian England, to locate a Piece of Eden known as the Shroud, which Abstergo needs to complete the process of recreating the Isu genetic structure. Although the Initiate manages to locate the Shroud, the Templars beat the Assassins to it.

A new storyline is introduced in Assassin's Creed Origins focusing on Abstergo researcher Layla Hassan. Initially tasked with locating historical artifacts in Egypt, Layla stumbles upon the mummified corpses of the medjay Bayek and his wife Aya, co-founders of the Hidden Ones, the precursor organization to the Assassin Brotherhood. Against Abstergo's orders, Layla uses the Animus to relive Bayek's and Aya's memories, making her a target for the Templars, before being met by William Miles, who recruits her to the Assassins. In Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Layla recovers the Spear of Leonidas, extracting 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 who proves herself to be worthy of wielding the Staff. In Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Earth is facing yet another disaster, as its magnetic field has been continually strengthening since Desmond activated the Eye in 2012. Layla exhumes the remains of Eivor Varinsdottir, a 9th-century Viking raider, and from her memories, she learns of an Isu temple in Norway. Layla travels to the temple, using the Staff to protect herself from the radiation inside, 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 Sage (the reincarnation of the Isu Loki) who was trapped in the Grey by Eivor. Basim helps Layla stop the disaster before escaping back to reality, where he uses the Staff to rejuvenate himself and meets the other modern-day Assassins.

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:

^a Released under the title Assassin's Creed: Liberation HD for Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2014.
^b Originally released as DLC for all versions of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag in 2013.
^c Originally announced as part of the season pass for Assassin's Creed Unity.
^d Released as a compilation titled Assassin's Creed Chronicles Trilogy Pack.
^e Released exclusively for the Honor 9 smartphone.

Main series

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 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 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 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 acquire the keys to 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 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 Central 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 less than a month. To access this technology, Desmond must undertake several 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 Central 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 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, a famous 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, Nassau, and Kingston, as well as numerous islands, forts, and sunken ships. A multiplayer mode is once again included, although it is entirely land-based.

Assassin's Creed Rogue is the final game in the series to be developed for the seventh generation of consoles, being released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in November 2014, and for Windows in March 2015. A remastered version of the game was released for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in March 2018. In the present day, players again take on the role of an unnamed Abstergo employee, tasked with researching the memories of Shay Patrick Cormac, an Assassin from the 18th century who, for reasons unknown to Abstergo, defected to the Templar cause. During their investigation, the player accidentally trips a hidden memory file that infects the Animus servers. They must complete Shay's memories to clean the servers while Abstergo is put in lockdown. The main narrative takes place during the Seven Years' War, and follows Shay, who starts out as a talented, but insubordinate Assassin trainee. After witnessing the Assassins' hypocrisy and willingness to sacrifice civilians in their blind pursuit of the Pieces of Eden, Shay betrays them and joins the Templar Order, helping his newfound allies hunt down members of his former Brotherhood to prevent them from endangering more innocent lives. Shay's story is set between the events of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and Assassin's Creed III, and is meant to fill the gaps between their respective narratives, while also having "a crucial link to the Kenway saga" according to Ubisoft, as well as to Assassin's Creed Unity. Several major characters from III and Black Flag make appearances in the game, such as Haytham Kenway, Achilles Davenport, and Adéwalé.

In March 2014, a new Assassin's Creed game code-named Comet was revealed to be in development for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, set to release later that year alongside Unity. By the end of the month, additional reports indicated that Comet would be set around 1758 New York City, and would feature sailing on the Atlantic Ocean. The game would be a direct sequel to Black Flag, and would be the first to feature a Templar as the main protagonist. In May 2014, Guillemot stated that, "for the foreseeable future", Assassin's Creed games would continue releasing on the last generation PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, despite the franchise moving to the current generation PlayStation 4 and Xbox One with Unity. On August 5, Ubisoft officially announced the game as Assassin's Creed Rogue. While the game reuses many assets from Black Flag, a number of new systems and weapons were included, such as an air rifle and refined naval combat, and the multiplayer aspect has been removed.

Assassin's Creed Unity was released concurrently with Rogue in November 2014 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows, and Google Stadia. In the present-day, the player character is a player of Helix, an Animus-powered gaming device produced by Abstergo, who hope to use their unaware player base to locate more Pieces of Eden. While playing, the player is contacted by the modern-day Assassins and invited to join them as an Initiate and help them locate the body of an 18th-century Sage. The main story is set in Paris during the French Revolution, and follows Assassin Arno Dorian as he attempts to avenge his foster father's death at the hands of the Templars, which leads him to discover an internal conflict between the Templars as a result of the Revolution.

On March 19, 2014, images leaked for the next Assassin's Creed game, titled or code-named Unity, showing a new assassin in Paris. On March 21, Ubisoft confirmed the game's existence, having been in development for more than three years, by releasing pre-alpha game footage. The game features enhanced visuals compared to its predecessors, and several new gameplay mechanics, including a four player co-op mode, a first for the series.

Assassin's Creed Syndicate was released in October 2015 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, in November 2015 for Windows, and in December 2020 for the Stadia. In the present-day, players control the same unnamed Assassin Initiate from Assassin's Creed Unity, who, this time must help the Assassins find a powerful artifact, the Shroud of Eden, hidden somewhere in London. The main story is set in Victorian era London and follows twin assassins Jacob and Evie Frye, as they navigate the corridors of organized crime to take back the city from Templar control and prevent them from finding the Shroud. The narrative also includes segments set in war-torn London during World War I, which follow Jacob's granddaughter, Lydia Frye, as she battles German soldiers and Templar spies and searches for a Sage.

In December 2014, images and information leaked for a new Assassin's Creed game, titled or code-named Victory, which was later confirmed by Ubisoft. In May 2015, Kotaku leaked that Victory had been renamed Syndicate. On May 12, 2015, the game was officially announced by Ubisoft. The game retains most gameplay elements from Unity, while introducing new travelling systems, such as carriages and a grappling hook, and refined combat mechanics. It is the first game in the series to feature multiple playable protagonists, whom the player can switch between both during and outside missions.

Assassin's Creed Origins is a soft reboot of the franchise, and was released in October 2017 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows, and Stadia. The game introduces a new protagonist in the modern-day, Layla Hassan, and explores the origins of the Assassin Brotherhood and their conflict with the Templar Order. The story is set in Ancient Egypt, near the end of the Ptolemaic period, and follows a medjay named Bayek and his wife Aya, whose fight to protect their people from the Order of the Ancients-forerunners to the Templar Order-leads them to create the Hidden Ones-forerunners to the Assassin Brotherhood. Unlike previous installments in the series, which were structured like action-adventure games, Origins is an action role-playing game and introduces many new features to the series, including an overhauled hitbox-based combat system.

In February 2016, Ubisoft announced they would not be releasing a new game in 2016 in order to step "back and [re-examine] the Assassin's Creed franchise ... [and take the] year to evolve the game mechanics and to make sure we're delivering on the promise of Assassin's Creed offering unique and memorable gameplay experiences." On the decision, Guillemot said that "Ubisoft started to question the annualized franchise with the release of Assassin's Creed Unity, and the fact that Assassin's Creed Syndicate had "a slower launch than expected". Guillemot added that "by moving away from the annual iterations of the franchise, it will give the Assassin's Creed teams more time to take advantage of new engines and technology." Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag's director Ashraf Ismail, commented on an interview that he and the team would be interested in doing an Assassin's Creed game in an Ancient Egyptian setting, along with reiterating an earlier statement that a female leading character was not an impossibility for the series. In May 2017, Ubisoft confirmed the development of Assassin's Creed Origins; one month later, the setting was confirmed to be Ptolemaic Egypt.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey was released in October 2018 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows, and Nintendo Switch, and in November 2019 for the Stadia. The modern-day narrative continues from the events of Origins, as Layla, after being recruited to the Assassins, searches for Atlantis, which is rumored to house a powerful artifact: the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus. The main story is set during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, at the height of Classical Greece. Players choose between two playable protagonists, Alexios and Kassandra, and embark on a quest to discover mysteries surrounding their family, as well as to undermine a proto-Templar organization: the Cult of Kosmos.

Odyssey was leaked in May 2018 by a picture posted by the French website Jeuxvideo; it was officially announced at E3 2018, with a release date of October 2018. Similarly to Origins, the game places more emphasis on role-playing elements than previous entries in the series and introduces dialogue options and branching quests, which can result in different endings.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla was released in November 2020 for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Windows, Stadia, and Amazon Luna. The game concludes the modern-day story arc focusing on Layla, who must find a First Civilization temple in Norway to restore the Earth's magnetic field to its proper strength since Desmond's sacrifice in Assassin's Creed III only delayed the apocalypse. The main narrative takes place in the late 9th century, during the Viking expansions into the British Isles. Players control a customizable Viking raider, Eivor Varinsdottir, who becomes embroiled in the conflict between the Hidden Ones and the Order of the Ancients while attempting to establish a new Viking clan in England.

Valhalla was officially announced in April 2020. Ubisoft Montreal led its development along with fourteen other Ubisoft studios. The title had been leaked earlier in April 2019 under the name Assassin's Creed Kingdom. Like its predecessors, Valhalla is an action role-playing game focused on combat and exploration, although it brings back several elements that were absent in Origins and Odyssey, such as social stealth and a customizable settlement.

Assassin's Creed III: Liberation is a spin-off to Assassin's Creed III, originally released for the PlayStation Vita in October 2012. The story takes place before and during the events of Assassin's Creed III, and follows Aveline de Grandpré, a Louisiana Creole woman from New Orleans, the daughter of a French merchant father and an African mother. Aveline is recruited into the Assassin Brotherhood by a former slave and fights against slavery as well as the Templars, who plot to take over Louisiana after the end of the Seven Years' War. Aveline uses a variety of new weapons in combat, including a machete and a blowpipe for ranged attacks, and can disguise herself to deceive enemies, although certain disguises limit her movement and abilities. The entire game is presented as a product developed by the in-universe company Abstergo Entertainment, who have done a heavy amount of censoring in regards to the Assassin-Templar conflict. At various points during their playthrough, the player is contacted by the hacking collective Erudito, who helps them uncensor the game to learn the true nature of the events depicted.

An original Assassin's Creed title for the PlayStation Vita was announced to be in development during Gamescom 2011 and would feature a new story with new characters; on June 4, 2012, at E3, Liberation was officially announced. On September 10, 2013, it was announced that the game would be re-released as Assassin's Creed: Liberation HD for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows via the PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, and Steam, respectively. In March 2019, it was announced that a remastered version of Liberation would be bundled with Assassin's Creed III Remastered for Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and, later, for the Nintendo Switch. Ubisoft officially decommissioned Assassin's Creed: Liberation HD on October 1, 2022, with no additional copies being sold outside of the bundled Assassin's Creed III Remastered version.

Assassin's Creed Freedom Cry was originally released as downloadable content (DLC) for most versions of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag in December 2013. A standalone version was released in February 2014 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4. Set thirteen years after the ending of Black Flag, the game follows Adéwalé, a major supporting character from Black Flag, who served as the quartermaster to protagonist Edward Kenway before joining the Assassin Brotherhood towards the end of the main story. During the events of Freedom Cry, Adéwalé finds himself shipwrecked in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti), where he encounters some of the most brutal slavery practices in the West Indies. Being a former slave, Adéwalé temporarily abandons his fight against the Templars and joins a Maroon rebellion to help them rescue oppressed slaves.

Being originally released as DLC for Black Flag, Freedom Cry's gameplay is virtually identical, though it does feature several new additions. Most notably, Adéwalé has the option to rescue slaves by raiding plantations, attacking slave ships, or simply killing their masters, with each freed slave serving as a resource for the player to accumulate to unlock upgrades for Adéwalé. Furthermore, some freed slaves join the Maroon rebellion and can become crew members aboard Adéwalé's ship, the Experto Crede, or help the player fight enemies.

Assassin's Creed Chronicles is sub-series of three 2.5D action and stealth games released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Xbox One.

The first game, Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China, was originally released as part of Assassin's Creed Unity's season pass on April 21, 2015, but it was later made available for purchase separately. Set after the short film Assassin's Creed: Embers, the game follows Shao Jun in Imperial China from 1526 to 1532, as she battles the Templar group Eight Tigers and attempts to rebuild the Chinese Assassin Brotherhood.

The second game, Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India, was released on January 12, 2016. It is set in British India in 1841, two years after the events of the graphic novel Assassin's Creed: Brahman. The game follows Arbaaz Mir, who, while attempting to recover a Precursor artifact from the Templars, becomes caught in a war between the Sikh Empire and the East India Company and must protect his friends and lover.

The last game, Assassin's Creed Chronicles: Russia, was released on February 9, 2016. It is set in Soviet Russia in 1918, in the aftermath of the October Revolution, and bridges the gap between the comic book Assassin's Creed: The Fall and its graphic novel sequel, Assassin's Creed: The Chain. The game follows Nikolai Orelov as he attempts to protect a Precursor artifact and Grand Duchess Anastasia from the Templars and the Bolsheviks after witnessing the execution of the Romanov family.

Handheld and mobile games

Assassin's Creed: Altaïr's Chronicles is a spin-off for the Nintendo DS, Windows Phone, Android, iOS, webOS, Symbian, and Java ME, originally released in February 2008. The game is a prequel to the first Assassin's Creed, taking place in the year 1190, and follows Altaïr as he attempts to retrieve an artifact called the Chalice from the Templars.

Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines is the second spin-off title following Altaïr. It was released as a PlayStation Portable exclusive in November 2009 (concurrently with Assassin's Creed II) and acts as a direct sequel to the original game. Following the events of Assassin's Creed, Altaïr travels to the island nation of Cyprus to eliminate the last remnants of the Templar Order. Here, he again runs into Maria Thorpe, a young Templar agent whose life he spared in the first game, and they team up to eliminate the Templar presence on the island and learn more about the Apple of Eden and the mysterious Templar Archive, where more Pieces of Eden are believed to be hidden. Despite the technical limitations of the PlayStation Portable, the game features most gameplay mechanics of the console and PC titles, and even a few exclusive elements.

Assassin's Creed II: Discovery is a spin-off to Assassin's Creed II and was released alongside it in November 2009 for the Nintendo DS; it was later re-released for iOS in January 2010. The game is a 2.5D side-scroller, and takes place during the events of Assassin's Creed II, between Sequences 12 and 13 when Ezio is searching for the Apple of Eden after losing it to Girolamo Savonarola. During his search, Ezio travels to Spain to rescue members of the Spanish Assassin Brotherhood who have been arrested on the orders of Tomás de Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, and allies with several historical figures, such as Luis de Santángel and Christopher Columbus.

Assassin's Creed: Multiplayer Rearmed is a multiplayer video game designed for iOS, and released for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch in October 2011. It is the only Assassin's Creed multiplayer game driven by an in-game economy. The aim of the game is to assassinate the assigned targets while avoiding being killed by a hunter. The player can purchase additional items, characters and abilities as well as compete with friends and foes from around the globe in a four player real-time online multiplayer mode. Players can connect via Game Center. It is also possible to play against someone in the immediate area via Bluetooth. Available map locations include Jerusalem, San Donato, Venice and Alhambra.

Assassin's Creed: Recollection is a real-time board game designed for iOS. It was initially released for the iPad in December 2011, and later for the iPhone and iPod Touch in March 2012. In the game, players go head-to-head in real-time political battles with different characters from the main games of the series across over 280 memories. The single-player campaign is estimated to provide over ten hours of gameplay, with 20 missions from Barcelona to Constantinople and 10 bonus challenge missions. The game also features a Versus Mode, in which players can challenge their friends and other people worldwide, as well as a collection of various artwork from the franchise.[better source needed ]

Assassin's Creed: Pirates is a mobile game released on iOS and Android devices on December 5, 2013. Developed by Ubisoft Paris, the game follows Captain Alonzo Batilla, who is neither Assassin nor Templar, as he commands a ship and crew, while crossing paths with the Assassins and Templars. Gameplay focuses on real-time battles between ships. The title is rendered in 3D and features both wind and weather that will affect how players proceed.

Assassin's Creed Memories is a mobile game that was released on iOS devices on August 20, 2014. Developed along with PlayNext and Gree, the game combines card collection and battling, target chasing, and strategy elements, along with the option of competitive multiplayer. Additional multiplayer options include allowing players to join a guild and engage in 20 vs. 20 guild combat scenarios. Memories features different historical eras, including the Third Crusade, the Golden Age of Piracy, feudal Japan and the Mongolian Empire.

Assassin's Creed Identity is a third-person role-playing video game for iOS and Android devices that was released worldwide on February 25, 2016, following a soft-launch in Australia and New Zealand in 2014. It is the first mobile game in the series to feature a fully explorable 3D environment, and takes place alongside the events of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. In Identity, players create their own custom Assassin and complete missions for the Brotherhood in Italy, while interacting with various characters from the mainline games, like Ezio Auditore and Niccolò Machiavelli.

Assassin's Creed Unity: Arno's Chronicles is a side-scrolling mobile game released for the Huawei Honor smartphone series in June 2017. It features a similar gameplay style to the Assassin's Creed Chronicles games, and roughly adapts the events of Assassin's Creed Unity's main storyline.

Assassin's Creed Rebellion is a free-to-play, strategy role-playing game for iOS and Android devices that was released worldwide on November 21, 2018.[better source needed ] Set during the Spanish Inquisition in the late 15th century, it follows the Spanish Assassins under Aguilar de Nerha as they attempt to build their own Brotherhood to overthrow the Spanish Templars. The game features a large cast of characters from the entire Assassin's Creed franchise, as well as thirty new characters created exclusively for Rebellion.[better source needed ]

Cancelled and defunct mobile games

Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy was a single-player browser-based, role-playing video game Facebook application designed as a promotion and tie-in for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. The game is mostly text-based but includes graphics and sound as well as some video. The game was put on indefinite hold in 2011 and later removed by Facebook on 15 May 2013.

Assassin's Creed: Utopia is a cancelled mobile game that was planned to be available on Android and iOS devices. The game's story would have led into Assassin's Creed III, though there would have been no links in terms of gameplay. Utopia would have taken place in the 17th century, at the beginning of the colonization of North America. Gameplay would have spanned 150 years of history to help players, in the words of Tom Phillips from , "discover how the Assassins influenced history and helped shape the nation's original thirteen colonies". The gameplay involved building a colonial city, and was planned to have more of a social slant than any of the earlier games. The Assassins of each colony would have taken on their enemies in limited-time epic battles, and players would have been able to pit their strength against friends in asynchronous 3D brawls.

Re-release compilations and collections

Assassin's Creed: Ezio Trilogy: Compilation of Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, and Assassin's Creed: Revelations. It was released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 13, 2012.

Assassin's Creed: Heritage Collection: Compilation of the first five games of the main series into one collection, featuring Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Assassin's Creed: Revelations, and Assassin's Creed III. It was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 on November 8, 2013.

Assassin's Creed: The Americas Collection (American title) / Assassin's Creed: Birth of a New World - The American Saga (European title): Developed by Ubisoft Montreal, features Assassin's Creed III, Assassin's Creed: Liberation HD and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. It was released for Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 on October 3, 2014, in Europe and October 28, 2014, in North America. The Windows version is exclusive to Europe.

Assassin's Creed: The Ezio Collection: Developed by Virtuos and Ubisoft Montreal, features remastered versions of Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, and Assassin's Creed: Revelations for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The games feature improved graphics, lighting, effects, and textures, and also include all previously released downloadable content for the single-player. In addition, the bundle features the short films Assassin's Creed: Embers and Assassin's Creed: Lineage. The collection was released on November 15, 2016, to mixed reviews, being generally criticized for its minimal graphical enhancements, the gameplay for feeling dated, the capped 30 frames per second, and the absence of the multiplayer game modes in Brotherhood and Revelations. A Nintendo Switch version was released in February 2022.

Assassin's Creed: Rebel Collection: Contains Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and the remastered version of Assassin's Creed Rogue, along with all previously released downloadable content. It was released on December 6, 2019, for the Nintendo Switch.

Future games

Asked about the future of the series in 2009, Sébastien Puel from Ubisoft said that "we could do 35 of these [ Assassin's Creed games]", while Laurent Detoc later said "we hope to reach Assassin's Creed 10."

In November 2011, a Ubisoft survey was sent out, asking participants which locations and time periods they would like to see in the "next Assassin's Creed games". These settings were Medieval China, Victorian England, Ancient Egypt, the Portuguese and Spanish colonizationns of the Americas, the American Revolution, the Russian Revolution, Feudal Japan, and Ancient Rome. Alex Hutchinson, creative director of Assassin's Creed III, suggested the most requested Assassin's Creed settings, World War II, Feudal Japan and Ancient Egypt, are "the three worst settings for an Assassin's Creed game". Hutchinson also stated both he and Corey May were open to the idea of a future entry set during the time of the British Raj, which now consists of the modern states of Bangladesh, Pakistan, Myanmar, and India. Victorian England, the American Revolution, Medieval China, parts of the British Raj, the Russian Revolution, and Ancient Egypt were subsequently used for Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Assassin's Creed III, Assassin's Creed Chronicles, and Assassin's Creed Origins, respectively, with World War I appearing as a section of Syndicate, World War II as an easter egg in Unity, and part of Ancient Rome appearing briefly in Origins. Feudal Japan is expected to be the setting of an upcoming game, Assassin's Creed: Codename Red.

Assassin's Creed Mirage is an upcoming game for Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Luna, expected to release in 2023. Set in Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age, it will follow the character Basim Ibn Ishaq, introduced in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and his transition from street thief to Hidden One, a few decades before the events of Valhalla. The game also intends to return to the series' roots by focusing on stealth, parkour, and assassinations over the role-playing elements featured heavily in recent installments.

In early 2022, it was reported that a new Assassin's Creed game, titled or code-named Rift, was in development and expected to launch in late 2022 or early 2023. According to various leaks and reports, the game started out as an expansion for Valhalla starring Basim and was intended to be more akin to older games in the series, featuring a smaller setting and a bigger focus on stealth gameplay. The game was officially confirmed by Ubisoft as Assassin's Creed Mirage on September 1, 2022, followed by a full announcement during the Ubisoft Forward online event on September 10.

Assassin's Creed: Codename Jade is an upcoming title for mobile devices. Set in Ancient China during the Qin dynasty in the 3rd century BC, the game will allow players to create their own custom character and will feature the same style of gameplay as the main console and PC releases.

Following another round of sexual misconduct allegations and internal investigation across Ubisoft in 2020 and 2021, which saw the departure of many top-level executives as well as attrition from its studios, Ubisoft opted to merge operations of the Montreal and Quebec studios under one administrative body in April 2021, with Quebec taking the lead on the Assassin's Creed series. This led to a collaboration to develop the most ambitious game in the series yet, a live-service title codenamed Assassin's Creed Infinity. Infinity will be similar to and Grand Theft Auto Online in that it will be more of a service, rather than a game, intended to be an entry point for future Assassin's Creed titles for players as well as to simplify the development of these games across Ubisoft's studios.

Marc-Alexis Côté, from Quebec, will serve as Infinity's executive producer. According to Côté, Infinity will be used to present the modern-day setting of the Assassin's Creed games involving the Animus, while each game will be focused on the historical setting. Clint Hocking and Jonathan Dumont will serve as the creative directors, with Dumont and Hocking leading the Quebec and Montreal divisions, respectively. Étienne Allonier and Julien Laferrière, both from Montreal, will serve as brand director and senior producer, respectively.

Assassin's Creed: Codename Red

Assassin's Creed: Codename Red was announced at Ubisoft Forward in September 2022 as the next major Assassin's Creed game to take place during the Feudal Japan period. Côté said the game will let players live out a "very powerful shinobi fantasy". The title is being helmed by Ubisoft Quebec and will be the first game to be included in Infinity.

Assassin's Creed: Codename Hexe

Assassin's Creed: Codename Hexe was also announced in September 2022 as the next flagship title in the series, following Codename Red, and the second game to be included in Infinity. Development is being led by Clint Hocking at Ubisoft Montreal. Côté described the title as "a very different type of Assassin's Creed game". While little on its setting was shown in its initial trailer, Bloomberg News reported that the game is set in Central Europe during the 16th century, at the height of the Holy Roman Empire, and will focus on witch hunts and other paranormal fears.

Assassin's Creed Nexus VR

In September 2020, at the digital event of Facebook Connect, Ubisoft Red Storm Entertainment's VP of Product Development, Elizabeth Loverso, revealed several AAA game franchises coming to virtual reality format to the public. Two of the projects announced were an untitled Assassin's Creed game and an untitled installment from Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell (also developed by Ubisoft), with both titles set to release exclusively for Oculus platforms. This is not the first Assassin's Creed title coming to VR but is the first to be available in public; the Splinter Cell VR game was cancelled on July 21, 2022. In June 2023, at a Meta Quest Gaming Showcase event, the updated title for the game, Assassin's Creed Nexus VR, was announced along with a release window of late 2023.

Television

In November 2016, it was announced that Ubisoft and Netflix started talks regarding how to develop an Assassin's Creed series. In July 2017, Adi Shankar revealed he would be creating the series, which would be in the anime format. The series, which will feature an original story from Shankar, will share the same universe as the other media of the franchise.

A live-action series, an animated series, and an anime series were announced in October 2020 for Netflix. The live-action series would be produced by Ubisoft Film & Television for the streaming service, with Jason Altman and Danielle Kreinik as executive producers and Jeb Stuart as the writer. In January 2023, reported that Stuart was no longer involved with the series.

Theatrical

A live-action film, Assassin's Creed, set in the same universe as the video games and other media, was released on December 21, 2016. Development for the film began in October 2011, when Sony Pictures entered final negotiations with Ubisoft Motion Pictures to make the film. In July 2012, Michael Fassbender was announced to star in the film, as well as co-produce the film. His role was revealed in August 2015 as Callum Lynch, whose ancestor Aguilar, is an Assassin from 15th-century Spain. In October 2012, Ubisoft revealed the film would no longer be produced by Sony Pictures, instead co-produced with New Regency and distributed by 20th Century Fox. In January 2013, Michael Lesslie was hired to write the film, with Scott Frank, Adam Cooper and Bill Collage performing rewrites to the script. By the end of April 2014, Justin Kurzel was in talks to direct. Principal photography began on August 31, 2015, and ended on January 15, 2016. The film was poorly received by critics and performed poorly at the box office, losing an estimated $75 to $100 million and becoming one of the biggest box office bombs of 2016.

Live-action short film

Assassin's Creed: Lineage is a 36-minute film made to promote Assassin's Creed II. The film, released in three parts on YouTube across 2009, was the first step by Ubisoft into the film industry. Lineage serves as a prequel to Assassin's Creed II, exploring the life of Ezio's father Giovanni Auditore and his career as an Assassin in 15th-century Italy. Following the mysterious assassination of Duke of Milan, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, in 1476, Giovanni sets out to find those responsible, leading him to uncover a larger conspiracy masterminded by the Templars and their Grand Master, Rodrigo Borgia.

Animated short films

Originally named Secret Project Number Three, Ascendance is an animated short by UbiWorkshop and Ubisoft Montreal, which bridges the gap between Assassin's Creed II and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Set during the events of Brotherhood, it shows Ezio meeting with a hooded man (revealed at the end of the film to be Leonardo da Vinci) to gather information about Cesare Borgia. Most of the film revolves around Cesare's backstory and rise to power in Italy, as narrated by Leonardo to Ezio. The animated short was revealed by UbiWorkshop on November 10, 2010. It was released on November 16, 2010, for Xbox Live, PlayStation Store and iTunes Store.

Assassin's Creed: Embers is a 21-minute animated film included in the Signature and Collector's Editions of Assassin's Creed: Revelations; it was later re-released on the PlayStation Store in April 2015. The film serves as an epilogue to Ezio's story, depicting the final days of his life after he retired from the Assassin Brotherhood and started a family. When a mysterious Chinese assassin named Shao Jun arrives to seek his help and guidance, Ezio must fight to protect his loved ones one last time.

Print publications

Comic books

Graphic novel series

A six volume French-language Assassin's Creed graphic novel series, written by Eric Corbeyran and illustrated by Djilalli Defaux, was released by French publisher Lex Deux Royaumes, founded by Ubisoft in 2009 as in-house comic book publishing studio. The novels have also received English-language versions in the United States and the United Kingdom, published by Titan Comics.

Like the games, the series alternates between a modern-day storyline and an Assassin ancestor storyline, and is split into two different arcs, each consisting of three volumes: The Ankh of Isis Trilogy, which follows Desmond Miles and his ancestor Aquilus, a 3rd-century Roman Assassin; and The Hawk Trilogy, which follows Jonathan Hawk and his ancestor Numa Al'Khamsin, a 14th-century Egyptian Assassin. However, the modern-day story has been declared non-canon by Ubisoft, due to directly contradicting elements from the games (such as Subject 16's name being Michael instead of Clay Kaczmarek), while the ancestor story remains of dubious canonicity.

Assassin's Creed Volume 1: Desmond is the first entry in The Ankh of Isis Trilogy, released on November 13, 2009. An English language version was released on October 30, 2012. The story is a retelling of the events from Assassin's Creed and the beginning of Assassin's Creed II, and follows Desmond as he is abducted by Abstergo Industries and forced to relive the memories of three of his ancestors-Aquilus, Altaïr Ibn-LaʼAhad, and Ezio Auditore da Firenze-to further the Templars' goals, before escaping with the help of Lucy Stillman.

Assassin's Creed Volume 2: Aquilus is the second entry in The Ankh of Isis Trilogy, released on November 12, 2010. An English language version was released on October 30, 2012. The story continues from the events of Volume 1, as Desmond and his Assassin team-Lucy, Shaun Hastings, and Rebecca Crane-head to a new hideout in Monteriggioni while avoiding Abstergo agents sent to hunt them down. The novel also continues the story of Aquilus, who comes across a mysterious artifact built by the First Civilization: an ankh which can temporarily revive the dead.

Assassin's Creed, Volume 3: Accipiter is the final entry in The Ankh of Isis Trilogy, released on November 10, 2011. An English language version was released on October 30, 2012. The story continues from the events of Volume 2, and focuses on both Desmond and fellow Assassin Jonathan Hawk as they relive the memories their ancestors, Aquilus and his cousin Accipiter, respectively.

Assassin's Creed, Volume 4: Hawk is the first entry in The Hawk Trilogy, released on November 16, 2012. An English language version was released on November 12, 2013, in the United States and November 15, 2013, in the United Kinggom. The novel continues the story of Jonathan Hawk, introduced in Volume 3, as he relives the memories of his Egyptian ancestor Numa Al'Khamsin, better known as "El Cakr" (English: The Hawk), to locate a powerful artifact known as the Scepter of Aset.

Assassin's Creed, Volume 5: El Cakr is the second entry in The Hawk Trilogy, released on October 31, 2013. An English language version was released on November 18, 2014, in the United States and November 21, 2014, in the United Kingdom. The story continues from the events of Volume 4, as Jonathan unmasks a traitor who infiltrated his Assassin cell, while El Cakr battles the Templars for possession of the Scepter of Aset.

Assassin's Creed, Volume 6: Leila is the final entry in The Hawk Trilogy, released on October 31, 2014. An English language version was released on November 17, 2015, in the United States and November 20, 2015, in the United Kingdom. The novel concludes the stories of both Jonathan, who races against the Templars to retrieve the Scepter of Aset from its last known location, and El Cakr, who encounters a mysterious woman named Leila on his way to deliver the Scepter to the Assassins.

Assassin's Creed: Conspiracies is a two-part graphic novel series written by Guillaume Dorison and illustrated by Jean-Baptiste Hostache. The two volumes, titled Die Glocke and Project Rainbow, were published by Les Deux Royaumes in French on October 21, 2016, and December 1, 2017, respectively. English-language versions were released by Titan Comics on August 1 and September 5, 2018. Conspiracies is set during World War II, featuring the race for the Atomic Bomb, and follows a new Assassin hero named Eddie Gorm who influences the course of history in 1943.

Assassin's Creed: Bloodstone is a two-part graphic novel series written by Guillaume Dorison and illustrated by Ennio Bufi. The first volume was published in French by Les Deux Royaumes on March 29, 2019, followed by the second on October 11, 2019. Titan Comics released English-language versions of the two volumes on February 18, 2020, and January 26, 2021, respectively. Bloodstone is set during the Vietnam War in the early 1960s and follows Assassin Alekseï Gavrani, an ex- Soviet hitman-turned- CIA operative. The modern-day storyline continues from the events of Assassin's Creed: Conspiracies, and features Japanese Assassin Tomo Sakagawa reliving Alekseï's memories to locate an Apple of Eden.

Assassin's Creed: The Fall and The Chain

In July 2010, Ubisoft announced a three-part comic book miniseries set in the universe of Assassin's Creed as a part of their UbiWorkshop initiative. Cameron Stewart and Karl Kerschl, both winners of multiple comic book awards, were chosen by Ubisoft to work on the miniseries, titled Assassin's Creed: The Fall. Published by WildStorm, the first issue was released on November 10, 2010, followed by the second on December 1, 2010, and the third on January 12, 2011. The story alternates between the perspectives of Nikolai Orelov, an Assassin in 19th and 20th-century Russia, and his descendant Daniel Cross, a recovering alcoholic with a mysterious past who involuntarily experiences Nikolai's memories.

A graphic novel sequel to The Fall, titled Assassin's Creed: The Chain, was released on August 9, 2012. The book is also written and illustrated by Stewart and Kerschl, and concludes Nikolai's story after his retirement from the Assassin Brotherhood and immigration to the United States.

Assassin's Creed: Brahman is a graphic novel written by Brendan Fletcher with art by Cameron Stewart and Karl Kerschl. It was released on October 30, 2013, in North America. The story is set in 19th-century British India, amidst a period of increasing political tensions between the Sikh Empire and the East India Company, and follows Indian Assassin Arbaaz Mir, who attempts to maintain peace and recover the Koh-i-Noor diamond, believed to be a powerful Precursor relic, from the Templars. The modern-day storyline is set in 2013 and follows Arbaaz's descendant, Monima Das, a famous film actress, and her fiancé, Jot Soora, a descendant of Arbaaz's mute servant boy Raza.

Assassin's Creed: Awakening is a manga adaptation of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, written by Takashi Yano and illustrated by Kenji Oiwa. It was released from August 2013 to July 2014.

Assassin's Creed: Assassins is a comic book series written by Anthony Del Col and Connor McCreery, illustrated by Neil Edwards, and published by Titan Comics. Originally envisioned as an ongoing series with a planned duration of at least three years, it ran from October 2015 to December 2016, spanning fourteen issues and three story arcs. In October 2016, Titan announced that after its fourteenth issue, Assassins along with its companion series, Templars, would be relaunched with a different creative team as a new title: Assassin's Creed: Uprising.

The comic follows the adventures of a modern-day Assassin cell, with Charlotte de la Cruz as its central character, who relives the memories of her ancestors at various points in history. The first story arc of the series (issues No. 1-5) takes place in the late 17th century, during the Salem witch trials, with the parallel modern-day story featuring an espionage tale. The five issues were later collected and published as a trade paperback, Assassin's Creed Volume 1: Trial by Fire, on June 21, 2016. The second story arc (No. 6-10) is set in the Inca Empire in the 16th century, while the parallel modern-day story revolves around the hacking collective Erudito. It was later published as Assassin's Creed Volume 2: Setting Sun on December 6, 2016. The third story arc (No. 11-14) takes place in Florence during the early 16th century, running parallel with a modern-day story again featuring Erudito. It was later published as Assassin's Creed Volume 3: Homecoming on May 23, 2017.

Assassin's Creed: Templars is a comic book series published by Titan Comics, and a companion series to Assassin's Creed: Assassins. Written by Fred Van Lente and illustrated by Dennis Calero, the series debuted its first issue in March 2016. In October 2016, Titan announced that after its ninth issue, Templars, along with its sister series, would be relaunched with a new creative team as Assassin's Creed: Uprising.

The first story arc of the series (issues No. 1-5) is set in Shanghai in 1927 and revolves around a Templar known as the Black Cross, with the parallel modern-day story taking place in November 2013. The five issues were later published as Assassin's Creed: Templars - Volume 1: Black Cross on December 6, 2016. The second story arc (issues No. 6-9) has its modern-day story set in 2016, following Juhani Otso Berg and André Bolden as they explore the memories of the latter's ancestors in 1805. It was later published as Assassin's Creed: Templars - Volume 2: Cross of War on May 23, 2017.

Assassin's Creed: Uprising is a comic book series published by Titan Comics, and the successor to both Assassins and Templars. The comic, which ran for twelve issues from February 2017 to June 2018, is written by Dan Watters and Alex Paknadel and illustrated by José Holder. It was later released as three separate volumes, with Volume 1: Common Ground releasing on August 22, 2017, and comprising issues No. 1-4; Volume 2: Inflection Point releasing on January 30, 2018, and comprising issues No. 5-8; and Volume 3: Finale releasing on October 23, 2018, and comprising issues No. 9-12.

The series concludes the story arc from the video games involving Juno, and sees Charlotte de la Cruz's Assassin cell forming an uneasy alliance with Juhani Otso Berg to combat the Instruments of the First Will, who have infiltrated both the Assassins' and the Templars' ranks and plan to resurrect Juno so that she may conquer humanity. The series also features a parallel ancestor storyline set during the Spanish Civil War in 1937.

Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants - Locus is a four-part comic book miniseries released as a tie-in to Matthew J. Kirby's Last Descendants novel trilogy. The miniseries is written by Ian Edginton, with art by Caspar Wijngaard, and was published by Titan Comics from September to December 2016. The story follows Sean Molloy, a character from the Last Descendants trilogy, who uses the Animus to relive the memories of his ancestor Tommy Greyling, a Pinkerton detective. In 1872, Greyling becomes caught in a Templar plot to steal a Precursor manuscript from the British Museum, and must work together with Evie Frye and Henry Green to thwart it.

For the franchise's tenth anniversary in 2017, Ubisoft announced a four-part comic book miniseries, titled Assassin's Creed: Reflections. Each issue was written by Ian Edginton, illustrated by Valeria Favoccia, and published by Titan Comics, and presents a different narrative revolving around an established Assassin ( Ezio Auditore, Altaïr Ibn-LaʼAhad, Edward Kenway, and Ratonhnaké꞉ton / Connor), as viewed by Juhani Otso Berg in the modern-day.

Assassin's Creed: Origins is a four-part comic book miniseries based on the game of the same name. Written by Anne Toole and Anthony Del Col, with art by PJ Kaiowá, it was published by Titan Comics from March to June 2018. The miniseries is set after the events of the game, primarily in 30 BC in the waning days of the Ptolemaic Kingdom, with flashbacks to 44 BC following Amunet in Rome as she deals with the aftermath of Julius Caesar's assassination.

Assassin's Creed: Blade of Shao Jun (known in Japan as Assassin's Creed: China) is a manga adaptation of Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China, written and illustrated by Minoji Kurata. It has been serialized in Shogakukan's seinen manga magazine Monthly Sunday Gene-X from October 19, 2019, to June 17, 2021.

Assassin's Creed: Dynasty is a manhua first serialized in August 2020 via the Tencent-owned online platform AC.QQ in collaboration with Ubisoft. Written by Xu Xianzhe with art by Zhang Xiao, the manhua is set in 755 during the Tang dynasty, and follows the journey of Li E as he joins the Hidden Ones and eventually becomes a Master Assassin.

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla - Song of Glory is a three-part comic book miniseries which serves as a prequel to Assassin's Creed Valhalla, following the separate exploits of Eivor Varinsdottir and her adoptive brother Sigurd Styrbjornsson in 870, two years before the events of the game. Written by Cavan Scott and illustrated by Martín Túnica, the miniseries was published by Dark Horse Comics from October to December 2020.

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla × Vinland Saga

Makoto Yukimura drew a 7-page crossover manga chapter between Assassin's Creed Valhalla and his series Vinland Saga that was uploaded to Ubisoft's website on October 23, 2020.

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla - Blood Brothers is a manhua first serialized in November 2020 via the AC.QQ online platform in collaboration with Ubisoft. Written by Feng Zisu, the manhua is set in the 860s and centers on the Stensson brothers, Ulf and Björn, who follow Ivarr the Boneless to England in pursuit of glory. The original run concluded with its fifth and final chapter in June 2021.

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla - Forgotten Myths is a three-part comic book miniseries which serves as a prequel to the Dawn of Ragnarök expansion for Assassin's Creed Valhalla, following Thor, Baldr, and Heimdall as they investigate an attempted invasion of Asgard by the Muspels. The miniseries is written by Alex Freed, with art by Martín Túnica, and was published by Dark Horse Comics from March to May 2022.

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla - The Converts is a French language graphic novel written by Mathieu Gabella, illustrated by Paolo Traisci, and published in France by Glénat Editions on January 25, 2023. Set after the events of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, it follows a young monk-turned-apprentice Hidden One, named Edward, and the Viking Niels Gunnarsson of the Raven Clan as they travel together to Scotland to solve a dangerous mystery.

Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple is a webtoon which follows Edward Kenway after the events of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag as he sails around East Asia in search of Pieces of Eden, and his Korean American descendant Noa Kim, who is abducted by Abstergo and forced to relive Edward's memories to further the Templars' goals. Published by Redice Studio, the webtoon debuted with its first episode on April 25, 2023.

Assassin's Creed: Encyclopedia

UbiWorkshop released an encyclopedia of the Assassin's Creed series in 2011. Initially intended as an art book, the project gathered so much material that the company decided to expand it into an encyclopedia. It features works of artists, such as Craig Mullins, Tavis Coburn, 123Klan, Gabz and James NG. Artists were given creative freedom, as they were able to create a unique Assassin from the period of their choosing. The art book contains a carte blanche section, which is going to contain fan-submitted artwork.

In November 2012, to coincide with the release of Assassin's Creed III, UbiWorkshop released a second edition of the encyclopedia. This Edition contained an additional 120 pages of content, covering both Assassin's Creed III and Assassin's Creed: The Chain, as well as revised content based on feedback.

The Third Edition of the Assassin's Creed: Encyclopedia is an updated hardcover edition incorporating information of characters and events from Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and Assassin's Creed: Brahman along with new artwork and concept art. It was released worldwide on November 11, 2013, and includes 390 pages of new content and a revised version of the second edition, which is also available to purchase from UbiWorkshop.

Audio drama

Assassin's Creed Gold is an Audible audio drama by Anthony del Col, released February 27, 2020. The four-hour drama follows a card shark and hustler called Ailyah Khan (Tamara Lawrence), who is enlisted by Gavin Banks (John Chancer) to relive the memories of 17th century Assassin Omar Khaled ( Riz Ahmed). The production also features the voices of Anthony Head, as Isaac Newton, and Danny Wallace, who reprises his series role as Shaun Hastings.

Board games

A board game, Assassin's Creed: Arena, was launched on February 26, 2014. Inspired by Assassin's Creed: Revelations, it features many characters from the game, including Shahkulu, Anacletos, Odai Dunqas and Oksana Razin, as well as original characters.

On September 17, 2018, Triton Noir announced a new board game called Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood of Venice. Set in 1509, between the events of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Revelations, it includes characters from the video games like Ezio Auditore da Firenze, Leonardo da Vinci, and Lucrezia Borgia, as well as new characters like Alessandra. It was developed by Thibaud de la Touanne, and was estimated to provide more than 20 hours of play. The game was set to release in November 2018, but was delayed and eventually released in August 2021. In March 2023 an expansion, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood of Venice - Apocalypse, set in the jungles of the Khmer Empire - modern-day Cambodia - during the 16th century, was announced.

Assassin's Creed Symphony

Assassin's Creed Symphony is a tour across North America and Europe featuring composers who worked on the soundtracks of each game in the series, including Jesper Kyd, Lorne Balfe, Brian Tyler, Austin Wintory, Sarah Schachner, Winifred Phillips, Elitsa Alexandrova, Chris Tilton, Ryan Amon, and The Flight. It was scheduled to begin in the summer of 2019, and expected to feature holographic characters from the series. The 2019-2020 tour was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The concert Assassin's Creed Symphonic Adventure, developed by Overlook Events, was presented in a world premiere in Paris on October 29, 2022, at the Le Grand Rex. The world premiere celebrated the 15th anniversary of the video game series. An international world tour is scheduled to begin in 2023. The concert is a two-hour performance with a full symphonic orchestra, also featuring a choir and soloists.

The Assassin's Creed series has received mainly positive reviews from critics, with Blast Magazine calling it "the standout series on [the seventh generation] of consoles". It has been praised for its ambitious game design, visuals, and narratives but criticized for its technical issues and annual releases of almost every installment; the series' shift, which started in Origins, towards prioritising role-playing mechanics over stealth in several games has been considered polarizing.

As of September 2019, the series had sold over 140 million copies with over 95 million players, becoming Ubisoft's best selling franchise and one of the highest selling video game franchises of all time. By September 2022, total sales of the series had reached 200 million.

Cultural impact

Elements of Assassin's Creed have been introduced as content into other Ubisoft games and those from third parties. The macOS and Microsoft Windows versions of Team Fortress 2 (2007) features two cosmetic items for the Spy class that were added to promote Assassin's Creed: Revelations; the first is the series' signature Hidden Blade, while the second is a hood based on the one Ezio wears in the game. Sackboy, the player character from LittleBigPlanet and LittleBigPlanet 2, can be equipped with a skin resembling Ezio's outfit. In Prince of Persia (2008), Altaïr's costume can be unlocked with a code obtained by pre-ordering the game. In 2010's Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, there is an outfit resembling Ezio's robes in Assassin's Creed II, which is unlockable through Uplay. Final Fantasy XIII-2 (2011) includes a costume based on Ezio's outfit from Assassin's Creed: Revelations as an optional costume option as downloadable content.

In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008), Altaïr's outfit is an unlockable cosmetic option for Solid Snake; it was originally announced as an April Fools joke by game director Hideo Kojima. Kojima later returned the favor by allowing Ubisoft to include a Raiden outfit in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. In Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (2010), the player can jump into a bale of hay from a rooftop, which includes the Eagle sound effect used in the Assassin's Creed games, and use it to attract and subdue enemies. The Assassin Order is referenced by a character. In the 2009 Wii game Academy of Champions: Soccer, Altaïr appears as a playable character along with other Ubisoft characters. In the 2012 game Soulcalibur V, Ezio appears as a playable fighter and is featured on the box art. In July 2022, both Ezio and Eivor were added as playable fighters in Brawlhalla (2017).

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (2013) introduces the character of Olivier Garneau, the CEO of video game company Abstergo Entertainment, who helps Ubisoft to develop the Assassin's Creed video games within the franchise's fictional universe. During the events of the game, Garneau goes to Chicago, the setting of Ubisoft's 2014 video game . In the latter game, Garneau is the subject of a side mission that sees the playable protagonist Aiden Pearce saving him from being kidnapped; it is implied this was done by the Assassin Brotherhood. Additionally, two characters in the game are seen playing Assassin's Creed II. Ubisoft has described those appearances as small Easter eggs, and has neither confirmed nor denied a shared continuity between both franchises. Assassin's Creed Origins (2017) mentions the news about Garneau's incident in Chicago, along with a picture of Aiden Pearce killing Garneau.

In downloadable contents (DLC), Ubisoft collaborated with Square Enix to hold a limited-time Assassin's Creed-themed festival event crossover in Final Fantasy XV (2016) on consoles under the title Assassin's Festival, which lasted from August 31, 2017, to January 31, 2018. The DLC featured gameplay elements from the Assassin's Creed game series, new additional quests, mini-games, and exclusive Assassin's Creed-themed items. In January 2020, Nintendo released a Mii Fighter costume based on Altaïr as downloadable content in the crossover fighting game Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018).

In August 2021, Ubisoft released a free update for their 2020 game Watch Dogs: Legion that featured a non-canonical crossover with the Assassin's Creed series. The update introduced optional story content, which sees DedSec crossing paths with and subsequently helping Darcy Clarkson, a member of the modern-day Assassin Brotherhood and a descendant of Jacob and Evie Frye. Darcy is also included as a playable character and features a unique Assassin-themed playstyle.

References

External links

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Assassin's Creed is an open-world, action-adventure, and stealth game franchise published by Ubisoft and developed mainly by its studio Ubisoft Montreal using the game engine Anvil and its more advanced derivatives.